PB2 Peanut Butter Powder Utilization

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Mischief_Brewing

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Sorry for the new thread about this, but the original thread discussion its use" https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/peanut-butter-porter-w-powdered-peanut-butter-61538/ is long and I want to try and focus on finding out how to best utilize this stuff.

So the product is PB2 from the Bell Plantation

The ingredients are:
PB2: Powdered Peanut Butter
Ingredients: Roasted peanuts, sugar and salt.
Serving size: 2 Tablespoons (12 grams)
Servings per container: 15
Amount per 2 Tablespoon serving (when mixed with water):
Calories: 45
Calories from fat: 13

Value and % Daily Value*

Total fat 1.5 g 3%
Saturated fat 0 g 0%
Trans fat < 0.01 g
Cholesterol < 0.01 mg 0%
Sodium 94 mg 4%
Total carbohydrate 5 g 2%
Dietary fiber 2 g 8%
Sugars 1 g
Protein 5 g
Vitamin A < 1%
Vitamin C 0%
Calcium <1%
Iron 0%

From what people have said in the other thread, they have used large quantities and had very little flavor in the end.

My primary question is how could we best utilize this product to gain the maximum amount of peanutbutter flavor in the end product?

Does anybody know when the best time to put this ingredient into the brewing process? Will it always settle out and leave very little in suspension or is it a matter of boiling it longer? Are peanuts soluble in alcohol or water at all?

What would be the maximum amount I could use based upon the salt content and not kill my yeast and/or the beer?

Any information you guys/gals have that would help me determine the best way to make my peanutbuttercup stout is greatly appreciated!
 
Most flavors and aromas are alcohol soluble. So the best way to utilize may be to infuse neutral grain spirits. That raises the question who is better at dissolving peanut butter flavor in neutral grain spirits, you and me or a flavor extract company? You may get better results with a high quality extract.
 
I'm wondering if I should just assault this brew with any and all forms of this powder that I can. Put it in at every hop addition, and in primary and secondary. I'll also soak several ounces in vodka for a month and dump that into secondary.

Although the problem with this method is that if it works, I won't know which method caused it to...
 
I'm wondering if I should just assault this brew with any and all forms of this powder that I can. Put it in at every hop addition, and in primary and secondary. I'll also soak several ounces in vodka for a month and dump that into secondary.

Although the problem with this method is that if it works, I won't know which method caused it to...

Yeah, you want to isolate variables - best bet might be to split batch it. Indications from the earlier threads are that late boil additions don't do much so I'd guess the best bet is to scrap that addition altogether, bump up the volume and include it for the full 60 minute boil. Then do some kind of split batch experimentation after primary fermentation. If you've got the fermenter space go one third as is, one third straight secondary addition and one third extract addition.

Hopefully at least one of the three will be in the ballpark of what you're looking for and will tell you where to go as far as experimenting with future batches.
 
Yeah, you want to isolate variables - best bet might be to split batch it. Indications from the earlier threads are that late boil additions don't do much so I'd guess the best bet is to scrap that addition altogether, bump up the volume and include it for the full 60 minute boil. Then do some kind of split batch experimentation after primary fermentation. If you've got the fermenter space go one third as is, one third straight secondary addition and one third extract addition.

Hopefully at least one of the three will be in the ballpark of what you're looking for and will tell you where to go as far as experimenting with future batches.

I've only got the capacity to do a 6 gallon batch and divide it into two 3-gallon secondaries.

So once I get the ingredients and time (mid June probably), I'll brew a 6-gallon batch adding 4 oz at start of boil. I'll make a jar containing 4 oz and enough vodka to cover the powder at the same time and hold it for secondary.

After a month in primary, I'll rack to 2 different 3-gallon carboys. One with the peanutbutter vodka and one empty. After a 6-month rest, I'll sample both. I'll likely blend them both back together and keg 5 gallons and bottle 1.
 
I've only got the capacity to do a 6 gallon batch and divide it into two 3-gallon secondaries.

So once I get the ingredients and time (mid June probably), I'll brew a 6-gallon batch adding 4 oz at start of boil. I'll make a jar containing 4 oz and enough vodka to cover the powder at the same time and hold it for secondary.

After a month in primary, I'll rack to 2 different 3-gallon carboys. One with the peanutbutter vodka and one empty. After a 6-month rest, I'll sample both. I'll likely blend them both back together and keg 5 gallons and bottle 1.

Sounds like a great start. Please let me know how this turns out when you get around to it - I'm intrigued.
 
i would do a batch (even if its a 1 or 2 gallon) of a light beer such as a blonde ale and add the same proportion of the powder.

that way you can see if its the dark roasty flavors covering the peanutbutter up

or if its powder not delivering on the flavor
 
My primary question is how could we best utilize this product to gain the maximum amount of peanutbutter flavor in the end product?

Not to be a dick, but use it on a sandwich, and keep it out of your beer. Paenut butter beer just sounds wrong.;)
 
i've used regular peanut butter in a few of my earlier brews. about a cup into a two gallon batch. the flavor comes through great, but the head retention is around -100%. There's a thread around here somewhere about drying out the peanut butter to get rid of all the oils.
For the naysayers, drink a good beer and eat a spoonful of peanut butter at the same time=delicious
 
I hope this thread continues, as a chocolate peanut butter porter or stout would be awesome! Just a noooob thought: Why not use the shells from roasted peanuts? If you have ever eaten one, they do have the peanut flavor without the problems with oils and head retention. Just a thought ....
 
I'm finally going to brew this next weekend. My goal is to make a chocolate stout akin to Southern Tier's Choklat and add the PB Powder to it at 60 minutes and then some vodka soaked powder to secondary after 2 weeks. Going to use the yeast cake from the pale that's fermenting now (WLP002) and shoot for 1.11 or so.

Here's the recipe as it is in my head (likely to change as I go buy the grains):

Peanut Butter Cup Stout
Batch size 5 gallons
Boil size 6.1 gallons
Boil time 60 minutes
Grain weight 22 pounds
Efficiency 70%

Original gravity 1.109
Final gravity 1.037
Alcohol (by volume) 9.5%
Bitterness (IBU) 54
Color (SRM) 77.6°L
Yeast White Labs WLP002 English Ale

Grains/Extracts/Sugars
13 pounds - 2 Row Base 37ppg, 1.5°L
4 pounds - Maris Otter 38ppg, 4°L
1.5 pounds - Barley (Roasted) 28ppg, 500°L
1 pound - Chocolate 29ppg, 350°L
1 pound - Special B 30ppg, 140°L
0.5 pounds - Crystal 120L 33ppg, 120°L
0.5 pounds - Barley (Flaked) 32ppg, 2°L
0.5 pounds - Black Patent 27ppg, 500°L

Mash
60 minutes,
Strike Target 154°F
Sparge Target 170°F

Boil
60 minutes, 6.1 gallons
Warrior hops 16%, Pellet 1.5 ounces 60 minutes
PB Powder 8 ounces 60 minutes
Cocoa powder 8 ounces 60 minutes
Mount Hood hops 5%, Pellet 0.5 ounces 30 minutes
Mount Hood hops 5%, Pellet 0.5 ounces 5 minutes (+55)

Ferment
14 days @ 65-68°F
Peanut butter powder soaked in vodka 8 ounces 14 days
Cocoa powder soaked in vodka 8 ounces 14 days
 
It's still sitting in primary in my basement. Too hot in my garage for me to want to spend an hour cleaning and sanitizing the secondary and siphoning tubes. I'll try to get it done this week and will put up some tasting notes from the gravity sample. I've had 8oz of PB Powder soaking in vodka since brewday that will go into secondary.

I decided against breaking this up into smaller test batches. I'll just brew it again with changes if I don't get the results I'm looking for.
 
Our club got together and brewed a 5 gallon batch of Chocolate Covered Peanuts Stout for a homebrew festival this past year and it tasted great, especially as an ice cream float! We brewed up a nice Chocolate Stout and then added two jars of the peanut butter powder to secondary since I had done some research and read that one jar only added a slight peanut flavor. We just dumped the powder straight from the jar. One word of caution is to remember that the powder contains some sugars so there will be a secondary fermentation.
 
Our club got together and brewed a 5 gallon batch of Chocolate Covered Peanuts Stout for a homebrew festival this past year and it tasted great, especially as an ice cream float! We brewed up a nice Chocolate Stout and then added two jars of the peanut butter powder to secondary since I had done some research and read that one jar only added a slight peanut flavor. We just dumped the powder straight from the jar. One word of caution is to remember that the powder contains some sugars so there will be a secondary fermentation.

it would be great if you could point me to the recipe for this. I am a peanut butter addict...
 
Finally found the time and energy to rack this to secondary.

First taste was very green, but delicious nonetheless. Pretty complex flavors coming through already, but it's overwhelmingly chocolate right now. Other than a hint in the nose, you couldn't tell that there's any peanut butter in there. Maybe a little on the aftertaste, but I'm probably imagining that (wishful thinking?)...

I racked onto another 8 ounces of PB Powder that was soaked for a over a month with several shots worth of vodka. Am hoping the vodka pulls some of the flavor out and mixes in with the beer. It's certainly a great chocolate stout on its own, but I'm really hoping the peanut butter shows up.

I'll post again in 3-4 months when I'm ready to bottle this one.

On a related, positive note, the second running brown that I boiled with 8 ounces of Godiva chocolate turned out much better than expected. Since I don't have a refractometer, I likely rinsed the grains well past the low-sugar limit, but there isn't a hint of astringency or any other off flavors. I had to add a pound of DME and another pound of wildflower honey to get it to a respectable OG (1.051).
 
Any updates on this? I'm going to be brewing a peanut butter chocolate stout this weekend and was wondering how much PB2 to add. I bought 4 jars of the chocolate PB2 and 4 jars of the regular.

My plans as of now (since people seem to be having problems with not enough peanut butter flavor) is to add 2 cans of regular PB2 at 60 minutes in the boil, 2 cans of Chocolate PB2 at 10 minutes along with 10-12oz of whatever chocolate I pick up. Then I'll add an additional 2 cans of chocolate PB2 to the secondary depending on how the flavor is.

I like your idea of soaking the PB2 in vodka, but I'm not a firm believer in vodka being a neutral flavored alcohol, and I can't stand the taste. I don't want that flavor in my beer at all, so I was thinking about using a chocolate flavored vodka I saw when a friend of mine ordered a chocolate martini.

I'm going a little crazy with the chocolate and PB2, but I'm wanting an intense reese's like taste paired with my normal house stout as a base. I tried a Reese's Stout this year at the Great Taste of the Midwest. It was brewed by Kuhnhenn's, but I can't seem to get any info from them.

I'd love to know how yours is coming along though.
 
I finally thieved another sample last night and WOW!!! The aroma was about 90% peanut butter. There's a lot going on in this stout, so the peanut flavor wasn't as present in the taste, but it was definitely there.

Two concerns:

I think I used a little too much cocoa powder. It's very chocolaty and the chocolate flavor is very dark. I need to figure out how to get a milk chocolate flavor to come through the next time.

Second, there was an oil sheen on the top of the sample, which I'm guessing was peanut oil. This will surely affect the head retention, but since this is for personal consumption and not for contest, I don't really care much.

So my thoughts are that the PB Powder is much, MUCH better used in secondary than in the 60 minute boil. I'm kegging this one up shortly after our Devil's Night party and will be enjoying it through December easily...
 
Good to hear. I'm guessing my 6 jars of PB2 and two cans of chocolate are going to be a little much. Oh well, I was going for a full on reeses stout, so I guess I'll get it.
 
I'm going to brew this either tonight or tomorrow (depending on when my PB2 gets here).

First, I'm only doing a 2.5ga batch so keep that in mind. I have decided to boil 1 jar each of the regular, and the chocolate PB2. I will add 1/3 of each jar at 3 different times during the boil. (45,30,5)

After reading just about every post in every PB Cup Stout or Porter thread, I have decided this likely won't produce enough PB flavor. That said, I plan on racking over 1 to 1.5oz of both chocolate AND peanut butter extract in my secondary. I chose the extract route over additional powder or vodka infusion simply because I will be bottling straight from my secondary and cannot afford excessive sludge.

At bottling time, I will decide whether or not to add additional extract to the brew.

Would anyone care to input?
 
I'm going to brew this either tonight or tomorrow (depending on when my PB2 gets here).

First, I'm only doing a 2.5ga batch so keep that in mind. I have decided to boil 1 jar each of the regular, and the chocolate PB2. I will add 1/3 of each jar at 3 different times during the boil. (45,30,5)

After reading just about every post in every PB Cup Stout or Porter thread, I have decided this likely won't produce enough PB flavor. That said, I plan on racking over 1 to 1.5oz of both chocolate AND peanut butter extract in my secondary. I chose the extract route over additional powder or vodka infusion simply because I will be bottling straight from my secondary and cannot afford excessive sludge.

At bottling time, I will decide whether or not to add additional extract to the brew.

Would anyone care to input?

There doesn't seem to be a clear consensus on when and how much to add to get the best results. I say just go for it and keep detailed notes.

We drank the last bottle of mine last Sunday and the peanut butter aroma and backend flavor were still spot on. The chocolate had mellowed a lot and it was really well balanced. My sister is now hounding me to brew this one again...
 
I'm also giving a similar extract recipe a go right now: http://hopville.com/recipe/525367/sweet-stout-recipes/peanut-butter-cup-stout

I just racked it to secondary last night, and it's already going through a re-invigorated bout of fermentation today (either from the addition of PB powder, or just rousing the yeast).

The PB powder has a decent amount of sugar in it, so I'm guessing that's the reason for the new fermentation. The bonus is that you don't have to worry at all about oxygen in the headspace of the secondary :)
 
I racked mine yesterday over 1oz each of Watkins chocolate and peanut butter extract. I have no visible fermentation.

How long was your beer in primary? (2 posts up, sorry I didn't quote)
 
I racked mine yesterday over 1oz each of Watkins chocolate and peanut butter extract. I have no visible fermentation.

How long was your beer in primary? (2 posts up, sorry I didn't quote)

It was in primary for six days. I don't know how much sugar the Watkins extract has, but it's probably less than is in the PB2 powder. This was my first time ever racking something into secondary, so I really didn't know what to expect (a reinvigorated fermentation, or otherwise). By now (11 days in secondary) everything has died down. Similar to what many people have reported, there's a layer "peanut scum" on the surface of the beer surrounded by what looks like some very buoyant yeast.
 

An update! Quoting myself just for reference...

I ended up bottling this after about 2.5 weeks in secondary. There was a layer of obvious peanut oil scum at the top during this time. Also, as time went on, a fine tan substance began to accumulate just below the top layer of scum (what I referred to as "buoyant yeast" in another post). I now believe that this was just very fine peanut scum/oils slowly coming out of suspension. As many have said before, the PB2 leaves a HUGE layer of trub at the bottom. My initial batch was just over 6 gallons, and I ended up with

The beer sat in bottles for 3 weeks before I tried one, which was about a week ago. Over this time, another layer of the fine tan substance began to accumulate at the tops of most bottles. A quick shake sends it back into suspension, and I'm pretty sure it's not bacteria. The beer is otherwise very clear. Head retention has been interesting, with results varying widely based on how/into what I pour the beer. Sometimes the head is disappears almost immediately, having behavior that resembles the head on Pepsi. Other times, when I do a particularly vigorous pour, it comes out like this:

IMG_20110421_191342.jpg


...and hangs around for a good 20-count. I did my best to rack under the oil at the top, but this behavior, combined with the tan scum presence and a slightly non-uniform color to the head, makes me believe that even more extended settling time in secondary is necessary if head retention is a priority. Personally, I'm not too disappointed.

Mouthfeel was surprising: not as thick or full-bodied as I expected. The first bottle I had almost reminded me of pop, while later ones have seemed heavier. Despite the lactose and cara-pils, it's not nearly as creamy as I expected from a full-on stout, but is noticeably heavier than the brown ale that I brewed a few months ago.

Finally, flavor. There's a heinous amount going on in this beer, as expected. The aroma is very nutty, though more like "cooked peanuts" than "fresly-opened jar of nuts". The chocolate comes through on the aroma, as well, but isn't as well-defined. Any hop aromas are fleeting. Up-front taste is sweetness from the lactose and malt. Then comes a very flabby chocolate flavor, and immediately after comes the peanut flavor. They really run together, and I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of flavor definition. However, the finish is all peanuts. Like with the aroma, you can tell the nuts have been cooked. For anyone wanting to brew this, let me be clear: It does NOT taste like a Reese's peanut butter cup. The flavor isn't as sharp, more like chocolate peanut butter ice cream, and the flavors are darker and gentler. Any hop flavors really need to be hunted for.

If I were to do this again, I would make a few changes. First, I'd drop the chocolate, or perhaps use extract instead of cocoa. The flavor isn't really defined, and just gets in the way. Hand-in-hand with this, I would reduce the amount of lactose. Also, I might take some of the PB2 that was added during the boil and add it to the quantity which was steeped in vodka and put into secondary. This will probably add more "tan oil scum" to the final result, but it's obvious that some of the peanut flavor was subdued by cooking during the boil.

Verdict: 3 jars of PB2 in the boil + 1 jar&vodka in secondary WILL get you a nice peanut aroma and flavor in your beer. It's not a "fresh peanuts" flavor, and it's not a "Reese's peanut butter" flavor, but it is distinctly peanutty and is pretty delicious.
 
Thank you for that write-up dude. I've been sampling mine off and on for a few weeks now. I failed and undercarbed my entire batch. I am going to let 'er sit for a couple months and see if I get any better carb. Still though, I recommend taking your brew and blending it with some Framboise! It, honest to goodness, tastes like a PBnJ sandwich. :)
 
I've got 4lbs of PB Powder on its way. Going to do a 6% porter with chocolate malt for a quick turn around brew (a friend requested it for his b-day party) and then do another PB Cup stout with some modifications. Excited to tackle this one again!
 
I've got 4lbs of PB Powder on its way. Going to do a 6% porter with chocolate malt for a quick turn around brew (a friend requested it for his b-day party) and then do another PB Cup stout with some modifications. Excited to tackle this one again!

Sweet, definitely let us know when you get underway!
 
i know this is a old thread but has anyone tried using liquid peanut butter extract instead of the powder? the extracts are lorann oils are pretty cheap compared to the powder
 
Just wanted to add my experience to this thread. I racked a brown ale onto a freshly cracked jar of PB2 and a few weeks later had an infection. It was my first infection so I'm not sure what to say about it. In the future I'd boil a little water and add the PB2, then add that to the fermenter. Just my 2 cents.
 
Sorry to bump this old thread.

Anyone have solid gouge with using PB2 in their beer? Add to the boil? Secondary? Bottling/Kegging? Thanks!
 
Sorry to bump this old thread.

Anyone have solid gouge with using PB2 in their beer? Add to the boil? Secondary? Bottling/Kegging? Thanks!

I always made a slurry using boiling water, enough to make the consistency to be able to pour it and racked on top of the mixture

tip: try dry hopping with capn crunch too. Really helps with the whole peanut butter character. I use a box in the mash and a box in the secondary
 
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