Canned Jalapenos for Pepper Beer?

I am going to experiment with a few different peppers for a spicy beer. I thought I would use serranos, jalapenos, and a habenero.

I have a five gallon batch of a farmhouse ale that will be the base. I usually get around 48 bottles for a five gallon batch so I decided the breakdown would be this:

12 - no addition
12 - jalapeno
12 - serrano
12 - habenero

I'm going to add the pepper to the bottle, after reading an article on BYO. Serrano peppers seem like they will slip into a bottle just fine. I will just cut a slice into the side of the pepper.

The habenero, I will be taking one habenero and cutting it into 12 small pieces and adding one piece to each bottle.

The jalapeno is where I'm having trouble. I can't find small fresh jalapenos that will fit into the bottle in one piece.

Should I cut them and just add a half pepper (no seeds) to each bottle?
Could I buy the pre-canned (jar) jalapenos from the grocery store, drain the juice and add them? I've seen them small enough to fit.

What would be a good way of sterilizing, spray with starsan solution and drop 'em in? Soak in vodka for a day, add the pepper, dump(drink) the vodka?

Sorry I know pepper threads have been done, but I can't get anyone that brewed one before to give me a difinitive way of doing it. I thought I'd try one last time before I just do it..

I'll tell you right now unless you want to destroy your mouth one habanero for a 12 pack of beer will be WAY too much. I used one for a 5 gallon batch along with 2 jalapenos and it's almost too much.

It's not that I'm a wuss either. There's a Thai place I usually get food from that I commonly order their hottest option (thai hot) X2. That means I tell them to double the amount of heat they usually use for their hottest option.

yeah yours was the reason I was going to cut it up into little pieces. I figured one small dime sized slice might be tolerable.. maybe not?

I'm not too familiar with a lot peppers. What is less spicy than habenero but still spicy?

Here's a good site.

http://ushotstuff.com/Heat.Scale.htm

seems i might go with anaheim instead. making my peppers (from weakest to hottest): anaheim, jalapeno, and serrano.

I believe the anaheims are a bigger pepper too. Got the habenero heat problem solved. Still workin on the size and sanitation...

Thanks for your help dfc!

No problem.

I dunno - I had some of this a few years ago, and while the "heat" in the beer was kinda' fun, the vegetal taste from the pepper was NASTY.



Of course, it WAS on the sale rack at the brew store, so maybe it was just too old. If I was going to brew a chili beer, I'd put the peppers in the secondary, not in the bottles.

Anyone else have any experience with that?

(In the future, try growing your own jalapenos - you can pick them at whatever size you want. I have a crapload of them in the garden right now).

I believe that is the stuff that was brewed by BrewPastor, but I'm not positive. Adding to the secondary will be a second trial run on the experiment. I wanted to add to the bottle first because I wanted to leave some unaltered so I can try out the spotted cow clone... two birds with one stone kinda thing.

I used to have jalapenos in my parent's garden, but they didn't do a salsa garden this year.

Anyone wanna weigh in on the jarred jalapenos question? Would anything in those peppers hurt the beer?

BTW that makes me seriously want to get clear bottles just for this... it looks pretty cool with that pepper in there.

MetallHed said:

Would anything in those peppers hurt the beer?

Click to expand...

Hurt the beer? No- but remember the canning process COOKS the pepper. Are you sure you want COOKED pepper in your beer?

It's entirely possible I'm wrong (although that would be a first....) but that doesn't sound appetizing to me at all.

Why not? I seared my peppers before I put them in secondary and they worked just fine.

yeah i've seen brewers roast them and freeze them.

I was just wondering about preservatives.. maybe I'm not explaining it clearly.. like a jar of pickels in pickel juice.. but jalapenos in jalapeno juice..?

I dunno I think I'm just going to give it a go. Why the hell not, it's an experiment anyway.

Woo hoo Homebrew!

i'm thinkin it would help with the sanitation question too.. but I'm not sure that was a big deal in the first place, since i've read to just wash them well and throw them in.

are you talking about pickled jalapenos? I would think canned would be fine if the ingredients list just said "jalapenos" or "jalapenos, water". I probably wouldn't use anything with vinegar added, but that's my opinion.

maybe that is what I'm thinking.. I will have to go to the store and have a closer look at the ingredients...

TwoWheeler said:

Of course, it WAS on the sale rack at the brew store, so maybe it was just too old. If I was going to brew a chili beer, I'd put the peppers in the secondary, not in the bottles.

Anyone else have any experience with that?

Click to expand...

I'm presently drinking a pepper beer made with 3 dried Ancho peppers, slightly less than 1 oz. in a 5 gal. batch. I put them in the secondary after chopping them up. I used a fair proportion of peat smoked malt and the result is a smokey flavor with a mild chile bite to it. The peppers all sank to the bottom during a 3 week secondary, so I didn't get anything transferred over to the bottling bucket.

DISCLAIMER: I have never brewed a beer with this. I have never done business with the people in this link. I have however used this sauce...

When I worked in a bar kitchen, years ago, making chicken wings, we used a sauce called Spontaneous Combustion. It is near pure capsicum extract. If you do not know, that means it is hot, $#^@+! hot!!!! We were NEVER allowed to serve this stuff straight we had to dilute it with standard Tabasco. Side note: anyone that is going to work with this stuff needs to wear latex/vinyl gloves for your own protection.

This stuff is hot and I mean obnoxiously so but that is all it is. It actually has a bitter flavor that is not very good by itself but I imagine it would blend nicely into beer. That being said 3-4 drops will bring a pot of chilli to that "perfect hot" and 5-6 will take you to the edge of "way to hot" any more and you are on your own...

Just so we are all on the same page I love hot/spicy food and can handle a lot of heat.

I bought a Tabasco sized bottle and never used it all so I suggest the .75 oz size.

If it was me wanting a spicy beer. I would add 5-6 drops into the batch of beer. This will give all the heat with just a touch of bitter and no veggie matter flavors and minimize the head destroying oils.

link:
http://www.hollywoodsauce.com/Mini_Spontaneous_Combustion_Hot_Sauce-1910.html

Best of luck!

Zamial said:

DISCLAIMER: I have never brewed a beer with this. I have never done business with the people in this link. I have however used this sauce...

When I worked in a bar kitchen, years ago, making chicken wings, we used a sauce called Spontaneous Combustion. It is near pure capsicum extract. If you do not know, that means it is hot, $#^@+! hot!!!! We were NEVER allowed to serve this stuff straight we had to dilute it with standard Tabasco. Side note: anyone that is going to work with this stuff needs to wear latex/vinyl gloves for your own protection.

This stuff is hot and I mean obnoxiously so but that is all it is. It actually has a bitter flavor that is not very good by itself but I imagine it would blend nicely into beer. That being said 3-4 drops will bring a pot of chilli to that "perfect hot" and 5-6 will take you to the edge of "way to hot" any more and you are on your own...

Just so we are all on the same page I love hot/spicy food and can handle a lot of heat.

I bought a Tabasco sized bottle and never used it all so I suggest the .75 oz size.

If it was me wanting a spicy beer. I would add 5-6 drops into the batch of beer. This will give all the heat with just a touch of bitter and no veggie matter flavors and minimize the head destroying oils.

link:
http://www.hollywoodsauce.com/Mini_Spontaneous_Combustion_Hot_Sauce-1910.html

Best of luck!

Click to expand...

Judging from the description of his problem he is set on adding actual peppers in his beer, perhaps for novelty reasons. He is trying to find jalapeno peppers small enough to fit into the bottle rather than cut them up. Nothing wrong with making suggestions though, maybe he will change his mind.

I doubt you will find jalapeno peppers that small fresh, they are a large chili. Maybe you should select your peppers by size first then heat? There are a lot of small chili peppers out there especially this time of year. Most are quite hot but if you were going to use habanero then that should not be a problem. Unless you want very, very hot one Serrano per bottle would work but even that will be a hot beer I am guessing. Then there are the Thai chilies, they are very small but very hot and come in several colors.

I appreciate all suggestions so thank everyone for the help.

I'm going to have to look around at the local markets to find the right peppers...

MetallHed said:

I appreciate all suggestions so thank everyone for the help.

I'm going to have to look around at the local markets to find the right peppers...

Click to expand...

It is shame you don't live near by, I have a lot of peppers growing right now that would be perfect for you. Green, red, yellow,orange, purple, hot to very hot and several that would fit into a bottle whole.

We add 8oz of sliced jalapenos (fresh or canned/frozen) to the boil for 10 minutes, add 8oz sliced (fresh or canned/frozen) to secondary, add a couple of slices to each bottle, win second place at local fair, drink the rest like it's water. This is with a basic blonde recipe, the last one we added some home smoked malts and it is the one that got the ribbon.

Keep on brewing my friends

jgln said:

He is trying to find jalapeno peppers small enough to fit into the bottle rather than cut them up.

Click to expand...

Ok then. Ever hear of pear brandy? The kind that has an actual whole pear in the bottle? guess how they get the pear inside? After there is a REALLY small fruit forming they tie the bottle to the branch with the baby fruit inside. Then when it is ripe they just pick the bottles, then fill them up. I am not an expert but I bet the same would work for peppers...

Alright I picked up 12 fresh jalapenos and serranos. Washed them and froze them. Will be bottling either Wednesday or Thursday!

:rockin:

people have won comps with this recipe:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/jalapeno-cream-ale-131294/

i just brewed it on sunday.

Update for this beer:

WOW.

3.5 weeks in the bottle, the Serrano version is awesome.

It has more of a vegetable pepper nose and upfront taste to it, combined with a crisp, smooth, taste of a light beer. Low bitterness and plenty of heat on the sides of your tongue and at the back of the throat. This is exactly how I wanted it to be.

At 1 and 2 weeks in the bottle, there was a very distinct "vegetable/peppery" taste and nose to it, but no heat what-so-ever. Almost like I had put a bell pepper into the beer. So it sat from there.

What I did was break it down like this:

Speckled Heifer Partial Mash kit from Northern Brewer as the base beer.

28 bottles are just the base beer, which is a VERY good light beer in itself.

6 bottles contained a whole Serrano pepper, rinsed with starsan.

6 bottles contained a whole Serrano pepper that had soaked in a glass of vodka for 24 hours

6 bottles contained a whole jalapeño pepper, rinsed with starsan

6 bottles contained a whole jalapeño pepper, soaked 24 hours in a glass of vodka



The jalapeño version is chilling right now.. I'll be back with a note on that one.

Jalapeno note:

No heat. Same vegetable/peppery taste as the first two samples from weeks one and two.

Will have to sit on the jalapeno ones for a few weeks longer.

Still tastes good though. Interesting to have a vegetable taste in a beer.

Awesome! we've noticed that on our pepper beers when you open the bottle you can see air bubbles spewing from the pepper, I'm wondering if this is just carbonation or if you let it rest a while before you pour if it gets more heat as it rests.

Have you noticed this? you might try it once, our latest pepper beer is going to be kegged/bottled tomorrow. I believe we have only one bottle left from the last batch.

As I stated before we boil the peppers and add them to secondary, this is mostly due to the kegging so we don't have to dump a bunch of peppers in the keg and wait a long time, etc.

Good experiment, keep us posted!!

Yeah I've noticed that too! I was wondering if that was CO2 coming out of the pepper, kind of like the widget in the Guiness bottles. The acids in the peppers depletes the head pretty quick on this brew though, so it doesn't help like the widget.

I will let it rest a bit before pouring to see what happens. So far this experiment has been success with the Serrano peppers, we'll wait and see about the jalapeños.

I have another Serrano chilling right now. heh heh heh

I have made batches of jalapeno beer in the past and have found that if you roast them and remove the skin you will leave the vegetable flavor behind.... for 5 gallons i used 3 roasted jalapenos with the skin removed and seed removed from 2 of the 3... remember that the heat (capsaisin) comes from the veins and the seed and is more dominant closer to the stem. Oh yeah and throw them in the boil for the final 15... also you can dry hop with them instead of bottling. same method roasted with the seeds and skins removed.

I am brewing a blonde ale that I plan to dry hop with (1/2 batch) Jalapeno and the other 1/2 with Habanero. I planned to just wash the outside of the peppers thoroughly, no vodka and without boiling. Boiling releases the heat of the pepper and I was concerned the vodka could add flavors that I don't want but rinsing the peppers in water could take care of that issue. I am thinking of roasting the peppers now. I love peppers and I def. love beer so I am excited about this one...

I dont know if this will help you at all, but Ive been making (what is in my opinion) a pretty hot and well flavored chili, and in my experience with hot peppers, I add them to the mix, its either close to the end, or very close to the end because Ive found the monre you cook a hot pepper the more "hot" leaves it. If I were you I would add the peppers in the secondary, as it has time ro mature more or in the bottles, but let them age for quite a while as in the "lager" range into the 3 to 4 weeks in the bottles.