Anyone with chili experience?

Hey guys, first post here but I have a couple home brews under my belt. I was eating dinner, (PF Changs orange peel beef) and I thought that maybe the same combination of chili and orange peel would be good in a porter. I was thinking about starting with a basic porter recipe and then adding chili into the primary and orange zest into the secondary. I'm not quite sure how much chili or zest to use since I've never brewed with them before.
This is what I was thinking

4.8lbs Amber DME
(steeped grain)
(1.5lbs crystal malt)
(.25lbs chocolate malt)
(.25lbs patent malt)
1.5oz fuggles @60
1.0oz golding @15
chili pepers cut and seeded @15

Primary
Chili pepers cut and seeded for 7 days

Secondary, zest of two oranges for 7 days

Not too sure if this is worth trying, input?

Deschutes (Black Butte XXII) had a chile/orange/chocolate imperial porter on when I was out in Portland over the summer, subtle but tasty.

I don’t have a lot of experience with chile beers, I’m not a big hot-head, but I had good luck with dried ancho and guajillo peppers which are low on the Scoville scale. Using lower heat peppers allows you to add more flavor without bringing too much heat. The darker flavors of the dried peppers also goes better with a dark beer, in my opinion, than the grassy flavor of fresh green peppers. Adding to the fermenter is a good idea if you want some heat because capzasin in alcohol soluble.

For the orange 2 will be on the low end, it should give you a hint of orange aromatics, you might add some late in the boil and more in secondary if you really want to taste it.

Otherwise your recipe looks fine, although for my tastes I think you have too much crystal. Amber malt usually already has some crystal and I’d worry that the beer would be too sweet.

Good luck.

Here's one of the versions of my chocolate mole porter, this one netted me an honorable mention in a comp...The next version took a bronze, doubling the chocolate and chili. The latest version which hasn't been entered I just used various dried chillis in the boil.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/cayenne-chocolate-stout-yikes-134722/#post1518994

There's actually a lot of threads on this subject. Including a few in the similar threads box below.

Oldsock said:

Deschutes (Black Butte XXII) had a chile/orange/chocolate imperial porter on when I was out in Portland over the summer, subtle but tasty.

I don’t have a lot of experience with chile beers, I’m not a big hot-head, but I had good luck with dried ancho and guajillo peppers which are low on the Scoville scale. Using lower heat peppers allows you to add more flavor without bringing too much heat. The darker flavors of the dried peppers also goes better with a dark beer, in my opinion, than the grassy flavor of fresh green peppers. Adding to the fermenter is a good idea if you want some heat because capzasin in alcohol soluble.

For the orange 2 will be on the low end, it should give you a hint of orange aromatics, you might add some late in the boil and more in secondary if you really want to taste it.

Otherwise your recipe looks fine, although for my tastes I think you have too much crystal. Amber malt usually already has some crystal and I’d worry that the beer would be too sweet.

Good luck.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I might pull back with the crystal and add either more chocolate or patent, I gotta think about it a little more after tomorrow once I'm done with finals. I'm not really looking for "heat" from the chili per-say, but more the back of the throat bite that you get from ginger beer, but instead of the ginger for sweetness in that case, I'll have the orange which should complement the darker, roast-ier, flavors. I don't want the orange to be too overpowering, just enough to know its there. I'll do some searching for the exact amounts of orange, I'll probably use 2? in the boil and maybe 3-4? in the secondary.

I did half of two different peppers in secondary for ~2 weeks, so about 1 per gallon seems like a good general area (I look the seeds out to reduce the heat). A friend of mine did a great mango chipotle ale as well with a similar amount, more heat from those than the ones I used though. You should taste and adjust your plan after seeing how much you get from the first dose of peppers.

What kind of chilis are you going to use? That will determine how much to use.

bovineblitz said:

What kind of chilis are you going to use? That will determine how much to use.

Click to expand...

I'd like to use habanero, but it really depends on what I can find. If I use habanero's I would guess I'd use 1/2 to 1 whole since they are pretty high on the scoville. I guess my question now is whether or not to add during the boil and the primary or just the boil or just the primary (I really want the orange to come through in the secondary so I'm not sure throwing a pepper in there would be the best idea) I am planning to seed them, or do my best to get them all out as I'm not really looking for that "tongue heat" but more so the "bite" as you swallow the sip.

In my pepper experiences, I've added them to secondary. 1 habanero will give you a fairly strong heat but it won't be too much. I'd suggest adding ancho in addition to habanero too if you're going for general earthy pepper flavor PLUS heat, just habanero if you only want the heat out of it.

The heat you get from habanero is more in the back of the throat than a tongue heat, it hits when swallowing.

So I brewed a batch of this stuff.

6lb Amber DME
1lb Medium Crystal
.75lb chocolate
.25lb patent
1.3oz fuggle
1.0oz EKG
1 habanero (seeds in) at 15 mins and transferred to primary.
London ale yeast.
Target OG 1.067

I got a gravity reading of 1.068 @ 68 degrees so I'm pretty happy. The so far the one habanero gives me the bite i was hoping for so I'm also pretty happy. Hopefully fermentation goes good.