Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Big Brother Peanut Butter Brown

7 lbs Amber LME
1 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine
1 lb Crystal 80
1/4 lb Aromatic
1/4 lb Chocolate Malt
1/4 lb Special B
1 oz East Kent Goldings (20 mins)
1/2 oz Willamette (20 mins)
1 lb Natural Peanut Butter

You'll need to but the peanut butter a couple months in advance in order to drain off as much oil as possible before brewing. It helps to keep it in a warm place and pour off the oil that settles on top every few days. The first time I brewed this, I added the peanut butter after the steeping grains were removed, but now I think it might be better to put the peanut butter in first, in order to scoop off floating oils before getting to the brew proper. This could run the risk of boiling off aroma, but with a pound of peanut butter, it's probably be fine. I'll probably update this the next time I try with a slightly different technique.

You never checked back in. How did this turn out?

Torchy h'aint been round these parts much, actually...

Well that's just no fun.

I took some time off over the last summer, moved into a new house, but I'm trying to get back on track. I did three batches in November, and I'm about to brew up some beers for my upcoming wedding in June, so hopefully I'll be around more. Got kegging equipment for Christmas, and we just picked up a second fridge, so I've got some big motivators now.

As for the beer: It was extremely tasty the first few months. However, after about six months or so, the peanut butter flavor faded to nothing. I'd recommend drinking this one sooner rather than later. I've got another jar of peanut butter ready to go, so this is on my list of soon-to-be-brewed. I don't think anything in the recipe needs to be changed much, if at all. I've been draining the peanut butter longer this time, so I don't think the oil will be as much of a problem.

Well, I finally brewed this again, and letting the peanut butter sit and settle for more than a year (!) really helped a lot. There was almost no oil in it at all when I added it to the brew. Here's the updated recipe I used this time:

7.00 lb Amber Liquid Extract (12.5 SRM)
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)
1.00 oz Willamette [5.10%] (60 min) 10.3 IBU
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.20%] (30 min) 6.5 IBU
0.50 oz Burton Water Salts
16.00 oz Dried Peanut Butter (Boil 30.0 min)
1 Pkgs London Ale (White Labs #WLP013)

Estimated OG: 1.053 SG
Estimated FG: 1.015 SG
Estimated Color: 25.2 SRM
Bitterness: 16.9 IBU
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 4.97%

Now, the bitterness includes adding three gallons of top off water at the end, so if you're doing a full boil, the IBUs will be a lot higher. I was doing full boils for a while, but since I brew at home now, cooling is a hassle, and it's easier to cool down two gallons partway and then just add cold water. Also, technically, I had less than 16oz of peanut butter after draining so much oil, but, whatever.

Took a stab at this tonight. With subtle improvisation, of course!

Was surprised at the amount of PB that survived the boil, just floating crud on the top of the wort. I'm guessing what we scooped off was nearly the whole jar. Hopefully all the peanutty goodness was boiled out!

HawaiianHippie said:

Took a stab at this tonight. With subtle improvisation, of course!

Was surprised at the amount of PB that survived the boil, just floating crud on the top of the wort. I'm guessing what we scooped off was nearly the whole jar. Hopefully all the peanutty goodness was boiled out!

Click to expand...

Have you been able to taste this yet?

I love PB and want to try this.

TIA!

Not yet. I expect to bottle it this weekend. I'll sneak a taste of the flat beer then, but it'll be a few weeks before I know for sure!

Ok, it's now resting comfortably in 46 bottles. Tasting in 2 weeks!

There was a layer of floating unpleasantness in the primary, but I opted not to rack to a secondary. I was just cautions racking into the priming bucket, and stopped when the absorption of that layer was imminent.

The fermentation was quiet. Didn't need the BOT at all.

The dregs smelled, and tasted, peanutty! I'm pretty optimistic.

HawaiianHippie said:

Ok, it's now resting comfortably in 46 bottles. Tasting in 2 weeks!

There was a layer of floating unpleasantness in the primary, but I opted not to rack to a secondary. I was just cautions racking into the priming bucket, and stopped when the absorption of that layer was imminent.

The fermentation was quiet. Didn't need the BOT at all.

The dregs smelled, and tasted, peanutty! I'm pretty optimistic.

Click to expand...

Yummy, I can't wait to hear how it turns out. Thanks!

Ok, in full disclosure, I can't follow a recipe exactly. I started with the recipe as posted 11/04/2008. But I wanted to clear out some leftovers in the fridge, so I used 1 oz Liberty hops for the 1st addition, and 1 oz Tetnang for the 2nd. And we didn't use the Burton water salts. Oh, and my LHBS doesn't carry amber extract, so we used 5 lbs of light and 2 lbs of dark.

We started with Adams natural unsalted creamy PB. Poured off the oil about a week before brew day. Transferred the PB all into a coffee filter-lined colander, which we placed in a large bowl. Covered the top with a triple-layer of paper towels, put a small saucer on it, and added a can of green beans for weight. Over the next few days, we'd change the paper towels daily. Surprisingly, the peanut butter never stuck to the towels or the filters. After a week in our jury-rigged press, what was left was a dry, crumbly cake of peanut solids. Only a thin layer in the center was even remotely damp with oil. So you can trim 51 weeks off the prep time this way!

As I mentioned before, after boiling the wort, it seemed like all of the peanut butter ended up floating on the top. We skimmed it off and discarded it before chilling.

Fermentation was quiet, never needed the blow-off tube. We left it in the primary 19 days before bottling. There was a thin layer of unusual material on the surface, but I just interrupted the process of racking into the priming bucket a few moments sooner than I normally would have to avoid it.

It was 14 days today. I put 2 bottles in the fridge before I left for work this morning. And tonight, we tasted it!

Both bottles were properly carbonated and hissed satisfying when opened. There was little head when poured, but I've never cared whether there was head or not. It smelled like a good brown, rich and mellow.

And that's exactly how it tasted, like a good brown, rich and mellow. Altogether pleasant and enjoyable to drink. And not the least bit peanutty.

I mean, had someone just handed me this beer, and never said what it was, I don't think the word "peanut" would ever have crossed my mind. Going into it knowing that it was supposed to taste like peanut butter, or at least peanuts, I could convince myself that there was the faintest hint of peanut in the tail end of the aftertaste. Honestly, though, that was just my mind.

Don't get me wrong, this is a good beer. I plan to make it again and try various things to actually get some peanut butter flavor to poke through. Don't know what those things are yet... more peanut butter? Added earlier in the boil? Or later? Maybe add the oil in deliberately? I dunno.

I do know that when I serve this beer to guests, I'll just introduce it as "Big Brother Brown." Don't want to raise expectations!

Just happened to log in, and saw that people were trying this recipe. I did it a second time last winter, and it didn't come out as peanuty as the first time. I'm not sure if I ended up leaving more oil in, unintentionally, the first time, which enhanced the taste, or I may have transferred more actual peanut butter into the primary fermentation than I did the second time.

It's been a while, but in my notes, I don't see anything in particular that mentions any differences in the boil. It might be worth it to try boiling the peanut butter for the full hour, or maybe add half at 60mins and the other half at 30mins, to see if that makes a difference. Another possibility would be to add it to a secondary(?), although you'd have to be careful about contamination in that case.

I want to add something to this that might make the entire peanut butter process simple and easy. I recently tried powdered peanut butter (PB2) which comes with the oil removed. Only down fall is this stuff is expensive, but I was thinking about trying a beer with it. This being the only real peanut butter stuff, I might take a stab at it.

Any pointers I should try with this recipe? Also would you consider

Side note, I was considering making a mead with it too, but seeing as it seems to age out, I'll try the beer first.

I've done some occasional searching for peanut butter powder online, but haven't had much luck finding a place to order it. Where did you see it?

Saw it here:
http://store.bellplantation.com/PB2-Powdered-Peanut-Butter-s/3.htm

Anyway, I tried using it here was my process:
used a pale ale kit and fermented it normally. Added a whole can of the peanut butter powder with priming sugar (Note: the is sugar in the peanut butter so make sure to account for it) and bottled the whole thing. In the end I damn near made bottle bombs. The beer tasted good, and definitely like peanut butter. The peanut butter at the same time would settle at the bottom and I had to mix it (in bottle) before drinking.

I think I may have just found the secret ingredient to my portion of a group brew day. We are starting with a giant batch of brown ale, and splitting the wort pre-boil between 15 or so brewers. We then do our own thing to them, and bring them back much later to a club meeting to taste them all together. I only hope I have enough time to get the oil out... Will 3 weeks do the trick? Also, is it safe to assume I can leave the lid on the jar of peanut butter? I'm having a little trouble wrapping my head around this one, but I love the idea!

Three weeks will probably be long enough to get it mostly de-oiled. Something else to try is to skim the oil off during the boil, because it wants to float on the water. Just ease the heat back a moment to limit the rolling boil, and definitely try to remove it before you add the hops. Even with all that, and with all the Cara-Pils to boost the head, it still tended to dissipate really quickly. Still tasted good though!

They sell powdered peanut butter at my LHBS. The consistency is like powdered sugar. Just add it to the boil at 5min left. I haven't done anything with it. Just a tip!

I bought some powder peanut butter and plan to try brewing this again with it, hopefully early 2014.

Have you tried the recipe again? You said you might try it early 2014. My wife found some powdered PB so hope to try it soon.

may have to try this one

Has anyone used powered peanut butter (PB2) with this recipe yet? I'm wanting to try this this weekend but don't have time to take the oil out of natural peanut butter.

I have not done myself, but I know two people who have used pb2 with good results. Both used vodka to reconstitute the pb2 and left in there for 3 days. We all think the vodka helped bring out the flavor in their peanut butter cup stout that turned out fantastic. One is making a raspberry lambic right now to layer under it for a peanut butter and jelly beer!

Search the fourm for chocolate covered Beavr Nutz, quite a similar and popular recipe. No need to use anything to reconstitute the pb2, just dump it in. I've made the Beavr Nutz and a PB&J ale with great results this way.