Imperial Porter With Peppers - Thoughts?

[taylja06]

Recipe is here: http://hopville.com/recipe/1667967

***Should probably have noted it's smoked in the topic title.

It's actually 20 serrano peppers, but no option was available for that.

Largely it's a majorly upscaled version of my pepper porter, which got a lot of praise and had some contest success.

Any thoughts?

 

[Jebu1788]

Here are some thoughts:

1) I would go with the lightest LME you can get. You have plenty of chocolate malt already, and using the light stuff gives you more control over the recipe. It's not always clear what's in the dark malt extract.

2) I would consider moving some of that Willamette down closer to flameout. Willamette gives a great earthy and almost woody flavor and smell that is great in dark beers.

3) Unless you want to burn your tongue off... TOO MANY PEPPERS. There are lots of threads around here with pepper usage, and 5 habaneros, and 20 serrano is waaayy too much. I would research it some more, but I bet that one habenero and one serrano will already be quite spicy!

 

[taylja06]

If you boil the peppers for the whole time, it's a lot less heat. I used the same amount of peppers on the last smoked porter with chilis before, and it worked out well and placed in competition.

but yeah, definitely will take your advice on the willamette and the light LME for next time. I did a test brew of this tonight and screwed a couple of things up (hey, accidents) so we'll see how it does with the light LME next time.

I thought the amarillo would add a bit of spice and heat in the end, at least in the nose.