Chipotle Peppers in Beer

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Thedagem

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Here's a recipe for an IPA that I'm going to brew in the very near future.

23 pounds 12 oz of 2 Row
1 pound 8 oz of Carapils
1 pound 8 oz of Crystal 20L
1 pound Munich 10L

1.75 oz Chinook 30 min
2.5 oz Cascade 30 min
2.5 oz Cascade 15 min
1 oz Willamette 15 min
1.75 oz Willamette 5 min

Dry Hop 4 oz Cascade in secondary

90 minute boil, mash out at 154, and I've got some Rogue Pacman yeast I plan to use.

Beersmith 2 says I'll be at
1.073
67.4 IBUs
6.8 SRM
7.1 ABV

Here's the question I have. This is going to make 10 gallons of beer. I'll put them in 2 different 5 gallon carboys. This beer should be delicious on its own and I plan to enjoy it that way. But I wanted to add some chipotles to the primary of one of these. I like rogue's chipotle ale and figured this would be a fairly tasty recipe to try to add some heat to. My question is how do you make sure they're sterile? Same with the hops, I mean, you boil everything else, that kills off all the nasties. How do you make sure you don't infect your batch with mold by adding these things in your fermenters?

So I want to put 2 maybe 3 chipotles in one primary, I guess I'll cut it up and seed it. Then rack off after a week keep in secondary for 3 weeks and then bottle. 2 weeks after that I hope to be enjoying a delicious beverage. I keep all my carboys at a constant 60 degrees. I hope this was enough info for you guys. If anyone has any suggestions for the chipotle experiment, let me know. I've never dry hopped before, and want to do it right. I'd hate to infect some perfectly good beer.
 
I do mine in the boil but I have also made a "tea" by boiling the peppers in a small amount of water and mascerating them. The tea is a great way to add flavor once the beer in in the fermenter. I'm about to repeat my chipolte amber. It was an absolute hit. Good luck! Cheers!
 
If you are planning on racking into secondary, then why not just add them after you have hit your FG and rack on top of them..... I say you stand a much higher risk of getting an infected batch by tossing peppers into a carboy of unfermented wort. That's just my though.
 
I briefly soaked mine in vodka before "dry-peppering" with them.
 
I'm not sure how well it works in the primary, but I am making a jalapeno blonde right now and will be dry peppering it in the secondary for 3-4 days. I had this beer from a local club and it was great and they do it in the secondary. He told me to first lightly char the pepper over an open flame for a slight smokey flavor and them make 3-4 slits in 1-2 fresh peppers. Toss them into the secondary and taste after 2-4 days either removing the peppers or racking the beer off when the flavor is to your liking. This lets you control the flavor and heat. If you do it in the primary you have less control.
 
I've brewed with chipotles 3 ways: a vodka tincture (miscalculated; came out way too hot), straight peppers in primary (got infected once, way too hot the other time) and ground up as a powder during the boil. The last technique was my favorite as it was easy to control and there was no risk of infection.
 
I do mine in the boil but I have also made a "tea" by boiling the peppers in a small amount of water and mascerating them. The tea is a great way to add flavor once the beer in in the fermenter. I'm about to repeat my chipolte amber. It was an absolute hit. Good luck! Cheers!

My Momma say I go blind if I mascerate. :ban:

I currently have a chili bowl beer fermenting that I Added some chipotle to the boil. Once it finishes, we wil see how hot, and can adjust heat with the tea technique; thanks!
 
I've brewed with chipotles 3 ways: a vodka tincture (miscalculated; came out way too hot)

The tincture method is the best, as you can add small amounts and then taste the beer to see how much flavor has been added. Did you just toss the whole thing in?
 
Well, I'd do it in the main boil, but I don't want 10 gallons of chipotle beer. I'd rather have 5 of one and 5 of the other, in case it doesn't turn out so good. I don't want my beer to have a vodka flavor to it, so I'm leaning away from going that route. I think I'll boil them in a small pot of the wort for like 15 minutes and add it to the main brew pot after I've racked off the first 5 gallons. Seems like a good solution to me.

Now the dry hop problem... are hops sterile? I assume they are. Just asking if I should just dump them in the secondary or if there's some step I may be overlooking. Also, I plan to age this beer for a while and let the flavors really mellow out, do you think dry hopping will overwhelm the pepper flavor? What are some of your experiences with brewing a beer with chilis?
 
I've added different peppers but the process is the same. I froze the peppers to break down the cells then heated them to pasteurization in a small amount of water and tossed the whole thing in secondary. I waited a week to get good flavor before racking off to bottle. I find it works best because you can rack off whenever you are happy and if so desired you could rack off in portions every few days to have bottles of different intensity.
 
I've been interested in doing the same thing since I had Rogue's Chipotle Ale. Let us know how it turns out.
 
You can just toss hops right in the secondary or primary if you don't secondary. Wait until fermentation is complete as the CO2 from fermentation will carry out all the aroma you are trying to get. I dry hop for a week, some people go for 2 weeks. Just a matter of preference.
 
I've added different peppers but the process is the same. I froze the peppers to break down the cells then heated them to pasteurization in a small amount of water and tossed the whole thing in secondary. I waited a week to get good flavor before racking off to bottle. I find it works best because you can rack off whenever you are happy and if so desired you could rack off in portions every few days to have bottles of different intensity.

Hey R.A.M., where do you get quality whole chipotles? The market is weak in my area... (my apologies for hijacking thread)
 
I've been interested in doing the same thing since I had Rogue's Chipotle Ale. Let us know how it turns out.

I absolutely will let you know how it turns out. Thank you all for your help, I think I have a good idea of how to do it now. So look for a reply by me in about a month when I have my results. Thanks again.
 
Hey R.A.M., where do you get quality whole chipotles? The market is weak in my area... (my apologies for hijacking thread)

I live in Pittsburgh, and we have a cultural district in the city with a bunch of different types of food shops. I just went to the mexican market there and I bought mine. Check your area to see if there is a mexican market somewhere. You can also buy them online at a bunch of different online stores like Amazon. Here's a link to them. I'm going to use whole dried peppers.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002T12K24/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Hope that helps, and happy brewing!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hey R.A.M., where do you get quality whole chipotles? The market is weak in my area... (my apologies for hijacking thread)

Kroger. If you go to the Kroger signature stores they have decent chile selections. I think the regular Kroger stores will have them as well. I've never brewed with the ones they sell but I do use them in a homemade salsa and it tastes excellent.
 
OK everyone. So it's update time for the beer I brewed a few weeks ago. I know some of you were looking for an update. This was my first time using a yeast starter. And I'll never go back, it took off right away. And was still fermenting when I transferred into the secondary last Sunday. I let it go two weeks in the primary because I didn't have time to transfer it earlier. The brewing process went well. I forgot to change the room temp and starting grain temp in beersmith 2 though so my mash was 2 degrees less than I was hoping for. To bring up the temp I added a few pitchers of boiling water. So I ended up with a bit more than 10 gallons at the end, thankfully I had a six gallon carboy to use. I ended up using 3 chipotles in one of the primarys. This sunday I plan to dry hop both of the batches with 2 oz of Cascade in each and let it sit for 21 more days. Then I'll bottle it and in 2 weeks I'll let you know how it tastes. I just wanted to give an update for those that were interested. Thanks everyone again for all of your help. I look forward to my next update. Cheers.
 
Now the dry hop problem... are hops sterile?

Definitely yes. Actually, the reason why hops were ever added to beer was for their sterilizing properties so that beer could survive trans-atlantic journeys. (Source: How To Brew, Palmer)
 
This is perfect! I was thinking last night at work that I could make a recipe that had peppers in it for cooking. Make it really flavorful and strong and use it strictly for cooking.
 
Didn't forget about this thread don't worry. The beer turned out great. As you know I made 10 gallons, 5 with peppers and 5 without. They're both really good. One of the best beers I've made. I let it age in the keg for a good long while and it has really let the flavors develop. The chipotle has a nice smokey flavor to it and isn't too spicy at all. My friends like it a bit too much, cause it's almost gone. Time to make a second batch.
 
Thanks for the update - a friend just asked me an hour ago if I thought I could do something like Craggie Burning Barrel. I said, "sure!" even though I had no idea how to impart the chipotle flavor. Now, I see this thread - it's a sign!

So, three chipotles in primary... at the beginning of primary? In primary for two weeks, then you racked to secondary & discarded the peppers, correct?

I'm wondering, if I didn't rack to secondary, if 5 gallons on 3 chipotles would be good for a 3 week primary, or if it would be better to wait a week, crack the bucket lid & toss them in...
 
My Momma say I go blind if I mascerate. :ban:

I currently have a chili bowl beer fermenting that I Added some chipotle to the boil. Once it finishes, we wil see how hot, and can adjust heat with the tea technique; thanks!

Are we brothers??? That's what my momma told me. My g'ma told me it would fall off... argggghhhh


I'm wanting to try adding a bit of pepper infused vodka to my brew.. but, I keep forgetting. My son's girlfriend demos flavored vodkas in AZ. She brought me a couple of them on the last visit.. well, one was pepper flavored. These vodka's are distilled in Bend, OR.
 
Always hoppy to resurrect a thread!

I was going to smoke a homegrown red jalapeno and add it to a test batch, but then I found out how much time it would take to accomplish that and said "meh".

So now I'm thinking about using chipotle powder. I didn't see any mention of doing this, so I was curious, what do y'all think of it? How much would you use?

I'm going to brew 10 gallons of Imperial Stout. 5 gallons will be plain. The other 5 will be divided into 1 gallon fermenters (4 will be aged on various woods including some palo santo I scored from a friend, and the 5th will be chipotle).

I understand this is probably best to do in secondary given all my experiments (cue the evil laughter), so I have a week or two before I need to "dry powder" my beer. Any thoughts will be much appreciated!

Cheers!
 
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