vodka tinture or tea for adding flavors

[csurowiec]

I am making a pale ale that will be dry hopped with some mosaic. When I add the hops, I also want to add a little bit of grapefruit zest, lemongrass, and green cardamom. It's an experiment. It might be awesome or it might suck, we shall see. Having never done this before I wanted some opinions on how best to sanitize these items without necessarily cooking them or their flavors. My two thoughts based on other readings here and elsewhere is to either soak the items in a couple ounces of vodka for a few days to a week then add it vodka, flavoring bits, and all. The other idea is to pour a cup of boiling water over the stuff like making a cup of tea then adding it once it cools.
For those who have done this please let me know what worked and what didn't.

 

[Build]

I would use vodka. It's clean and neutral and will sanitize anything. I use it when adding cocoa in porter and stouts. I think your additions could work well with the mosaic, but would go easy with the cardamom. It can be powerful if it's fairly fresh.

 

[Manuel Julian Rodríguez]

how much vodka would you use in a 5 galon batch? I'm thinking about using a tinture with dry orange peel, cinnamon, clove and cardamum (OG: 1.052)

 

[LabRatBrewer]

If you are dry hopping, I would just wash the fruit before zesting, crush the seed and add them to the hops. I think you would have a very low risk of infection and that would maximize retaining the potential aromas.

 

[Manuel Julian Rodríguez]

I have the orange peels already dry, I throw the other spices and that's it, butwhat to do with the orange peels?

 

[Rish]

Hi, MJR. Put your spices and orange peel in a container just a little larger than you need to hold them all, then add enough vodka to cover them by about an inch. Set for a week or so, then tincture is ready to use. You can also put the solids in a weighted hop bag and add it if you want more flavor.

 

[Manuel Julian Rodríguez]

Thanks Dan! how much tincture do you think I should add to my 5 gal bat? like an ounce or two?
this is my tincture, it has 2 cinnamon sticks, 8 cloves and some dry orange peel in 375ml of vodka

 

[Rish]

That will depend on what you're wanting flavor wise. I'd move it to a bottling bucket and mix in (gently) a little at a time, tasting until it is where you like it. You may want to add a little extra since it may fade with time. I'd start with an ounce, since your tincture looks pretty strong, especially the clove. A little of that goes a long way! Then add 'til you get to your sweet spot. Good luck!