Fruit and Spice Beer Mango Habanero Imperial IPA

[dschiller]

Recipe Type

All Grain

Yeast

WLP001

Yeast Starter

1.5l

Batch Size (Gallons)

5.4

Original Gravity

1.083

Final Gravity

1.016

Boiling Time (Minutes)

60

IBU

67

Color

Cloudy orange-gold

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

8 at 66-67F

Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

4 at 67F

Tasting Notes

Habanero spice balances the 8.8% ABV very nicely

Credit to recipe on Brewer's Friend...

15 lb Pale Malt (2-row)
1.5 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt 20L
0.5 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine

1 oz Magnum, 60 min
1 oz Centennial, 30 min
1 oz Centennial, 10 min
0.5 oz Citra, 1 min

In boil @5 min:
43 oz puree frozen mango (6 mangos from Costco gave me just the right amount)
1 puree frozen habanero
Note: I defrosted this prior to putting it in the boil
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient, 1/2 tab Whirlfloc

1 pkg California Ale White Labs WLP001 w/ 1.5l StirStarter (decanting optional)

Dry hops (4 days):
1 oz Citra
0.5 oz Centennial
32 oz organic Mango juice (I found this at Whole Foods; it had some other juices in it, too, but it was primarily mango juice)
0.5 sliced habanero (without seeds)

Notes on Mash:
Used Bru'n water for amber balanced water chemistry. Included lactic acid to achieve 5.3 pH in mash
Mash 1.3 qt/lb at 154F. Instead of preheating my mash tun, I add water about 4-5F higher than strike water 167F target and let it cool down to 167F from heat loss to the mash tun.

Collected 7 gal wort.

Bubbled O2 for 45 sec prior to pitching yeast. Cold crashed for 3 days after 4-days secondary fermentation. I have a conical fermenter, so instead of transferring to a secondary, I dumped the trub prior to dry hopping. Many people say that even that isn't absolutely necessary.

Efficiency: 73%

The Brewer's Friend recipe calls for a full sliced habanero in the dry hop, but I tasted the beer before deciding how much to add, and I think 0.5 habanero with the seeds removed was just right. It still has plenty of kick which balances the 8.8% ABV very nicely.

See photo.

Enjoy!

 

[dschiller]

Quick follow-up to my own post: My friends really like how this turned out. A couple of comments I'll add are (1) the beer is cloudy and there is probably no getting around that when you use pureed mango, and (2) the spiciness decreased a bit after a few weeks, so I suppose you could increase to 3/4-1 sliced habanero in the dry hop instead of 1/2.

 

[BeernuT100]

retracted

 

[Trevor Mack]

This looks great and is about what I came up with on my own. Really just curious as to how much pepper to add without it going too far.

Trying to decide between a tequila tincture or just raw addition of spiced pepper. Might do side by side to see how that changes overall flavor.

 

[fendersrule]

Guys,

When making spicy beer, I have had a 100% success-rate.

The way to do it is to not add habanero during the mash, boil, or fermentation.

Add it as a tincture during the bottling phase. This allows you to sample and dial it in exactly before bottling. Habanero tincture works VERY well and extracts ALL the flavor of the habanero, plus the spice that we all love.

There's nothing worse than going through all this effort to make a spicy beer, but it only having a "hint" (yea, I can taste it, but it ain't spicy bruh) or for it to be so overpowering that a few sips is enough.

Habaneros are VERY hot, but they can still range from "VERY HOT" to "OH MY GOD THESE ARE HOT!" This is another reason to do the tincture method.

And finally, another reason to do the tincture method is because do you really want 5 gallons of spicy beer? If you make a tincture, you can bottle the first half, then tincture the second half. That gives you double the variety and still plenty to drink/hand out.

Additionally, I would recommend not wasting money/time dry hopping. Habanero overpowers the smell. I doubt any hop aromas will come through.

 

[benco]

Guys,

When making spicy beer, I have had a 100% success-rate.

The way to do it is to not add habanero during the mash, boil, or fermentation.

Add it as a tincture during the bottling phase. This allows you to sample and dial it in exactly before bottling. Habanero tincture works VERY well and extracts ALL the flavor of the habanero, plus the spice that we all love.

There's nothing worse than going through all this effort to make a spicy beer, but it only having a "hint" (yea, I can taste it, but it ain't spicy bruh) or for it to be so overpowering that a few sips is enough.

Habaneros are VERY hot, but they can still range from "VERY HOT" to "OH MY GOD THESE ARE HOT!" This is another reason to do the tincture method.

And finally, another reason to do the tincture method is because do you really want 5 gallons of spicy beer? If you make a tincture, you can bottle the first half, then tincture the second half. That gives you double the variety and still plenty to drink/hand out.

Additionally, I would recommend not wasting money/time dry hopping. Habanero overpowers the smell. I doubt any hop aromas will come through.

Thanks for the info. How do you make your tincture? Also I don’t bottle I keg, any ideas on how much to add and when.
Thanks

 

[fendersrule]

The amount you tincture doesn't really matter because you will be controlling how much tincture you add.

I just get 10-14 habs, cut the steems/green off, slice them in half, put them in a medium-large size jar and fill with low-medium quality shelf vodka. Let it soak for a several weeks.

You'll know when you've extracted everything with the habs turn yellow-white. This takes over a month to happen.

The amount you add depends on the volume you add to, how long you left the tincture to age, your spice tolerance, how much habaneros you have, and how hot the habaneros are. There isn't a one-size fit all here, and that's the beauty of it because you are in control.

I can tell you that my "large sized jar" lasts for about a year, and I've used it for a few ciders/beers that I wanted to spice up. It goes a long ways.

IN GENERAL, you can use 1/4-1/3 cup of aged tincture for a 3 gallons if you want it spicy. But YMMV. I say this to only give you an idea how long it may last you. Once you have the tincture, it's not something you're going to run out of often.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

What about using dried habanero?

 

[fendersrule]

I would think tincture would work good with dried habanero too.