Peanut Butter Cup Porter?

Coming off of a decently received Strawberry Wheat, my wife suggested we make a Peanut Butter and Chocolate beer. (I like keeping her involved in the brewing so that she'll be okay with me spending money on it. Also, I get to have a kegerator in the dining room.) So I've been thinking about it and I think I put together a decent enough recipe for a PEanut Butter Cup Porter, but I want some advice.

I am going to use Hershey's cocoa powder at the end of the boil for the chocolate flavor. I am torn on where to get the peanut butter flavor from. I know I can get nuttiness from grains, but I think I want to use some sort of peanut product in the beer. I've seen recipes using low fat peanut butter, natural peanut butter with the oil poured off over the course of 6 weeks, and peanut butter extracts. I've also come across a product called PB2 which is a powdered peanut product made by squeezing the oils out of peanuts. I think I'd be willing to try the PB2 out as it seems I could use it at the same time I add the cocoa. Right?

Another thing to take note of is that even though I have put together an all grain recipe, I've never actually brewed an all grain batch. I am doing my first this weekend (ordinary bitter).

So, here's the recipe as it stands so far. I mostly adapted it from some of Jamil's porters, but took out black malt to avoid the bitter tastes and replaced with more chocolate malt to give it nutty tastes. And it still says peanut butter, but I might change that out for something else later. Any suggestions? Thoughts? Ideas?

9.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 72.00 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 8.00 %
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 8.00 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 8.00 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
1.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 32.3 IBU
0.50 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (15 min) Hops 2.6 IBU
0.50 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
2.00 oz Peanut Butter (Boil 30.0 min) Misc
4.00 oz Peanut Butter (Boil 60.0 min) Misc
8.00 oz Cocoa Powder (Hershey) (Boil 2.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) Yeast-Ale

Lol. Your relationship sound like mine. The only thing that immediately comes to my mind is what peanut oil will do to the head.

Getting her involved was my way to start brewing again after just getting married. She did the strawberry wheat on her own (with my help) which was cool. I don't think she'd going to want to mash grain for an all grain batch, but I like the idea of the peanut butter cup anyway, so I'll go for it.

Here's the site for PB2. Not trying to shill their product, just wondering if anyone thought it would work. I'm reluctant to buy it if it's not going to do anything for me.

I am also worried about peanut oil though. That's why I'd either use natural peanut butter with the oil drained off, or use something different. I'm sure there will be some oil in it no matter what, which is what I'm hoping the dextrine malt will help with. I don't know though.

can't you roast them or something to get rid of most of the oil? perhaps use peanuts instead of peanut butter? i love peanut butter, so i might be willing to try this if we can get the right flavour.

There's a peanut butter beer in the recipes database. I'd follow his advise. Peanut butter oil will destory the head on your beer, so you have to do certain steps to remove it. I'll see if I can find a link to it.

http://homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=30740

looks interesting. wonder how it tasted...

Ahh. Right here. He says to buy the natural peanut butter and let it sit so the oil separates and then pour it off over the course of a few weeks.

There would still be oil in it, i'd think. Right? How much oil is too much? And will it do anything aside from killing the head? Maybe it's not competition worthy, but it could still be fun to drink.

I wonder if a bit of boiling before hand would help remove some of the oils...

i found another site that says to remove the oil in the same fashion:

http://absworkshop.blogspot.com/

i dunno...i'm still thinking use peanuts instead of the butter. no matter what, the heads going to be hurtin...you'll need to make up for it

To add to your recipe, I wouldn't boil whatever peanut product you decide to use, as boiling has a way of killing off and flavors of things you add to beer. Add it at like 2 min with the chocolate.

On the PB2, you could contact them to see about the oil. From the looks of it they would love to come up with a new use for it.

z987k said:

To add to your recipe, I wouldn't boil whatever peanut product you decide to use, as boiling has a way of killing off and flavors of things you add to beer. Add it at like 2 min with the chocolate.

On the PB2, you could contact them to see about the oil. From the looks of it they would love to come up with a new use for it.

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Good point about boil time. Adding at the end is probably a good idea.

On your advice I sent an email to the PB2 folks. I'm hoping they'll be so curious about my idea that they'll offer to send me some for free. We'll see.

How bout just using peanut shells...soak some in some hot water and see what you get. use enough of them any you could flavor your mash.

Bigpete9000 said:

How bout just using peanut shells...soak some in some hot water and see what you get. use enough of them any you could flavor your mash.

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I like the idea of using peanut shells. You'd have to use more of them to get the same flavor strength as you would if you used peanut butter but not having to mess with the oils is attractive.

What if you just physically removed the oils - crush roasted peanuts good, and press em between something, like a towle that doesn't have any taste - I would probably use paper towels, to soak out as much oil as possible and take a chance on the head; at least the flavor would be there to keep the little lady happy.

I think my wife might like that.