Adding minty aromas to a brew

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IdoNisso

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Hey everyone,
first post.

I've been brewing beer in the last 2 years and I want to make a Porter with a bit of a minty aroma. It's my first time doing a brew with an extra specialty ingredient, so I'm asking you guys for some advice.

First of all, I'm pretty sure I need to add the fresh mint leaves (from my garden :p) during secondary fermentation. However, I've seen the Vanilla-Bourbon Porter recipe that's running around here (and a few more posts on adding stuff) and I've understood that I may want to make an extract of mint by cooking the mint leaves with some vodka or whiskey, and then add the extract.

I like that idea in general because I don't want to drastically alter my ABV by adding alcohol, and the cooking part would evaporate the ethanol. I'm afraid of it though, because I have a feeling it'll give me more of a minty TASTE than the aroma that I want.

I would love to hear some comments on the subject, if you have any. If anyone made anything similar, even better!
Many thanks in advance!
 
i made a mint chocolate porter this past Christmas. i used mint extract i got from the store. not really knowing what i was doing i added a table spoon of the extract to the beer at bottling time. it was WAY to much, totally over powered the beer. i would suggest cutting it down to as low as 1/4 a table spoon.

of course you can do the incremental test approach. pour some of the beer and add a little bit of mint and try it. keep upping the amount of mint till you get the level you want and just scale the amount up for a 5 gallon batch.
 
I haven't used any flavor extracts in my beer, but I will say that you might want to consider using Northern Brewer hops. When I used them in a porter I definitely got a bit of a minty aroma and flavor from them.
 
TipsyDragon said:
i made a mint chocolate porter this past Christmas. i used mint extract i got from the store. not really knowing what i was doing i added a table spoon of the extract to the beer at bottling time. it was WAY to much, totally over powered the beer. i would suggest cutting it down to as low as 1/4 a table spoon.

of course you can do the incremental test approach. pour some of the beer and add a little bit of mint and try it. keep upping the amount of mint till you get the level you want and just scale the amount up for a 5 gallon batch.
Click to expand...
What kind of extract was it? Probably a very condensed one..
Anyway, thanks for the incremental test tip, I'll definitely do that.

snowveil said:
I haven't used any flavor extracts in my beer, but I will say that you might want to consider using Northern Brewer hops. When I used them in a porter I definitely got a bit of a minty aroma and flavor from them.
Click to expand...
Yea, NB hops are in the recipe. Never used them before though.

Thanks for the quick replies!
 
If you want to keep some of the aromas around, you wouldn't necessarily need to cook the mint/liquor extract. Just add a little vodka to your mint leaves and crush them real well (mortar and pestle would work, or just a spoon and a hard plate). That will release all the tasty oils from the mint leaves. Stick the leaves and vodka into a small jar, and add enough vodka to make sure all the leaves are submerged. Don't worry about cooking it, just let time extract all those tasty oils. That should keep some of the more volatile aroma oils around that might get cooked off. Of course, how much you add is going to be up to you. I'd suggest TipsyDragon's idea of taking a sample of beer and add until you like it, then scale up to the whole batch. Add it right at bottling and you should be good to go.

Also, don't worry too much about the ABV bump. Unless you're sticking you mint leaves in an entire liter of vodka, you won't bump the ABV much at all. Generally a shot or two's worth is all you'll need, and in 5 gal that's practically nothing. Heck, the priming sugar probably bumps it up more than that!
 
erikpete18 said:
If you want to keep some of the aromas around, you wouldn't necessarily need to cook the mint/liquor extract. Just add a little vodka to your mint leaves and crush them real well (mortar and pestle would work, or just a spoon and a hard plate). That will release all the tasty oils from the mint leaves. Stick the leaves and vodka into a small jar, and add enough vodka to make sure all the leaves are submerged. Don't worry about cooking it, just let time extract all those tasty oils. That should keep some of the more volatile aroma oils around that might get cooked off. Of course, how much you add is going to be up to you. I'd suggest TipsyDragon's idea of taking a sample of beer and add until you like it, then scale up to the whole batch. Add it right at bottling and you should be good to go.

Also, don't worry too much about the ABV bump. Unless you're sticking you mint leaves in an entire liter of vodka, you won't bump the ABV much at all. Generally a shot or two's worth is all you'll need, and in 5 gal that's practically nothing. Heck, the priming sugar probably bumps it up more than that!
Click to expand...

Awesome, that was exactly what I was looking for!
Thanks alot!
I'll definitely post and let you guys know how it goes and went.
 

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