Habanero Capsicumel

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talleymonster

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I "brewed" this several months ago, but I waited until now to post the recipe because I won't post a recipe if it hasn't been tried and tested first.

I just bottled this one tonight, and it's good! It's by far the best mead that I've made to date. I took good notes....but I'm not sure why I never wrote down my staring gravity. And then tonight when I went to take my final gravity I broke my hydrometer :mad:, so no gravity readings.

Here are the ingredients:
1 gallon of spring water
5 pounds of honey (I used clover)
1 habanero chili
1 packet Red Star Montrachet yeast


I brought the water to a temp of around 180 and added the honey. I kept it at 180 for 45 minutes, skiming the film off the top.

Put it in an ice bath to get the temp down to a pitching temp. I pitched at 72*. I thouroughly sanitized the outside of the habanero and quartered it, removing the seeds and core. I know all of the heat is in the seeds, but trust me - it's still plenty warm!
Toss the habeneros in the fermenter and pitch yeast.
Pop on an airlock and forget about it for 6 months.


I bottled it in 6 Grolsch bottles. One of the habanero pieces went up the siphon and into a bottle, so one of 'em will have a real kick to it.


If anybody likes spicy food, you should definitely give this one a try. It's the perfect balance of sweet and hot. I'm going to start another batch of this one as soon as we get into the new house!
 
very nice. Im a huge fan of mead and i think this is just unusual enough for me to add to my recipe list. thanks
 
Tallymonster,

I have never made a mead but this sounds like one I would like to make and I had a couple of quick questions.

I have read several times that leaving the mead on the lees too long (over a month) with most yeasts will produce off flavors. You seem to have left this for the entire 6 months in the primary. Is that because this yeast will be ok that long in the primary?

Also, I have read that you need to provide additional nutrients but I saw none in your list of ingredients. Did you add none or was it assumed that we would know to do that?

I know I said a couple of questions but I thought of another. You made this in a gallon jug. How much head space did you leave or is a lot of headspace not needed for mead making?
 
Tallymonster,

I have never made a mead but this sounds like one I would like to make and I had a couple of quick questions.

I have read several times that leaving the mead on the lees too long (over a month) with most yeasts will produce off flavors. You seem to have left this for the entire 6 months in the primary. Is that because this yeast will be ok that long in the primary?

Also, I have read that you need to provide additional nutrients but I saw none in your list of ingredients. Did you add none or was it assumed that we would know to do that?

I know I said a couple of questions but I thought of another. You made this in a gallon jug. How much head space did you leave or is a lot of headspace not needed for mead making?



Honestly Kat I hadn't made a whole lot of mead before I did this one.
I did add a campden tablet, yeast nutrient, and pectic enzyme.

I didn't notice any off flavors.

I filled the jug all the way. Didn't need much headspace.
 
anything you would change? im picking up honey to brew this any day now as soon as my 1 gal jug frees uo
 
Well, the heat of the habanero seems to have gotten stronger...at least to my taste buds. I have the heat tolerance of a 5 year old, so I might use less on the next batch. But that is just me.
 
Heat of the chile is in the veins (the white parts running down the sides), not the seeds - so that could be why it's still really hot.
 
hey, how do you think this recipe would be if i made it with apple cider? sweet and hot or nor very good?

You been spying on me? That is my next experimental brew. I was going to do it next weekend.
I'm going to use fresh Apple cider. Not sure which yeast yet. We'll have to keep in touch with this one.
 
I can't believe I've not chimed in here and expressed what a TERRIBLE BREW I think this is bound to be.

I'll still try it if we ever have the opportunity...but you're going to need to serve this as a shot! I don't think I'll ever try this one....unless......
 
ouch Kahuna.


I can't believe I've not chimed in here and expressed what a TERRIBLE BREW I think this is bound to be.

I'll still try it if we ever have the opportunity...but you're going to need to serve this as a shot! I don't think I'll ever try this one....unless......


...unless.... what?
 
I'm not sure why I never wrote down my staring gravity. And then tonight when I went to take my final gravity I broke my hydrometer :mad:, so no gravity readings.

I'll be sure and take some readings on the next batch....and I have a spare hydrometer now, too!:drunk:
 
NO NO NO...Not a dig...Not saying it isn't great....just saying that it's gonna be too damn hot for me.

I feel you. It's a little warm for me, but still drinkable and enjoyable. If it were any hotter I think I would spend all day on the ****ter.
 
OMG!!!!

We just opened the last bottle last night. It was way too fargin hot!!!!!!
I think the next batch I will use a less intense pepper, or reduce the amount and let it age a bit. Way too hot now. Like sucking on a pure habanero.:(
 
I "brewed" this several months ago, but I waited until now to post the recipe because I won't post a recipe if it hasn't been tried and tested first.
I just bottled this one tonight, and it's good! It's by far the best mead that I've made to date.

OMG!!!!

We just opened the last bottle last night. It was way too fargin hot!!!!!!

Are you tasting from the original recipe on the last comment? In the original post you said it "it's good". Splain youself, please.
 
Are you tasting from the original recipe on the last comment? In the original post you said it "it's good". Splain youself, please.


We had finished what I thought was the last bottle.

I had several mystery bottles in my closet with no labels on them. I couldn't tell whether they were apfelwein or habanero.


Well upon opening, it turns out I had one more bottle of Habanero. We were thinking it was an old bottle of Apfelwein.

This was the original recipe/batch, and it was very good. I wouldn't have posted the recipe if I didn't think it was worth sharing.
But now, after over a year, it has gotten way too hot for me (or anybody really):eek:
 
The heat should have dissipated over time unless you had some of the pepper in the bottle which released more heat in that year.

I just looked over your original post again and ah, ha! I think maybe I found the reason.

I bottled it in 6 Grolsch bottles. One of the habanero pieces went up the siphon and into a bottle, so one of 'em will have a real kick to it.

Is it possible that this was the bottle you just had?
 
That's kind of what I'm thinking. I didn't see any pieces at all, but it was a small enough piece to begin with to make it through the siphon, so it is possible.
 
I want to try this. I will be harvesting the last of my habeneros, jalepenos, tobasco, serrano, red chile, and banana peppers in the next few days before we get our first freeze. I am a pepper lover, and "too hot" is not in my vocabulary.

I'm going to try it with habenero for sure. Maybe serrano too. I will smoke some red jalepenos and try the chipotle too. I assume it would be best to use dried chipotle pepper rather than the canned ones in adobo.

I'll pick up some 3 gallon carboys from my LHBS, as I think I will make 2.5 gallon batches of each. I don't want to risk 5 gallons on an experiment.
 
Ok, I am finally going to have a go at this one. I have ordered a batch of honey and am going to reserve 5lbs for it.

Also, did you add 1 gallon spring water to 5 lbs honey? This would be over a gallon so I might have to cut the recipe down to ferment in a gallon jug?

Also, in looking at the mead calculator using 5 lbs per gallon with this yeast producing 70% attenuation, it would be producing a desert mead - very sweet. Is this what it was?

If so, I might want to cut down a pound to this high end of sweet. In wines I like semi-sweet but in meads I have no experience.
 
This was a huge hit at a 4th of July party last night.

I used 3# of Basswood honey, 2 habaneros sliced in half, sweet mead yeast and water to fill to 1 gallon. Sat in primary from when I started it (sometime mid-May I think..) until yesterday morning.
 
I am a pepper lover, and "too hot" is not in my vocabulary.

Same here. I'm new here and have yet to brew my first batch of beer, but I've been gathering equipment and reading as much as I can. I have been wanting to experiment with peppers in beer, and I was reassured to know this is old hat in the brewing community.

Just today I discovered capsicumel, which I think might even have greater potential than beer due to its sweetness. Hope there's no problem in bumping this old thread, but I'm excited to try this. This is definitely going to be one of the first things I brew (unless you think I should get a few extracts under my belt?).
 
I had an extra gallon of mead from a previous batch and added 1 Seranno pepper and a couple oz of ginger, left them in there a month and they tasted great, IMO.

I called it Snakebite Mead...:rockin: And "shots" were the way to serve this one too.

I'll have to give this one a try since I have a couple dozen HaBURNero chiles in the garden...
 
I made two gallons of this in the spring. I added one habanero and racked to secondary after after fermentation was complete. It wasn't hot enough and I added a second pepper to both gallons. I bottled one gallon in 750 mL wine bottles and have drank half a bottle in the past week. It is great.

I brought a bottle to our annual pepper party last Saturday and it was a hit there also. All comments were that it had the right amount of heat and tasted very good.

I plan on this as an annual brew with 2 habaneros per gallon.
 
Just tried this out today. Me and my friend made a two gallon batch and split it up between two 1 Gallon Damas.

We ended up using 8 lbs. of Honey instead of 10 lbs. and used 4 habaneros.

Gonna add the Yeast nutrient in a couple weeks, hoping this will be ready just in time for winter! :rockin:
 
I just made a 1 gallon test batch of this, but with a few changes: Apple juice instead of water, only 2lbs of honey, and Lalvin 1118 yeast (just what I had on hand). Only 6 months and I'll see what I got.
 
Well, I just picked up 4 1 gallon glass jugs today, and since I only needed one, started looking around for some 1 gallon mead recipes to try. It just so happened that I had an unopened 5lbs of Clover honey(Costco Special) and 2 habenaros in my fridge :)

So I figured I'd give this guy a shot.....pun intended as I'm pretty sure this will be taken as a shot :)

Anyway, added 5lbs of clover, and topped up with tap water to 1 gallon, tossed in 2 chopped up habenaros(living dangerously here), and a small amount of yeast nutrient along with a packet of Red Star Premiere Curvee. We'll see how this turns out, worst case scenario this will be the strongest thing I've made yet(beer or mead).
 
hmmm....just pulled a hydro reading, and I can't get a hydro reading. My hydrometer only goes up to 1.160, and this was way beyond that. Got a feeling this bad boy is going to be very strong, and very sweet, as I don't think the yeast will ferment all that out :D
 
Well I racked to secondary tonight, and grabbed a small sample. I have to say that so far I am very impressed :D It wasn't nearly as spicy as I was expecting and it was very sweet, though I think the sweetness may have balanced out the spicyness, but I could definatley taste the habenaros! It also still have a very distinctive alcohol smell and taste, think this one will need to age for a while longer.
 
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