Boil or vodka infusion

[vapor2020]

I am looking to make a chai milk stout. I am trying to decide on whether to include the chai spices in the boil or to do a vodka infusion. Any thoughts?

 

[bsay]

Try this: Make a small test boil with the chai spice and also do a mini-vodka infusion. Taste each and figure out which one give a better flavor and use that method. I don't think you'll have a problem with just boiling it, but the vodka infusion idea sounds interesting, so I'm not going to blow it off.

 

[vapor2020]

I have made chai extract by letting 2oz of chai spice sit in a pint of vodka for a couple weeks. It is super potent. It works great though. I added 1/4 teaspoon to a pint of stout and it smells just like chai tea. I plan on adding 3 Tbsp to my batch of milk stout. I'll post how it turns out.

 

[BigKahuna]

if you boil...you could loose some of the more intricate flavors.

 

[vapor2020]

I plan on adding the extract post boil.

 

[vapor2020]

I bottled some chai cream stout last night and it only took 1 Tbsp of the extract to make a 5 gallon batch smell like Chai. I had a couple pints and it was delicious. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the rest of the pint of extract. It's pretty much enough to flavor a small towns water supply.