Any thoughts on extract flavoring?

[eluno81]

I just racked two 1 gal batches of oatmeal stout into secondary want to flavor them differently. I purchased a chocolate extract and a peanut butter extract. My questions are will these extracts work without compromising the beer and if not when they should be added? Thanks
T

 

[duboman]

I use peach extract for my peach hefeweizen, 4oz to 6 finished gallons and it works great. It really comes down to taste. The easy thing with extract is you can scale out a sample to taste to determine how much to use for the entire batch, or even, whether it is going to work the way you expect it to.

When I use them I add them at packaging, whether keg or bottle. this is what makes it easy. You can draw a small sample of the beer, add a scaled amount of extract, taste and adjust as necessary, then scale up to the finished batch size

Some extract flavors work really well, others, not so much.

 

[aiptasia]

Agreed. I'd do some test runs using a generic version of the beer you are attempting to make. In your case, an oatmeal stout. Get a six pack of an oatmeal stout and pour yourself a few 4 ounce pours in different glasses. Grab an eye dropper from a drug store. Most drug store eye droppers have a droplet size of about 1/20th of a ML per drop. Add one drop of extract to your first sample, two drops in the next, and so on until you reach a flavor level you enjoy.

Then, multiply the drops at the level you like x3 for a 12 ounce pour and give that a taste. If it tastes like the 4 ounce pour, you're golden. Just divide up your batch size by 12 ounces to get the approx number of beers per batch and then multiply that by how much you need for a single 12 ounce beer. Add that amount to your bottling bucket with your beer (and carbonation sugar) prior to bottling and gently stir once or twice. Then, bottle or keg.

 

[Zuljin]

I used some kiwi strawberry extract once. It was nasty. Chalky and artificial. LD Carlson I think it was. Their other brewing stuff is fine though.