Experimenting with Peanut Butter Flavoring

Most people will avoid extracts like that, honestly.

I have a "house" Chocolate Porter that I make twice a year roughly, it's a pretty popular beer among friends and family. I've on occasion, added PB2 to the beer at flameout, and again in the fermenter. It's a powdered real peanutbutter that you can mix in with a little boiled water, or even some beer, and add back to the carboy. Give it around 2 weeks or so, crash it down to make sure it all settled and package it.

Plenty of good subtle nutty aromas, and a nice peanut butter layer into the beer. It's a fairly good blend, but I did find over time it will fade, like coffee does; albeit faster.

So at this point, if the beer is brewed, you can add some PB2, and let it go for a little while. The other option, is, use that extract and add it to your bottling bucket to taste.

My opinion, if the beer is expensive for you to make, I'd skip adding anything to it. Chocolate, coffee and peanut butter in a porter sounds a little odd.

 

There is a brewery around Cleveland that makes a killer PB porter (Willoughby brewing company) and it won a gold medal at the world beer cup last year. The brewers wont say how they got that flavor into the beer however, rumor has it they use peanut butter flavored coffee not crushed (I dont know when they add it). I have not tried this method but other breweries around Cleveland have and it turned out pretty close.

http://www.flavoredcoffee.com/peanut-butter-coffee.html

 

I brewed a peanut butter cup beer a year ago. To get the peanut butter flavor, I racked on top of two jars of PB2 in secondary. PB2 is a peanut "butter" in which all of the oils have been extracted, so it is actually a powder. The PB flavor was subtle, but what I was looking for. I researched the forums and found out this was safe to use in a beer. I have never had good luck with flavorings, so I would advise against it. PB2 is natural, and I highly recommend!

 

"2 jars" is a very poor way of telling someone how much to use.... They sell different sized "jars" some people...

 

It's like you've been waiting 18 months to burn him. that's some patience, man!

 

more! 20 months. wow

 

Sick burn . . . 20 months later . . .

 

respect the burn !!

 

Your hesitation is warranted. You said expensive porter. Experiment on small batches, or even in the bottle or glass. Scale your experiments up when they are successful. Save on costs and don't leave yourself in a position where you have a bunch of sketchy experimental beer that you and your friends have to drink so that you can learn this lesson.

 

A friend of mine has experimented a lot with developing a peanut butter beer and swears the extract is way better than PB2. Tasting his results I would have to agree, it was very good.

 

Yes, some flavor extracts produce very good results. Others produce artificial crap.

 

I have made peanut butter beers (light beer, Munich Helles base, not porters) a couple of times, and they didn't last long. It was a favorite with everyone who tried it. The Brewer's Best extract is FAR better than PBW. I added a whole 16 oz jar of PBW to a five gallon batch on etime, and I could hardly taste it. I ended up having to add a bottle of Brewers Best to it as well. It also created a huge layer of thick sediment.

For light beers, one and a half bottles of Brewers Best (total 6 fluid ounces) gives a nice rich peanut butter flavor. I've never used it with porters.

 

Question on the pb2

Do you just add the powder to flameout and/or secondary, or do you need to mix it with water, then add it? Would like to try it.

 

The PB2 has already been sterilized. What I did is take out about 3 liters of boiling wort just before the end of boil, and added it to a small pot containing the PB2. I then stirred it with a whisk until it was creamy, and later added it to the carboy through a funnel. Make sure you take the S.G. of the wort before adding the PB2. You will end up with about 2-3 inches of thick sediment, including the PB2.

As far as taste goes, you can barely taste the peanut butter from one 16 ounce jar of PB2, and it doesn't taste very peanut-buttery as well. I think most of the taste must come from the oil that was extracted. Perhaps 2 jars might do it, but I never tried that much.

Basically, I wouldn't recommend using PB2 - too expensive, too little flavor, wrong flavor, and leaves a lot of sediment. I would strongly recommend using Brewer's Best peanut butter flavoring instead. Just guessing, but one 4 fluid ounce bottle is probably equivalent to at least two 16 ounce bottles of PB2. And it really does taste like peanut butter. For a light beer, and if you really want to taste the peanut butter, I would use 1-1/2 four ounce bottles for 5 gallons. For heavier beers, like porters, I would use at least two 4 ounce bottles.