Pistachio Flavoring

Lately my friend and I have been considering how pistachios might be used in a beer recipe. We have considered using a pistachio extract of even the raw pistachios themselves.

Does anyone have any experience using these or any other kind of nut to flavor their brews? Can you offer any tips on the best way to add them?

Lol, I just responded to your welcome thread. I was hoping you knew what you were doing.

I would roast them (out of the shell) and throw them in for the last 10 minutes of your boil. I would use a whole lot of them too, to get much flavor. But I have not tried adding nuts yet. I think that will be my next project.

That sounds like a good way to add them. How much would you say is a lot? I only ask because pistachios can be pretty expensive and I may need to cut down the batch size if it gets to be too costly.

Also, after adding them to the boil, should I leave them in for the primary fermentation or is that an unnecessary step? Thanks for the advice!

I tried this a year or so ago with a brown ale, i attempted to roast them but decided that the smell and then after tasting a few of them was not really the flavor i wanted to come through in my beer. i was going to get some extract but had a hard time locating pure extract of pistachio. I went with i think around 1.5 lbs of crushed pistachos in the last 10 minutes of boil.

i did not really get what i was going for but the beer turned out fine maybe a faint hint of pistachio i forget. i think next time i would go with extract at bottling witch i did find on the internet somewhere.