Adding Mint Flavor to your Beer

[TwistedHops]

Hey guys,

I have read a few places about adding mint to your brew, but they tend to leave out some key parts.

1. "Dry hopping" with the mint leaves. Shouldn't these be sterilized in some way before tossing them into the secondary?
2. Adding extract. Now I am not a huge fan of this considering I like the motto fresher is better. But, if anyone has good results, I am willing to try.
3. Soaking mint leaves in vodka. Now this seems straight forward, but what do I pitch when I do this? The leaves? The vodka? Both?

Anyways, thanks for any tips you might have!
Brew on

 

[TwistedHops]

I'm bumping this, I need some sort of help since I'll be moving it to secondary this weekend

 

[giraffe]

Number 3 is the safest. Toss it all in.

Number 1 will probally work fine, especially if the beer is finished fermenting, and its going to be kegged a few days afterwards. (If you are bottling and adding more sugar, I wouldnt use this, you need to be more sterile.)

Number 2 is also safe, but make sure its a high quality extract, and some dubious bottle from the grocery store. Taste it first.

Also polaris hops have a pronounced mint flavor. You could just use those.

Remember to err on the side of caution. Less is more, you dont want a glass of toothpaste.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

Hey guys,

I have read a few places about adding mint to your brew, but they tend to leave out some key parts.

1. "Dry hopping" with the mint leaves. Shouldn't these be sterilized in some way before tossing them into the secondary?
2. Adding extract. Now I am not a huge fan of this considering I like the motto fresher is better. But, if anyone has good results, I am willing to try.
3. Soaking mint leaves in vodka. Now this seems straight forward, but what do I pitch when I do this? The leaves? The vodka? Both?

Anyways, thanks for any tips you might have!
Brew on

I've been thinking about making a chocolate mint stout, and have been thinking about the same thing. Here are some of my thoughts:
If you use mint leaves, the results could be very unpredictable, and will change depending on the essential oils in the leaves that year, month, location, etc. If you use extract, you can pull a sample, add a few drops, taste and tweak until it is what you want, and then do the math do figure out how much to add to the whole volume. If you use vodka and make an extract, you could follow the same procedure. I'd like to hear what you decide, because I'd really like to try in in the next few months.

 

[zmanzorro]

I recently did this for a mint IIPA. I went the vodka and mint leaves route and dumped it all in the secondary. It turned out fine except the fact that 3 oz of fresh mint creates a lot of mint flavor. I've been sitting on a few bottles waiting for the mint to mellow out.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

I recently did this for a mint IIPA. I went the vodka and mint leaves route and dumped it all in the secondary. It turned out fine except the fact that 3 oz of fresh mint creates a lot of mint flavor. I've been sitting on a few bottles waiting for the mint to mellow out.

LOL! Which is why you taste samples before committing!

 

[mrdail87]

Just wanted to add it's also very easy to make a tea with dried mint leaves. You could essentially boil a small amount of water, drop the mint leaves in and let them steep.

Keep in mind a little mint goes a long way. But I'll also add making a tea gets a lot of mint flavor without too much of the menthol burn.

 

[TwistedHops]

Just in case anyone was curious how the experiment is going, I added half an ounce of 1 week vodka soaked mint leaves, with the vodka, to my 3 gallon chocolate stout in the secondary. I will post back when it's bottled and drinkable.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

Curious about how you decided how much to add. Did you dump and pray, or taste a sample and extrapolate?

 

[marckw]

While I've never tried them, I understand Polaris hops have some minty overtones.

 

[TwistedHops]

Curious about how you decided how much to add. Did you dump and pray, or taste a sample and extrapolate?

Followed a previous recipe, on here somewhere, and scaled it. Aka, pray it works!

 

[Joseph503]

One of my more recent brews was a mint chocolate stout.
What I ended up doing for the mint flavor was to boil 10 peppermint tea bags for 10mins, I then also made a mint extract with 10 more bags of peppermint tea in approx. 3oz of vodka and dumped it all in at kegging (This is a 5 gallon batch).

While it is delicious, imo the mint flavor is slightly overpowering, however my brewing partner disagrees and says it needed more mint flavor so it's partially in your taste as well. It has definitely gotten better with age, allowing the flavors to blend better and compliment eachother.

What I would do different next time is to use fresh mint rather than the tea bags to make an extract. And of course, start with sampling at a small scale and adjust as necessary for your kegging/bottling volume. If it is not minty enough you can always add a little more extract, but you cant take away an addition if it is overpowering.

 

[drewbiedewbiedo]

Not to beat a dead horse, but any updates on how things turned out here? Am making a doppelbock and looking to add a vodka/mint leave concoction to the secondary. Any help would be super appreciated!

 

[m00ps]

I made a cucumber mint saison that turned out really well. Just tossed 2 full sprigs of mint into the fermentor like a dry hop. Great delicate mint character with no grassy vegetal taste and wasnt artifical tasting like an extract

 

[caverdave21]

I made a one gallon experiment last September for a friend who wanted the flavor of drinking a beer immediately after brushing your teeth (not sure why, but what the heck). 1.056 O.G., two row and a pinch of Munich, .1 oz magnum @ 30. Fermented for 21 days and "dry minted" 11 leaves, for 7 days. Noticeable flavor but not overpowering. It probably would have aged into the background, but we drank them all fairly young.

 

[TwistedHops]

Mine turned out ok, the flavor was not quite minty enough for my tastes. However, letting the bottles sit a bit, the mint started to pop!

 

[catdaddy66]

My brother made a chocolate mint stout recently. Used about 1/2 cup of fresh mint leaves (chopped) as a dry hop addition. It was powerful, the mint flavor! A bit much IMO. But the biggest issue with that batch was the over carbonation!

With mint I found that less is more...

 

[paperairplane]

I did a Polaris / MO smash with 3 oz Polaris and didn't get minty-ness at all.

 

[Talgrath]

While I've never tried them, I understand Polaris hops have some minty overtones.

You only get a mint/cilantro sort of scent, I found the hop bitterness they provide to be quite unpleasant.

 

[drewbiedewbiedo]

Thanks all!

From all I've read here and elsewhere I think what I'm gonna do for my "Doublemint Doppelbock" (5 gallon batch) is take 1/2 gram mint leaves, pound them under wax paper (to release the flavor), and then throw them in 5 oz of vodka along with a peppermint candy (for good measure). I'll let that sit a week before whacking the vodka (now hopefully a mint extract) into the secondary fermenter. From what I've heard, the mint leaves themselves will lead to off-flavors if put in the fermenter straight and - while I've heard a mixed bag on that notion - I probably won't risk it.

I'm just buying grains now, so it may be a while until I can report back, but if anyone has feedback on this plan let me know!