Trying a macadamia nut brown, with real nuts...

[UncleD]

Diving back into homebrewing, with the winter months setting in, my wife and I thought a nut brown would be great.

We started with an extract kit for a regular nut brown, but we wanted to try adding macadamia nuts. From what I have read, extracts are encouraged for nut flavors over using actual nuts. This appears to be due to the oils extracted from the nuts ruining the head of the beer.

We decided we wanted to try it anyways, so we roasted the nuts and soaked them in vodka for a day. We put half of the nuts in the boil at the 5 minute remaining mark, and "dry hopped" with the other half.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this ends up turning out. Hopefully this will be getting kegged next weekend!

 

[devilssoninlaw]

Interesting..... keep us posted!!

 

[UncleD]

Kegged it a few days ago! Going to sample it this evening!

 

[RM-MN]

You probably need an independent sampler. What is your address?

 

[UncleD]

Definitely happy with how it came out, still a little green.

I was surprised that the macadamia nuts actually added more sweet then nut flavor. This is very much more of a "holiday style ale". But it's the holidays, so hey i'll take it!!

 

[UncleD]

After a few weeks in the keg, this beer really improved. The sweetness went away and the nutty taste became more prominent. Next time i'll probably age it a bit longer and wait to start drinking it. The wait is the hardest part...