Peppercorns

Anyone brew with ground peppercorns? Specifically I'm talking about the Peppercorn Rye-Bock in Sam Calagione's Extreme Brewing.

I'm thinking of adapting that recipe into either a Belgian Strong Ale or a Barley Wine instead of the Rye-Bock in the recipe.

I'm wondering if 2tsp (4g) of ground peppercorn comes across subtile or strong.

This makes me happy that you ask! One of the best beers I have ever made was a black pepper IPA, it turned out great. I will refer you to the post where I asked the same question, I got a lot of good responses. I ended up adding 1/3 oz. but wished I had added 1/2 oz. Crush it up with a mortar and pestle, or the back of a spoon and add it for the last 10 min or so (at the max 10 min). The pepper works very well on beers with fruity undertones like belgians or very floral profiles like IPA. I would love to hear how it turns out.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/how-much-black-pepper-76117/

I guess my 4g works out to about 0.15oz. So it sounds like it won't be overpowering at all.

My recipe calls for addition at flameout. But I can easily move it to the last 10 minutes with all the other stuff I'll be adding then too.

I'm wondering if the recipe calls for that much less because it is using ground peppercorn instead of crushed and therefore more likely to be rackable en mass. Crushed is a lot easier and the difference between .15, .33 or, .5 oz isn't going to break me at the grocery store.

I think I'll bump it up to 0.33oz, crush it, and see what happens.

Thanks.

I would recommend what you just mentioned, the .33 oz crushed. Ground peppercorns that you buy from the store are in no way fresh and there is a big difference between that and doing it yourself. 0.33 oz. was just the point that people could taste something different in the beer, but I had to tell them what it was before they could put their finger on it.

I ended up putting in 0.25oz green and 0.25 black.

When I pulled my sample for tasting and gravity measurement, I didn't really taste it. But it could have easily been overpowered by other ingredients at that stage.

Oh i should have mentioned. A neat thing about the pepper is that the oils that give you the pepper flavor are a sort of gradual build thing. What you may not taste in the first sip will be apparent by half way though. I think its a good thing that you didnt really taste it at that point or it could have been too strong.