1st attempt Ivan Sirko Cossack honey pepper

[Mdsutton]

My wife is Ukrainian, they make a Honey Pepper vodka which is AWESOME. I decided to try a honey pepper beer. you lose the honey flavoring due to fermentation, but OK. I at this point take brewing as an art form even though I know it is a science. I guess I do this because of lack of some equipment.

I started with an AHS Budget Pale Ale kit, to this I added (guessing here so be careful) about an 1/8th of an once of Ghost pepper to the last 5 minutes of the boil. I sampled before fermentation and did not think it was spicy enough. Let it ferment, sampled again, no not spicy enough. Racked to secondary, added an additional (again guessing) 1/8 OZ of ghost pepper. let it sit one week, sampled still not enough heat. Added another 1/8th once this time chopping it up into small pieces (I had not done this with first two additions.) Let it sit three to four days more. Sampled, OK now had a touch of heat at the end. Let sit two more days and kegged. Has a nice malty flavor a first, after swallowing you notice a touch of spicy heat at the back of your mouth.

I think if I try again, I would grind small amounts of the pepper in some wort and add to the boil. that should increase the HEAT. but again this is one of the hottest peppers in the world, so you need to be careful. I guess if it were to spicy you could always use it to make Chilli!

Cheers,
Martin

 

[avm221]

If you add honey after most if the fermentation is done you can still taste it a little. That might be an option for next time. But also it will ip your ABV. ghost peppers might be a little much what about pepper corns in the boil and some hot peppers.

 

[Mdsutton]

I will try that with the some of the Honey. As to the pepper, I was looking for a bit of a bite. I felt the spicy heat level I got was not enough.