Jalapeno Beer

Anybody ever tried to put jalapeno slices in a light ale when bottling? Just curious. I tried a jalapeno beer once, and it was pretty good. Normally, I don't believe in abusing ale like this - just curious.

I haven't tried it & really don't like pepper beers. But, next time you are making a light ale, add a slice to a few bottles & let us know. You could even take six bottles, put one slice in each of three and two slices in the others; then evaluate them at 1, 2 & 3 months.

I put small jalapeno's in each bottle once.

I snipped off the bottom end and sliced it several times down the length.

After 6 months they were too hot to drink.

I never did finish even 1 - 12 oz bottle because of the heat.

I am in the process of planning a 1 gal. test batch of General Tsao's Beer ( ginger and hot pepper). My plan is to dry hop on the equivalent of 1/2 pepper/bottle. If this isnt enough heat I can add a little more ( maybe a small strip) at bottling.

If you just slice up 3-4 peppers and boil them in 4 C water for 10 mins you'll get A LOT of heat.

You can add this tea to the fermenter.

Careful, it is all heat, no pepper flavor, just heat. Don't scratch anything...

I made a Hot Chocolate porter a long, long time ago...three dried Habaneros and 8 oz of unsweetened chocolate added for the full boil.

That gave a nice amount of warmth to the beer...not an obvious pepper flavor, but noticeable heat.

Adding fresh peppers to a lighter beer at bottling, I think you'd want to start with 1 pepper for every 6-8 bottles or so, and test different levels like david suggested.

I've had some commercial jalapeno beers before, not something I'd want to have more than 1 of per night, but they always seemed to be to hot(and I love spicy food) I'd be curious to see how it would be with the heat toned down a bit.

I've never brewed a jalapeno beer before but I added a few sliced up chilis to a bottle of vodka and let it sit for awhile, great for bloody mary's

Ugh, I just can't do it. I've had 2 pepper beers and a pepper mead and all were disgusting... IMHO. But, I guess it's a matter of taste. Just didn't seem like a good blend to me at all. Now some peppery/spicy food with a nice pale ale, ipa, pils... that'll do just fine.

Anyone ever used pickled japalenos or other peppers? They are usually more mild than fresh ones.

I've tried a few commercial beers and I'm not a big fan either but it's just a thought.

You might try leaving out the seeds and veins. That should leave out a lot of the "heat" and provide more pepper flavor. I know that works well in cooking, so I'm assuming it will work the same way for brewing.

Try a pepper with less heat and more flavor.
I don't have any sugestions, I just grab what looks good when I'm making my chilli, which is usually a little of everything..

I had Cave Creek Chili beer a while back from Black Mountain Brewing. Nice spicyness up front and some maltiness on the back end. Not too much spice, you could still taste the beer, which was very tasty.
They use serrano chili's. I believe they were actually using them from a can.

I just polished off my Roasted Chipotle Blonde Ale... I used 6oz. of chipotle peppers, 3 red jalepenos, and 3 green jalepenos. There was quite a bit of heat, with a ton of smokiness! If I do this batch again, I will go with 3oz. chipotles, and 3-4 Jalepenos.

That looks freaking scary!

This year for Cinco de Mayo I brewed a chili beer. I didn't want a lot of heat so I used green chili peppers (anaheim?). I roasted them on my grill for a while until the skins were burnt and then sliced them and pulled out the seeds and veins. Then I threw it all in my fermenter along with a basic amber ale that I had brewed. It turned out with a nice smoky peppery flavor, but with no heat. Next time I want to add a few jalapenos for just a subtle background of heat.

davidr2340 said:

I just polished off my Roasted Chipotle Blonde Ale... I used 6oz. of chipotle peppers, 3 red jalepenos, and 3 green jalepenos. There was quite a bit of heat, with a ton of smokiness! If I do this batch again, I will go with 3oz. chipotles, and 3-4 Jalepenos.

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I'll bet that carboy was fun to clean out....

davidr2340 said:

I just polished off my Roasted Chipotle Blonde Ale... I used 6oz. of chipotle peppers, 3 red jalepenos, and 3 green jalepenos. There was quite a bit of heat, with a ton of smokiness! If I do this batch again, I will go with 3oz. chipotles, and 3-4 Jalepenos.

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GAWD that looks tasty!

got any left???

drouillp said:

GAWD that looks tasty!

got any left???

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Just finished off last week bro...

BM,
It wasn't all that bad cleaning it out! Much easier than cleaning out after the DFH 90 with a 2oz. whole leaf dry hop. Of course I used a hop bag for the first... AND LAST time!!!

Brewpastor gave us extensive knowledge on this in Denver--I'm ready to brew another Jalapeno beer. Hopefully he'll chime in here but he said at RG they used roasted peppers and mashed them up, charred skins and all into the secondary. None in the boil or the primary, which I found interesting. I think you would definitely get more heat in the beer by adding a pepper at bottling, but the one I did a while back was mostly just pepper flavor, which was really nice.

Time for another Mexican Blackbird!

One of the times I was at the Stone Brewery, they had a version of their Smoked Porter that had Chipotle peppers in it. It wasn't spicy, but it did have just a little warmth to it and the flavor worked well with the smokiness already in the porter. If I was to try a pepper beer, I think chipotles would be the way to go.

Just two weekends ago I tried Rouge's Chipotle Porter (?). Think it was a Porter but can't remember now. One of the most interesting beers I've ever had, but 22oz was possibly a little much.

I'm going to bring back this dead thread. Is there any updated way to get some heat and slight flavour from Jalapeno's in beer? I've been looking around and have found some, but I'm more looking for during the secondary stage around the same time as dry hopping.

I made my beer yesterday and decided to add just 1 pepper (seeds included) for the last 10 mins of the boil. I plan to test the flavour and spice profile when I transfer to the secondary and at that point decide if I'm going to add some then. I've heard about soaking in vodka and some have added the vodka to the beer, others have added the peppers for 4 days give or take. Whats the best method? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I use the vodka method at bottling time with Habaneros. My advise is, if you want to keep it subtle, use no more than 1 pepper for 5 gallons of beer. Any more than that and it'll be totally in your face.

For my jalapeno porter which I've brewed at least 4 or 5 times now, the peppers are added ON BOTTLING DAY. In the morning on bottling day, I buy 8 or 9 fresh ripe peppers per 5-gallon batch, chop them all up -- seeds and all -- and boil the chopped peppers in a little of the finished beer, then let that soak and cool for about 5 hours to room temperature, then add just the flavored liquid to the beer, leaving the seeds and solids behind. This adds all the flavor, aroma, and heat that you want. And if you're not sure how many peppers to use, just use that many or more, but only add a little of the flavored liquid at a time, blend well, taste, and if it needs more, add the rest or whatever.

The heat does vary a lot between each crop of jalapenos, but based on my experience, a rough guideline is to use about 8 or 9 jalapenos for a moderately mild heat, and 11 or 12 for a more intense heat. A friend of mine who brewed his own used fewer like just 5 jalapenos in 5 gallons, and you could taste the peppers, but the heat was extremely mild to where anyone could drink it all day no problem.

Awesome thanks dmtaylor! I'll give that a try. I definitely want a bit of heat, so I'll make sure to by about 10 peppers, then follow your instructions. Looking forward to this experiment!

stewsbrew902 said:

Awesome thanks dmtaylor! I'll give that a try. I definitely want a bit of heat, so I'll make sure to by about 10 peppers, then follow your instructions. Looking forward to this experiment!

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I can pretty much guarantee you will love it. Cheers.

If you want chile flavor, without overwhelming heat, you can use a type of chiles that aren't as spicy as jalapenos or you can de-seed and de-vein the chiles before using them.

I brew a hatch green chile beer every year come chile harvesting season. Hatch chiles are far less spicy than jalapenos (unless you specifically go for the extra hot varietals) so no need to de-seed/de-vein. I use a bushel of peppers for what will be ~10 gallons of finished beer. The day I brew, the chiles go in a drum roaster until the skins are well charred, then I mash them up a little bit and put them in a bucket with some potassium metabisulfite, let that sit there for a couple days. Once fermentation is really active, I dump the chiles into a brew bag, put the brew bag into the conical, and there it sits until kegging. It is essentially a dry-hopping process using chiles. I use a large amount of chiles, >2lb per gallon, and get an intense chile flavor without an overwhelming amount of heat.

Aaron Beers said:

If you want chile flavor, without overwhelming heat, you can use a type of chiles that aren't as spicy as jalapenos or you can de-seed and de-vein the chiles before using them.

I brew a hatch green chile beer every year come chile harvesting season. Hatch chiles are far less spicy than jalapenos (unless you specifically go for the extra hot varietals) so no need to de-seed/de-vein. I use a bushel of peppers for what will be ~10 gallons of finished beer. The day I brew, the chiles go in a drum roaster until the skins are well charred, then I mash them up a little bit and put them in a bucket with some potassium metabisulfite, let that sit there for a couple days. Once fermentation is really active, I dump the chiles into a brew bag, put the brew bag into the conical, and there it sits until kegging. It is essentially a dry-hopping process using chiles. I use a large amount of chiles, >2lb per gallon, and get an intense chile flavor without an overwhelming amount of heat.

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Aaron what style of beer do you steep your hatch green chili's in?

Dimax said:

Aaron what style of beer do you steep your hatch green chili's in?

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When I said I "mash them up", I mean I physically break down the whole chiles into smaller pieces with a potato masher. As for the base beer that I brew before adding the chiles as a "dry-hop", it's generally a basic golden ale or lager with a lower hop bill than usual as I find too much bitter to clash with the chile flavor.

Aaron Beers said:

When I said I "mash them up", I mean I physically break down the whole chiles into smaller pieces with a potato masher. As for the base beer that I brew before adding the chiles as a "dry-hop", it's generally a basic golden ale or lager with a lower hop bill than usual as I find too much bitter to clash with the chile flavor.

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TY I have used a Kolsch and chopped up about 12 frozen roasted hatch green chiles that have been thawed and then tossed in the secondary.

Cunningham brewery in Cunningham, PA makes this beer. Some love it , some hate it. I myself do not its a daily drinker kind of beer.

I bottled a batch of chocolate chili stout from a brewers best kit. I don’t remember what pepper it was, but not jalapeño. Very inconsistent with the heat. Good flavor though.