Using Mint

[Megalodon77]

Thinking about making a chocolate stout and adding some mint to it. We want to make the mint in the way the Moroccan mint tea is where the mint is not so over powering. Does anyone have any suggestion as to when, how long and how much mint we should add? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Abk]

Maybe soak mint leaves in a vodka of your choice to make a mint extract to add to secondary or perhaps just add mint leaves directly to secondary for 7-10 days. No experience doing that but i know a little bit of mint leaves go a long way when it comes to cooking so i would bare that in mind. Very neat idea! Excited to hear how it turns out

 

[FatsSchindee]

I did a mint chocolate stout two years back as part if a stout experiment (split 5 gal of stout into one gal jugs and added dif flavors to each).

I muddled and chopped up fresh mint leaves, and then soaked them and cacao nibs in vodka for one week, then pitched it all into one of the gal jugs with the stout and let it sit one more week before bottling.

Turned out really tasty. Slightly astringent from the leaves being in there for a week, I think, but that didn't detract too much from the overall flavor, IMO... Though next time I might only pitch the vodka extract without the leaves and see what that tastes like. I'd go this route, if I were you.

I don't recall off the top if my head how much mint I used (1/4 oz, maybe?) for the one gallon (not at home to reference my notes)... But if you want to know you can listen to the Basic Brewing Radio podcast from 3/6/14 - James interviewed me about the whole stout experiment on there, and I did discuss the recipes. [emoji482]

 

[shorestyle]

I brewed a mint chocolate porter about a month and a half ago. I used 10 pure peppermint tea bags in the boil at 10 mins and it turned out great. Very subtle. Great aroma. Didn't take away from the malt profile and didn't become prevalent until the finish. Highly recommend doing it this way.

 

[Megalodon77]

Thanks for the advice everyone