Pepper beer with Carolina Reapers?

[MaxStout]

I'm growing some Carolina Reapers, and would like to use some in a brew. I'm interesting in brewing a stout. These peppers are smoking hot (much hotter than Habanero), so I only want to add enough to give the beer a nice flavor and a little zing.

A couple questions:
How much pepper to use in a 5 gallon batch?
When is the best time to add them? Late boil addition? After fermentation?

 

[unionrdr]

My son's growing those, scorpions & ghosts for an IIPA we're gonna brew when they're ripe. A few in the late boil & some in secondary should do for heat & flavor, if I remember the previous discussion I started a while back?...

 

[brick]

From the couple of peppered batches I've done I was surprised at how much heat the beer took on. It's not "hot" in the normal food sense but it's the kind of thing that'll get you in the back of your throat. I'm used to really spicy food and those were only chipotles! This should be an interesting experiment.

I'd do one of those little firecrackers at the most, definitely without the seeds. I've gotten away with throwing peppers into secondary but tossing it in at or shortly before flameout would be better from a sanitation standpoint. The main advantage to secondary is that you can limit the pepper's time in contact with the beer to limit extraction. If it's in there for 4 full weeks I imagine you'll get the full dose of capsaicin. Best thing might be to do the flameout addition and somehow pull it out after a couple of days? Depends on how much heat you're willing to tolerate I guess. Like I said, interesting experiment.

You have a little control over the heat of your peppers since you're growing them. Water-stressed plants throw hotter peppers while happier, wetter plants tend to throw milder ones. Just throwing that out there FWIW.

 

[MaxStout]

From the couple of peppered batches I've done I was surprised at how much heat the beer took on. It's not "hot" in the normal food sense but it's the kind of thing that'll get you in the back of your throat. I'm used to really spicy food and those were only chipotles! This should be an interesting experiment.

I'd do one of those little firecrackers at the most, definitely without the seeds. I've gotten away with throwing peppers into secondary but tossing it in at or shortly before flameout would be better from a sanitation standpoint. The main advantage to secondary is that you can limit the pepper's time in contact with the beer to limit extraction. If it's in there for 4 full weeks I imagine you'll get the full dose of capsaicin. Best thing might be to do the flameout addition and somehow pull it out after a couple of days? Depends on how much heat you're willing to tolerate I guess. Like I said, interesting experiment.

You have a little control over the heat of your peppers since you're growing them. Water-stressed plants throw hotter peppers while happier, wetter plants tend to throw milder ones. Just throwing that out there FWIW.

I did sift through some habanero-based recipes here, and it looks like "dry-hopping" them is most popular. Some brewers would soak in a little vodka to sanitize, then dump it all in for a few days before bottling. I'll have to guess on the amount of peppers, but you're probably right about limiting to one, and removing the seeds. A little will go a long way.

I'd like to do a Mexican chocolate stout. I tried one at Copper Kettle in Denver, and it was stellar.

Didn't know about the watering thing. Interesting. We've had lots of rain this summer, so my peppers might be a little "milder," as a result.

I'm still going to handle them with rubber gloves. Damn things are almost scary.

 

[unionrdr]

Hot peppers also seem to like lousy ground to grow in. That is to say, in my experience planting them in soil that has a lot of clay & the like & putting them in the hole with some potting soil. Could be the acids in the clay & such makes then hotter as well? I used to grow cayenne, Hungarians & mild hots.

 

[unionrdr]

Talked to my son recently, & too much rain the first half of the season caused all but his devil's tongues to grow fruit. So I was wondering if those of you that grow ghost chilis, reapers, & scorpions could mail me a few of each? I could trade some beers for them or???

 

[Ale_Jail]

Old post I know but I hope someone notices it......

How did it turn out? I am looking at doing the same thing. I thought about a adding the reaper to a chocolate stout or something along those lines.

 

[Homercidal]

Old post I know but I hope someone notices it......

How did it turn out? I am looking at doing the same thing. I thought about a adding the reaper to a chocolate stout or something along those lines.

I did a Mango Habanero IPA a couple of years ago. I used 3-6 GRAMS of diced habanero in secondary to give it a nice warmth in the back end.

I can't imagine what a Carolina Reaper would do. It wouldn't take much to overpower the beer.

In fact, I doubt you could use enough to FLAVOR the beer, as it would get too hot by the time you put enough in to get the flavor.

Might make a nice novelty beer, though.

 

[tiredofbuyingbeer]

So a normal habanero has a Scoville rating in the 100,000s. Maybe the ones you buy in the grocery store have a bit less.

The Reaper has a Scoville rating of around 1,500,000, or about 15 times the heat of a habanero.

The Scoville scale measures detectable pungency at different dilutions of the pepper. So a starting point would be that you could put 1/15th the amount of Reaper that you would use Habanero to get a similar level of spiciness.

I'm planning to brew a mango habanero pale ale this weekend, and from what forum posts I've read, 2 halved peppers for a 5.5 gallon batch gets good reports. So you'd want 1/7th of a Carolina Reaper to get that level of heat.

My guess would be that at that concentration, you'd probably only be tasting heat and not the flavor of the pepper in the beer.

I did a Mango Habanero IPA a couple of years ago. I used 3-6 GRAMS of diced habanero in secondary to give it a nice warmth in the back end.

I can't imagine what a Carolina Reaper would do. It wouldn't take much to overpower the beer.

In fact, I doubt you could use enough to FLAVOR the beer, as it would get too hot by the time you put enough in to get the flavor.

Might make a nice novelty beer, though.

3-6 grams fresh, not dried, right? And what size batch?

 

[Homercidal]

3-6 grams fresh, not dried, right? And what size batch?

Correct. Fresh, diced habanero, wearing gloves and safety glasses (And still getting a irritated cough from breathing the "fumes"!)

I used 3 grams, on recommendation, in secondary. After racking, I found the level to be a bit low, so I added 3 more grams in the keg.

I'm not terribly fond of the flavor of jalapeno in my beers (not the stouts I've had them in, anyway) and I thought using habanero instead might taste better, or not much at all, and that seemed to be the case. Somehow I think it pairs better with a fruity beer than a roasty beer, but YMMV. I don't prefer a spicy beer over a non-spicy beer in any case, but the IPA was partially an experiment, and I wanted the IPA to kind of stand out against the other 9 IPAs in that "competition". (Some homebrewers were invited to server 5 gallons of IPA at a nearby music and beer festival, and the one with the most votes wins something. It was kind of interesting to watch people walk past a row of tables serving 9 different IPAs and seeing them sample them all. I don't think they will be doing that again!)

 

[tiredofbuyingbeer]

Correct. Fresh, diced habanero, wearing gloves and safety glasses (And still getting a irritated cough from breathing the "fumes"!)

I used 3 grams, on recommendation, in secondary. After racking, I found the level to be a bit low, so I added 3 more grams in the keg.

I'm not terribly fond of the flavor of jalapeno in my beers (not the stouts I've had them in, anyway) and I thought using habanero instead might taste better, or not much at all, and that seemed to be the case. Somehow I think it pairs better with a fruity beer than a roasty beer, but YMMV. I don't prefer a spicy beer over a non-spicy beer in any case, but the IPA was partially an experiment, and I wanted the IPA to kind of stand out against the other 9 IPAs in that "competition". (Some homebrewers were invited to server 5 gallons of IPA at a nearby music and beer festival, and the one with the most votes wins something. It was kind of interesting to watch people walk past a row of tables serving 9 different IPAs and seeing them sample them all. I don't think they will be doing that again!)

Sounds like a good idea. I'm going to brew a cloudy NE-style pale ale with citra and mosaic to complement the mango. The habanero is there because, well, it's the summer and that seemed interesting.

I plan on adding all of the fruit in secondary.

So the 3-6 grams are for a five gallon batch, right? Do you recall how many peppers that ended up being?

 

[Homercidal]

Sounds like a good idea. I'm going to brew a cloudy NE-style pale ale with citra and mosaic to complement the mango. The habanero is there because, well, it's the summer and that seemed interesting.

I plan on adding all of the fruit in secondary.

So the 3-6 grams are for a five gallon batch, right? Do you recall how many peppers that ended up being?

Like 2-3 I think but habaneros are kind of small. I used the gram scale that I use for measuring salts for water adjustments.

After watching Alton Brown work with peppers, I took up his suggestion on the safety gear. I can't imagine eating habanero raw. I think a carolina reaper would kill me in any shape or form.

 

[Ale_Jail]

Like 2-3 I think but habaneros are kind of small. I used the gram scale that I use for measuring salts for water adjustments.

After watching Alton Brown work with peppers, I took up his suggestion on the safety gear. I can't imagine eating habanero raw. I think a carolina reaper would kill me in any shape or form.

I got through 3/4 of a raw habanero...let me tell ya....not the smartest decision of my life haha.....I won't try that with the reaper. That being said, I do like to sprinkle some reaper dust on tacos, eggs, really anything. It's pretty good.

I guess I'll have to get a couple 1 gallon fermenters and experiment!