Newbie tries dangerous capsumelomel recipe, ISO feedback

[malenkylizards]

I'm a newbie [post #1] to homebrewtalk, and a newbie to mead, and here because I could really use some feedback for a strange mead, my second batch. I'll be starting this Friday.

Proposed ingredients:
10 pounds raw Pennsylvania wildflower honey, straight from the source
5 pounds mangoes
Uncertain number of habanero peppers [But I'm thinking 1-2 max]
Uncertain amount of raw ginger root [probably 1-2 tbsps]
Uncertain amount of black peppercorns [probably 1-2 tbsps]
Wet champagne yeast
5 tbsps yeast nutrient
acid blend
fill to 5 gal.

I think it'll be called Pepper Yer Mango.

Questions:

Should I add pectic enzyme, especially given the rather fibrous, starchy quality of mangoes?

How should I process the mangoes? I'm buying them tonight, plan to freeze them, and the day before brewing, chop 'em up and blend them to get them as liquid as humanly possible, and probably strain the resultant liquid through either a sieve or cloth. With my first batch, a very sweet blackberry mead, I really just mashed 'em up some, and I was really disappointed at how much I lost in the lees.

And then of course, there are the quantities of spices to be addressed. I started loving the combination of heat and sweet after I made a cayenne-cinnamon fudge a couple of winters ago. Thing is, I'd like it to be balanced, and more to the effect that I'd like a pleasant, gradual burn in your throat shortly after drinking, with the first onset of flavor being primarily sweetness. I've seen recipes of people using five POUNDS of habanero, and I do not understand how this could possibly be tolerable by anyone. My dad, a dude generally fond of capscicum peppers, found a 5-gallon pepper ale untolerable after he added only seven habaneros to it. My tolerance, and the tolerance of the folks I'd be sharing my mead with, is likely rather lower.

I'd also like to know how you'd suggest I process the peppers, peppercorn and ginger root. I tend to think I probably shouldn't cut the peppers at all, given I so far have a propensity to make strong meads [the champagne yeast I'm using has a alcohol tolerance of 17%, and my first batch was at *least* 13% two weeks into it, probably higher because I think the large quantities of fruit bulk skewed SG readings pessimistically], and I would think that the higher the alcohol content, the more efficiently flavors from the peppers and ginger will be extracted. I'll start out with adding them tied up in a sterilized, loose cotton mesh stocking, and I'm also unsure as to when to take them out.

That's about all I can think of to ask right now, but keep in mind I'm a newbie. If I don't mention something that seems important, I'd sure appreciate your pointing it out!

Thanks so much, fellow yeastpooplovers,

Phrank

 

[malenkylizards]

UPDATE: Just went to my local Asian supermarket, and I went a little pepper happy. No habaneros, everything I've read here since this morning has scared me away from them.

My inventory to choose from:
- Several large jalepenos
- A bag of dried cayenne peppers - interesting note: I love crushed red and cayenne powder in food, consider it quite tolerable, this ain't nearly the same as just chewin' on a dry one! That was a fun, scalp-sweating endeavor.
- About a dozen little vietnamese red peppers - I think these are similar to Thai peppers, to the point that when this old asian guy behind me in line at the checkout saw me with this bag of peppers, he started chuckling, "ohhh boy, you'd better be careful! Those are HOT!" Now, I ate the cayenne pepper for the same reason I afterwards ate the vietnamese pepper, because I want to get an idea for the flavor each might impart to the mead. The cayenne pepper was uncomfortable, but certainly doable, and given that the Thai pepper is much higher on the Scoville scale, I was...nervous, but determined. ...wtf, it was barely half as hot as the cayenne! Not sure if this is due to my built up tolerance, having just chewed on a cayenne. They had a nice flavor, though, I think it could handle a couple of those.
- Just for curiosity's sake, a couple of what I had seen on the same scoville scale, rather higher up, a couple of Jamaican hot peppers.

Anyway, I'm now thinking it would probably be best to have something more like two cayennes and two "vietnamese peppers." [I suspect, by the way, that this is an Engrish misnomer] What do you guys think? I want an fairly balanced bouquet of the ginger, chilis and black pepper; if anything, the chilis should be in the back, and I still want to taste the honey and the mango. I like a sweaty scalp and a runny nose, but I don't want my mead to do it. Think a cool sweet drink with a light, residual burn as an afterthought.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Those "vietnamese peppers" sound like bird's eye chilis. They are generally hotter than cayenne, but there's all kinds of range in there depending on crop conditions, handling, any number of things.

Are those Jamaican hot peppers scotch bonnet? If so, they're pretty much interchangeable with habaneros.

I would on the one hand go for a variety of peppers to get the most interesting flavor, and on the other hand want to use peppers that regionally make sense with mango - the scotch bonnet and the bird's eye. Both come from cuisines that use both extensively, and I'd expect them to play fairly well with each other.

I would chop the mango before freezing, 1) because it'll freeze faster chopped up and break up more and 2) cutting around the seed of a frozen mango sounds like a recipe for an ER trip to me. I generally don't bother pureeing fruits because it's impossible to sanitize your blender/food processor, and the size of the pieces affects (in my understanding) the speed of extraction more than the completeness of it - and I'm willing to wait.

I'd add all of this in secondary, but I'd add the mango long before adding the chili. It's probably only going to need to sit on the chili for a couple of days, and you don't want to be in a situation where you're waiting for the mango flavor to develop, but the chili is already where you want it, plus you'll want to match the chili to the mango.

So I'd do the mango first, let it ferment out, let it sit on the mango for a good while, rack it, age it til it's ready to go, then add the chilis and keep a close eye on how it tastes. As soon as the chilis are where you want them, get them away.

That's how I'd approach it, but I haven't used peppers before except in cooking.

 

[Revvy]

Oh my god...

This puppy may need a long time to mellow.

 

[malenkylizards]

@Leprechaun:
I was thinking they might've been bird's eye, maybe. The problem with the Asian market is the english signs are all very vague. There were a bunch of potted plants of various sorts in the front of the store, and the sign simply said "PLANT." Same uncertainty goes for the Jamaican pepper.

I'm nervous about the Jamaican pepper; if I'm scared of habanero, I should be scared of Jamaican pepper/scotch bonnet. I liked the flavor of the cayenne pepper a lot, and the bird's eye, and they're both not *too* hot, so if I have just a couple, they shouldn't overwhelm, I think. What I think I'm gonna do is, between now and pepper-adding time, mix myself up a little blend of honey and mango juice, and experiment with adding tiny bits of various peppers, so I at least have an idea as to how they go with the must.

Thanks for the advice on timing, I hadn't considered that. But why add the mangoes at secondary? I would think that the more sugar the yeasts get from the get-go, the better [plus, sounds like a lot less work for me; less pasteurization, etc., to say nothing of hoping to keep the environment closed as much as possible to reduce my risks]. I will definitely add the peppers in secondary, though, but I'm also not sure of the advantage of adding them as late as you're suggesting [around six months, I take it]? If the pepper flavor is going to need to mellow, shouldn't they be added and removed also relatively early in the process, albeit agree-edly after the mangoes are where they ought to be?

And re: pureeing, I was going to pasteurize the must as a whole at about 160-ish degrees for 20-25-ish minutes anyway; given that, is there any way it would matter if the processor wasn't sterilized? I wanna liquefy the stuff more so I can get the maximum amount of drinkable liquid; I'd hate to chuck all those pounds of slightly alcoholic mango bulk :'(

Thanks for all yer advice; I do want to err on the side of caution. Incidentally, I noticed you're in Rockville, I'm a Baltimoron; maybe a taste test's in order, and I'm certainly looking to network in the local homebrewin' community

 

[malenkylizards]

Oh my god...This puppy may need a long time to mellow.

Well, again, I don't want to overdo it. Have you worked with pepper/ginger in your booze? What kind of amounts would you suggest?

 

[Revvy]

Grated ginger I've used up to 4 ounces in a 5 gallon batch. My use of peppers has been limited to using dry (chili powder and Cayenne) and I think I used a tsp of each in my chocolate mole porter.

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

I have little brewing experience but here is my 2 cents...

This sounds awesome! As far as the ginger goes I have made 4 different batches recently with ginger in them. None of them are done yet. I have used between 1 and 6 ounces per gallon. So far in my 3# honey/gal mead with 1 oz/gal in it has almost no ginger flavor but I expect it to come out with age. My "barkshack" which I only used 4# honey and 3# corn sugar with about 12 oz ginger (5 gal batch) tastes like ginger ale. I made a ginger beer 5 gal batch with 6# cane sugar and 2# ginger and it is more like Barretts, it has a strong biting flavor to it. My other batch is too young to really taste.

Ok so that is my super long winded ginger report. I think that if you are making a high alchohol content mead that you need more ginger than a lighter one.

I have also noticed that powdered ginger sometimes has Sulfer Dioxide in it, probably a bad thing but I'm not sure.

I have been thinking of doing a mead like this too, it sounds great. I might just go 2-3# honey per gallon and use a slice of habanero.

Most people don't know about it but there is a rare SE Carribean pepper that is much hotter than Habenaro/Scotch Bonnet. I grew one in a 1 gallon pot and it used a gallon of water per day. The oil will blister your skin if you touch it!

Revvy, that Chocolate Mole Porter sounds killer!

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Thanks for the advice on timing, I hadn't considered that. But why add the mangoes at secondary? I would think that the more sugar the yeasts get from the get-go, the better [plus, sounds like a lot less work for me; less pasteurization, etc., to say nothing of hoping to keep the environment closed as much as possible to reduce my risks]. I will definitely add the peppers in secondary, though, but I'm also not sure of the advantage of adding them as late as you're suggesting [around six months, I take it]? If the pepper flavor is going to need to mellow, shouldn't they be added and removed also relatively early in the process, albeit agree-edly after the mangoes are where they ought to be?

I like to add fruit in secondary because it preserves more of the aromatics of the fruit. Primary fermentation is so violent, it'll knock a lot of that stuff out (if you can smell it coming through the airlock, you're losing it). By adding the fruit after the honey is fermented, you'll get a smaller fermentation of the fruit, so you'll get to keep more of the aroma. It's maybe a little more work, but not noticeably so - I rack all my meads to secondary anyway, so adding fruit in secondary is easy.

As to adding the peppers late - mostly I'd want to let the mead sit on the mango long enough to get a solid mango flavor, so however long that takes, that's as long as it takes. It'd be difficult to remove the peppers without removing the mango, and mango has a milder flavor than the peppers, so I'd want that in place first so I know how much pepper flavor to aim for. Mellowing the pepper flavor is part of the aging process, so I wouldn't factor that in to my carboy time, except as bulk aging.

And re: pureeing, I was going to pasteurize the must as a whole at about 160-ish degrees for 20-25-ish minutes anyway; given that, is there any way it would matter if the processor wasn't sterilized?

If you pasteurize it after pureeing, yeah, I suppose it doesn't matter if the processor is sanitized. I just think pasteurizing is a pain This is another reason to add the fruit in secondary - if you're making a mead and your abv is already about 12%, your odds of getting any kind of infection from the fruit are negligible.

Thanks for all yer advice; I do want to err on the side of caution. Incidentally, I noticed you're in Rockville, I'm a Baltimoron; maybe a taste test's in order, and I'm certainly looking to network in the local homebrewin' community

Hell, I'm game! At some point in the near future, I'm planning to brew a beer with chipotle, maybe we could do a pepper-swap

 

[Tusch]

I currently have a 1 gallon batch of capiscumel with 2 habaneros and 2 sarranos, yes it will be hot and take a long time to mellow. It was designed as a nice sipping brew, hope it turns out as intended haha.

 

[malenkylizards]

Leprechaun:
Removing the peppers shouldn't be a challenge at all. My plan is to coarsely chop the peppers and shred the mango, and put 'em all in a tied up, sanitized stocking. Largely because there's so much mango, at least 5 pounds and likely more [and I *can* add more mango if it doesn't seem to already be strong at secondary time], I'll be adding it in with the honey, as it can all be sterilized. I'll let it ferment two weeks, then rack into a carboy and add the peppers. I figure I'll take a little sample weekly, and when it's peppery enough, I'll just stick some sterilized tongs in and remove the stocking. Oh, I realize just now it might be a nice idea to tie some kind of buoyant thing to the stocking so it doesn't sink to the bottom... Anyway, I'm gonna have four cayenne-strength peppers in there, and I don't think they'll do too much damage within a week.

That chipotle beer sounds rad! As for my tastin' stuff, I'll be bottling my blackberry mead sometime in early-to-mid May. It's my first one, very simple, and it'll be bottled a *liiiiittle* bit early, as I'd like to bring a bottle to a special occasion, if you know of Playa Del Fuego. It'll be six months old in June, which I understand is when stuff starts to get drinkable, but I figure it should still be pretty decent by festival time. The challenge I anticipate is saving some for the year-old date.

@Mr Friendlyman:
These ginger brews sound pretty nice. :-D I think I'm probably going for a more conservative ginger flavor than you, just because I want it to coexist with other flavors, mango, cayenne and peppercorn [to say nothing of honey]. I'm thinking if after some time, any flavor seems underwhelming and doesn't seem like it's going to improve, I can always add more, right?

And actually, as hottest peppers go, the hottest one is grown in and around India, it's called the Naga Jalokia and is potentially as hot as TEN habaneros!

@Tusch:
Lemme know how that goes :-D What kind of proof do you anticipate? I would hope something that CRAZY hot would be very strong as well, and it could be just as happy if sipped by itself or as part of a cocktail.

 

[Revvy]

And actually, as hottest peppers go, the hottest one is grown in and around India, it's called the Naga Jalokia and is potentially as hot as TEN habaneros!

@Tusch:
Lemme know how that goes :-D What kind of proof do you anticipate? I would hope something that CRAZY hot would be very strong as well, and it could be just as happy if sipped by itself or as part of a cocktail.

Whoah, I just googled it (it's spelled "Jolokia" btw.)

It has a scoville ration of 1,041,427!?!?!?!

One seed from a Naga Jolokia can produce sustained intense pain sensations in the mouth for up to 30 minutes before subsiding. Extreme care should be taken when ingesting the pepper and its seeds, so as to not get it in the eyes. It is used as a cure for stomach ailments. It is also used as a remedy to summer heat, presumably by inducing perspiration. [11] In northeastern India the peppers are smeared on fences or used in smoke bombs as a safety precaution to keep wild elephants at a distance.[12] [13]

 

[malenkylizards]

Whoah, I just googled it (it's spelled "Jolokia" btw.)

It has a scoville ration of 1,041,427!?!?!?!

Oops, my bad

Yeahhhhh that's pretty much still hot at 1 part pepper to 2^20 parts water. Thaaaat's probably going to deter elephants as much as humans, yep.

 

[Revvy]

Yeahhhhh that's pretty much still hot at 1 part pepper to 2^20 parts water. Thaaaat's probably going to deter elephants as much as humans, yep.

You know, the first time I read it I thought it said that they were smeared on feces and burned to drive off elephants...I thought that would be one toxic cloud...

 

[Tusch]

Mine will be in the 17.5-19% range so yes it will be strong as well. It will be bulk aged for as long as I can take it, then bottled in as small of bottles as I can find and then enjoyed like a nice sipping whiskey, or perhaps the base for one kick ass martini haha.

 

[malenkylizards]

@Revvy: The trouble with that is it could attract dung beetles, who would then mutate into horrible fire-dung beetles...They smell like **** AND burn the hell out of you. Doomsday scenario, a la divine plagues! OH NO!

Mine will be in the 17.5-19% range so yes it will be strong as well. It will be bulk aged for as long as I can take it, then bottled in as small of bottles as I can find and then enjoyed like a nice sipping whiskey, or perhaps the base for one kick ass martini haha.

Small bottles, like airline shots?? That'd be a shocking stocking stuffer, it would. :-D

Not that this is legal or anything, but that could be hella interesting if it were distilled...any history of folks making booze out of mead?

 

[Tusch]

There are currently a few honey liquors available. I know of one german that appears to basically be a distilled mead, but these days a lot of them are honey flavored brews.

 

[CBBaron]

Not that this is legal or anything, but that could be hella interesting if it were distilled...any history of folks making booze out of mead?

You distill junk (corn, potatoes, rotten fruit, leftover, etc) you drink the good stuff (wine, beer and most definitely mead). Since honey is a very pure and expensive sugar I can't imagine many people would waste it by making a mostly tasteless distilled beverage out of it. The honey liquors you will find are distilled beverages sweetened with honey.

Now you can distill mead but it would be a waste.

Craig

 

[malenkylizards]

You distill junk (corn, potatoes, rotten fruit, leftover, etc) you drink the good stuff (wine, beer and most definitely mead). Since honey is a very pure and expensive sugar I can't imagine many people would waste it by making a mostly tasteless distilled beverage out of it. The honey liquors you will find are distilled beverages sweetened with honey.

Now you can distill mead but it would be a waste.

Craig

Hmm, I suppose that makes sense...drat!

Hmm, but what about fortifying it, a la port? I just figure that if you don't need a lot to burn your tongue off, you shouldn't need a lot to get tipsy either :-D But I'm not coming up with any suitable booze to add.

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Barenjager (sp) huh... Good stuff.

I just googled those Jolokia peppers, those are whet I grew out! The carribean has a lot of Indian influence so that makes sense. I bought the plant at the rasta farmers market and I remember them having a big discussion as to whether you should even eat this pepper, lol. I'll never forget how it felt when I ate part of one, it was bad, very hot. (nice flavor though) You could eat a habenero after eating one like it was nothing.

Be careful with the peppers, I tried two different chili beers the other night after reading this and they were just too much. Of course that is why mead would be great, it is more for sipping.

 

[sbuczkowski]

I have a capsicumel that's about ready to bottle. I put in 2 habaneros, sliced large, for the gallon batch. Recent taste tests have some kick but far from fatal. I would guess that 2 peppers in 5 gallons would be underwhelming.

This was one of my first batches so I was working fairly simply: honey, water, yeast, nutrient and any adjuncts added at primary. So far, I'm pretty happy with the way it is turning out. I'm planning to replicate the recipe with some of the knowledge I've gained since starting the first but, I will pretty much stick to the original ingredients especially the 2 habaneros/gallon. I might even increase that to three/gallon.


steven

 

[malenkylizards]

Pepper Ya Mango is all tucked in for two weeks of vigorous fermentation.

Ingredients:
- 10 pounds Pennsylvania wildflower mom-n-pop honey
- 5 pounds champagne mangoes
- Filled to five gallons with water
- Pasteur Champagne yeast (red star)
- 2 1/2 tsps pectic enzyme
- 10 tsps acid blend [to bring it to 0.6% acidity]
- 5 tsps yeast nutrient

SG as of 4/4/09: 1.120

Pureeing the mangoes, so far, seems to have been a very good move, along with the pectic enzyme. Everything's very smooth, scarcely any bulk was seen while we racked it into the primary fermenter. Plan is to let it ferment for two weeks, and then rack into a carboy and add two cayenne peppers, a tsp or two each of ginger and black peppercorn, tied up in a stocking. This way I can taste on a weekly basis until it seems to be peppery enough, then remove.

In other news, I racked the blackberry mead...interesting technique discovered! Was having a ***** of a time priming the siphon, tried a number of things. Eventually, was given the clever idea of holding a small shopvac's hose right over the recieving carboy's mouth...SLOOOOORP!!! Got started immediately, from a dry siphon. Should've tried that in the first place, no priming necessary. My girl and I gingerly sipped a sample glass and it's...hm. Tart, some residual sweetness but plenty of dryness. *very* strong blackberry flavor, and quite strong alcohol content. SG after three months, which I can assume to be final gravity, 1.000!!! From an OG of 1.121 at the start, my charts suggest it's at about 15%. Anyway, there's also a certain unpleasantness, both in the taste and in the nose, that I'm not sure if I can simply attribute to it's youth [three months old]. I don't really know what it should and shouldn't taste like at various points of its life cycle.

A question for you guys about this'un. I plan on bottling shortly before memorial day weekend, and I'm wondering what kind of guidelines I should go on for clarity. Prior to racking, there was about an inch and a half of lees at the bottom, but the top was clear enough that when a flashlight was shined through, you could actually see, in sharp detail, the halo of the light. It seemed like there was still a haze. So, what should it look like, when it's ready to bottle? I want to know if I should add Sparkalloid two weeks before bottling.

 

[Tusch]

Well the often used line is, clear enough to read a newspaper through. And I generally do just that, hold up some text on the other side and see if I can clearly read it without any blurriness even on the small text. Now that doesn't always work, since some wines and meads will just be too dark to do that. When I made my blueberry apple wine, I held a lamp to one side, and determined it to be clear when I could read the wattage specs on the light bulb on the other side. Having said that, no harm in adding a little sparkalloid as a backup a week or two before bottling.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

If you're bottling it still, I think you should wait as long as you possibly can to bottle - reason being, it'll mean less yeast sediment in your bottles, and with a still mead there's no need to have any sediment.

That's maybe not practical advice. Procedurally, I tend to think about still mead as using wine techniques and sparkling mead as using beer techniques, at least generally. So I would rack a still mead after primary fermentation, then after two months, then again after two months, until it pretty much stops throwing sediment.

But I'm a pretty patient guy.

 

[Tusch]

I'm not a patient guy, but I let my brewing occur where I can't see it. This lets me rack it one day and not look at it for weeks or months at a time. No patience doesn't matter if its outta sight outta mind.

 

[malenkylizards]

Blow,

Would that I had your patience! I have one reason in particular I want to do it before memorial day weekend, and that's a little regional burn, Playa Del Fuego, which is very dear to me, and for whom I would really love to have a bottle to share with people. It'll be five months old at that point, it's already at tertiary, and I'm thinking it should be sediment-free, with a little Sparkalloid if need be.

I have another reason that I can't be *too* patient in general, and that's room. I've only got two carboys and a plastic bucket, and if I *did* have more, I'd be very hard-pressed to find a place to put more. That means each batch is going to be waiting on the previous batch being bottled.

Now, I've been led to understand that six months is plenty of time for mead to clarify, but if it's not, well then I'll just have to help it along with clarifiers, or else I'll have to do 'em less frequently. The final product is what's most important, and if at five months, the blackberry mead's not ready, it'll have to wait til next year's festival.

 

[Tusch]

Well bottle it as when it is crystal clear and you can't wait no longer for an open carboy. But just at that point, leave the bottles elsewhere. You can still age it in the bottles, it just has slightly different outcomes than if you had bulk aged it. You can still age it for 6-12 months, just make most of them in the bottle.

 

[malenkylizards]

Slightly Concerning Update: Vigorous fermentation's happenin', blorp blorp. However, you guys know how mangoes have a very sweet taste with just a faint hint of something funky in there? It would appear to me that when they're fermented, that slight little quirk that adds character to a sweet, delicious fruit, turns into an overwhelming putridness, kind of like rotten eggs.

I know mango meads and beers and wines are out there...I'm hoping these beverages don't turn out to be like durians; unbelievably delicious to some, unbelievably putrid to others. Anyone here ever tried it, or know what the chemistry might be behind that smell, or if it's normal and will tend to clear itself out as fermentation slows and the drink ages, or if there's anything I can add to counteract?

It's about 50 hours old so I'm trying not to freak out about it but WHOO!

 

[Tusch]

Well rotten egg smell is based on sulfur which is a very common smell from fermentation. Have you been adding nutrients based on a staggered schedule? If so, I'd be surprised by the smell, if not add some nutrients. The sulfur smell could be from a lack of nutrients for the yeasties and adding a bit more could help calm them done.

All and all, I think it has nothing to do with the mangoes so relax and grab a homebrew.

 

[malenkylizards]

Yeah, it does smell like sulfur, and I've had another nose agree...the thing is though, I guess there's a faint sulfurous smell in mango, though I would never've called it that before, because it's that ignorable.

I added 5 tsps of nutrients prior to pasteurization, didn't stagger it. It's the same technique I used before to success and no smell...which means little as one batch is so different from the other, of course. I can try adding more, and what more would you suggest it needs? But humor me, say the smell is a byproduct from the mangoes...how could I save the batch in that case?

 

[bobsacks]

I saw in Tusch's sig from another post that he was brewing a Habanero mead so I started looking for threads on it. I think I might have to give it a go in a couple of months when local peppers are ripe.

I saw above that you guys were talking about Jolokia peppers. I am a bit of a hot sauce nut and I actually grew some Jolokia peppers last year. I ended up dehydrating about five or six of them and it ran me out of the house. I had to move my dehydrator to the back porch.

There was also an incident where I didn't wash my hands very well after handling them before I went to the bathroom. That caused lots of excitement.

 

[malenkylizards]

I saw in Tusch's sig from another post that he was brewing a Habanero mead so I started looking for threads on it. I think I might have to give it a go in a couple of months when local peppers are ripe.

I saw above that you guys were talking about Jolokia peppers. I am a bit of a hot sauce nut and I actually grew some Jolokia peppers last year. I ended up dehydrating about five or six of them and it ran me out of the house. I had to move my dehydrator to the back porch.

There was also an incident where I didn't wash my hands very well after handling them before I went to the bathroom. That caused lots of excitement.

Bob, I enjoy a handful of hot-n-spicy nuts as well as the next guy, but I think you might be a more enthusiastic aficionado than most!

 

[malenkylizards]

alright, that sulfur smell didn't linger at all. The next day, I went home and the smell was pretty much gone. Just a nice cool smell of mangoes, honey 'n' alco-ma-hol. w00t! Happy easter, homebrewers.

 

[malenkylizards]

H*l*m*t*e*f*c*i*g*h*t*u*e!

OG (4/4) = 1.120
SG (4/23) = 1.002(!!)

Chart indicates 15.5%! Just racked it into secondary and added two ounces of chopped ginger and four small cayenne. Larger amounts of spice and higher alcohol content than expected after less than three weeks mean I'll be tasting it tomorrow to make sure it doesn't get out of control.

I didn't even taste it and I'm kinda woozy.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

H*l*m*t*e*f*c*i*g*h*t*u*e!

OG (4/4) = 1.120
SG (4/23) = 1.002(!!)

Chart indicates 15.5%!

That's the champagne yeast right there.

 

[malenkylizards]

That's the champagne yeast right there.

Sure, but my previous batch used champagne yeast and it took more like three months to get that proofage. I think it's more due to the dry yeast.

I tasted it yesterday and tasted it today, all of five minutes ago. Oh, my tongue feels deliciously strange, not so much a burn but a tingle, almost cinnamony. I pulled the spices out, as it MIGHT be just the perfect amount of subtle right now. Most prominent tastes are the sweet tartness of the mango and the slight tingle of ginger, hard to tell if cayenne is in there at all. If anything, when I rack it into tertiary I might add a few more peppers and let 'em chill for a week or so, but I'll give it some time to mellow first.

And in other news, Sparkalloid is cool. Gonna try and upload a picture of my blackberry as it's gorgeous.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

I tasted it yesterday and tasted it today, all of five minutes ago. Oh, my tongue feels deliciously strange, not so much a burn but a tingle, almost cinnamony. I pulled the spices out, as it MIGHT be just the perfect amount of subtle right now. Most prominent tastes are the sweet tartness of the mango and the slight tingle of ginger, hard to tell if cayenne is in there at all. If anything, when I rack it into tertiary I might add a few more peppers and let 'em chill for a week or so, but I'll give it some time to mellow first.

That sounds like a good idea to me... you can always put some new stuff in there if it needs it.

Isn't mango one of those foods that is chemically weird? I know it's related to poison ivy, and that smoke from mango wood is toxic, but I can't recall if the fruit has anything weird about it.