Fat washed spirit addition

[Brewer dad]

Curious if anyone has ever tried fat washing a spirit, and then doing something like adding it at packaging?

I have this idea in my head for a couple of things, such as washing rum that has steeped in some other things with coconut and adding to an oatmeal stout. But I’m not sure if the flavor would carry through, or if the residual oils would harm head retention. If the latter is in fact an issue I may then try it in a mead(Coconut Bochet?)

I’m not finding anything about it in my searches, so I am wondering if that is a clue. Thoughts?

 

[Dgallo]

Curious if anyone has ever tried fat washing a spirit, and then doing something like adding it at packaging?

I have this idea in my head for a couple of things, such as washing rum that has steeped in some other things with coconut and adding to an oatmeal stout. But I’m not sure if the flavor would carry through, or if the residual oils would harm head retention. If the latter is in fact an issue I may then try it in a mead(Coconut Bochet?)

I’m not finding anything about it in my searches, so I am wondering if that is a clue. Thoughts?

I may be confused as I don’t know the term fat washing. But to me it sounds like you want to make a tincture of sorts by soaking coconut in a rum and then add the rum to a beer? Is that correct?

 

[day_trippr]

It's a new term to me as well. Fortunately, Google thinks it knows all

"Fat washing is a mixology technique used to infuse spirits with the flavors and aromas of fats and oils. It involves combining a spirit with a melted fat, chilling the mixture to solidify the fat, and then removing the fat, leaving behind the infused spirit with a richer flavor and smoother texture. "

So, I reckon my marinating cocoa nibs and scraped/choppe/smushed vanilla beans for my stout would be kinda "fat washing" the nibs. Except I do not heat it up nor bother trying to remove the cocoa oil/fat/butter as most of it invariably ends up stuck to the carboy sidewall when I rack it to kegs...

Cheers!

 

[mac_1103]

Freeze the wash and skim the fat/oil off the top before you add it to your beer.

 

[Dgallo]

It's a new term to me as well. Fortunately, Google thinks it knows all

"Fat washing is a mixology technique used to infuse spirits with the flavors and aromas of fats and oils. It involves combining a spirit with a melted fat, chilling the mixture to solidify the fat, and then removing the fat, leaving behind the infused spirit with a richer flavor and smoother texture. "

So, I reckon my marinating cocoa nibs and scraped/choppe/smushed vanilla beans for my stout would be kinda "fat washing" the nibs. Except I do not heat it up nor bother trying to remove the cocoa oil/fat/butter as most of it invariably ends up stuck to the carboy sidewall when I rack it to kegs...

Cheers!

Yeah when I looked it up it said mixing actual oils like avacado oil coconut oil and others.

@Brewer dad sounds more like you want to make a tincture. With coconut it’s hard because you’ll want to use a minimum of .5lb/gallon of beer so you’ll need a lot of spirit to cover the coconut and it would be too much spirit to add to the beer. You could evaporate off the spirit but you need to be careful since it’s quite flammable.

I add my coconut directly to my fermenter but theirs a lot of loss, a gallon or more. If you don’t want to do that, find a high quality coconut exact. This works well too.

 

[Brewer dad]

@Dgallo

It is similar to a tincture in that you are combining spirits with the flavoring component, but I’d say they are still different processes. @day_trippr Google search has it right.

My specific interest in doing this with coconut is to avoid some of the concerns from flaked coconut as mentioned above. I’ve also read about issues with longevity of the coconut flavor, but I’ve never brewed with any of this so I have no experience to draw from.

I will give this a shot and report back!

 

[Dgallo]

@Dgallo

It is similar to a tincture in that you are combining spirits with the flavoring component, but I’d say they are still different processes. @day_trippr Google search has it right.

My specific interest in doing this with coconut is to avoid some of the concerns from flaked coconut as mentioned above. I’ve also read about issues with longevity of the coconut flavor, but I’ve never brewed with any of this so I have no experience to draw from.

I will give this a shot and report back!

gotcha. I’ll lookin into fat washing more to see what else I can find. All I’m seeing right now is adding actual oil to liquor for a while then getting it cold to solidify the fats/oil to remove them and then using it in mixed drinks for a subtle flavor. If you’re adding flaked coconut to liquor I would say that’s a tincture.

Either way. Good luck on the brew and report back

 

[Rish]

Here's how I've used fat washing. Don't know how much fat is in coconut meat but blending up in your liquor and trying this method might work. Good luck!

Post in thread 'Keeping Fads Alive' https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/keeping-fads-alive.731130/post-10344374

 

[Agent]

Thanks to @Rish for digging up the exact example I was thinking of, but totally forgot where it was.

Fatwashing is good at extracting flavor from fats (like bacon grease). But I think it's unnecessary for things that are sorta fatty and added coldside (like coconut).

I've got a jar of black walnuts in everclear that has zero visible fat on it. I've also added black walnuts in the mash and discovered a substantial coating of free fats on my BK and my carboys.

 

[Brewer dad]

I also probably should have clarified I’m going to do the wash with coconut oil not flakes. I’ll try to pick up some rum this weekend to do some research with!

 

[Indian_villager]

I also probably should have clarified I’m going to do the wash with coconut oil not flakes. I’ll try to pick up some rum this weekend to do some research with!

That is a deep enough rabbit hole in and of itself. What kind of coconut oil were you going to go with?

 

[day_trippr]

Not to dissuade anyone's experimentation but fwiw there are some excellent extracts available to us through companies such as Apex Flavors that really simplifies the process of adding specific flavoring to beers. I purchased this earlier this year and have been dosing a glass before pouring my chocolate stout on top and it's stupidly simple and awesome.

607COF-26019

Coconut Toasted Type, Natural Flavor Blend - 2 fl. oz. glass bottle

This page covers their coconut flavors for brewing https://www.apexflavors.com/Beverage-Industry/Craft-Brewing/Tropical~2939
but there are more under the "All Products" top level. Just be aware that some of their products are in dry form, for baking...

Cheers!

 

[InspectorJon]

My specific interest in doing this with coconut is to avoid some of the concerns from flaked coconut as mentioned above. I’ve also read about issues with longevity of the coconut flavor, but I’ve never brewed with any of this so I have no experience to draw from.

I will give this a shot and report back!

I am interest in how this turns out. Virgin coconut oil has quite a bit of coconut flavor in it and might be worth experimenting with. @Dgallo has a point, we are making beer and not mixed drinks so I don't know how much flavor would transfer to the beer by only putting a few oz of fat washed liquor into a whole batch of beer. Refined coconut oil has all the flavor refined out so I would avoid that.

 

[Brewer dad]

I am interest in how this turns out. Virgin coconut oil has quite a bit of coconut flavor in it and might be worth experimenting with. @Dgallo has a point, we are making beer and not mixed drinks so I don't know how much flavor would transfer to the beer by only putting a few oz of fat washed liquor into a whole batch of beer. Refined coconut oil has all the flavor refined out so I would avoid that.

Thanks for pointing that out! I just checked and luckily I do have unrefined oil.

Yes the subtlety was on my mind too, especially when I’m not seeing anyone else do it really(with beer). I think I’ll sample on its own at first, and then try dosing a single beer. If it is viable from there I can scale up.

Regardless I’ll report back!

 

[Brewer dad]

Some follow up having washed some
Rum and just sampling that.

It smells great, very strong fresh coconut aroma. Almost 1:1 from the raw oil on its own. Amazing really.

Flavor is not as strong, but what is there is very good. I tasted some of the oil and it more aromatic than flavorful. I would again say it is very comparable when examining oil flavor on its own vs washed rum.

My biggest critique of the flavor really is just the rum I used. Picked what was reportedly a decent middle of the road rum. While the washed rum is good overall, personally I’d be willing to spring for a better rum to get a better flavor. That difference would surely be apparent sipping straight side to side, but honestly I’m not sure if it’d show once added to a beer. I used Appleton’s signature, which is $20 here for 750ml.

Overall, I think it is worth continuing to explore this. So will pick up a commercial porter to start working on dosing research. I would be curious to hear others’ experiences with aroma in using other methods such as extract, flakes, etc.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

I would be curious to hear others’ experiences with aroma in using other methods such as extract, flakes, etc.

I make a nice coconut stout (6% abv, 40ish ibu from NorthernBrewer hops @60), and use McCormick Coconut Extract (from the grocery store spice aisle). 1 ounce (by volume) of the extract into 5 gallons of beer at bottling time tastes really nice.