Adding peppercorns to saison or any brew for that matter?

I made a stonefruit and peppercorn mead with 3 oz. of barely cracked black peppercorns (like a 2 second pulse in a coffee grinder) added in the primary (no boiling) that had a great peppery flavor.

 

Definitely strongly in the forefront. I was making a peppercorn/stonefruit mead after all. Also I forgot to say that it was a 7 gallon batch, so that would be more like 2(ish) oz. in a 5 gal. batch

 

I have added peppercorns to a couple of saisons when in a blend with other spices. I'm definitely in the less is more crowd when it comes to spicing. For some nice complexity with other spices, I like 2g in 5gal.

 

Another input for your consideration: whenever I have made a Saison using 3711 I have achieved a very noticeable black pepper flavor. Maybe just use 3711 as your yeast?

Cheers!

 

Flameout with a good post boil steep, similar to a hop steep.

 

Bump! I'm adding a peppercorn mix (black, green, pink) to a saison I'm brewing and was wondering what is a good amount for a 4 gal batch to get a good but not over powering pepper flavor? I'm also adding corriander and orange peel so I would like it all to blend together in harmony. Yeast is WLP 565. I was thinking 1 oz of each flavoring at about 2 min or flameout should get me a nice mix does that sound about right?

 

It's difficult to recommend quantities of spices because we have no idea what your idea of the right amount of spice flavor is and the potency of "the same" spices vary quite a bit.

However,

1oz of corrander is not absurd. Some would be happy with half as much or less.
1oz of orange peel is not absurd. Some would be happy with half as much.

1oz of mixed peppercorns might be absurd. Mr Oh is happy with a scant 2g in 5 gallons and you are thinking about using 28g. in 4 gallons. Since you can add more post fermentation, consider reducing your initial amount of pepper by half or more.

 

I've never Brewer with them, but a brewery in Wisconsin called Furthermore makes, or at least made a sort of hoppy pale ale with peppercorns. It worked surprisingly well. Went really well with grilled meats.

 

My two grams is 2g ea of black, green, and pink, along with some coriander, cumin, and caraway, so there is a fair amount of spicing, just not a lot of any one thing.
Pepper does fade with time, so if you add too much, you can just wait a few extra months before drinking it.
You also have to think about the characteristics of the beer itself when thinking about the amounts of a spice. 1oz in a big chewy RIS might be what is necessary for it to come through. A saison tends to be dry, light and zippy, so it won't take nearly as much to make an impression.

 

Well I ended up making this Sunday and I added 1 oz of each of the spices to the batch. HOPEFULLY that wasn't too much peppercorns but it's too late now if it was lol. My efficiency went up 15 points thanks to some very helpful advice from the LHBS worker (shout out Doug at AiH!) to start mashing thicker and sparging with more water, and also use a mashout. Doing that got me to 75% efficiency and 1.082 OG instead of my calculated 1.066. So to compensate I added almost a full gallon more water which put me at 5 gals in the fermenter, so hopefully that 1 oz peppercorn in five gallons works out.

 

I prefer to add my spices after fermentation, in the form of a vodka tincture. Soak your cracked spices in a couple ounces of vodka for a day or two. Then add the flavored vodka to the racked beer a little at a time, stir and taste. If it needs more, add more. If it doesn't, stop. Then you never have to worry about overdoing it.

 

The thing about it is these are probably going to sit in bottles for a few months so even if it's initially a little overpowering, I'm sure that time will help smooth it out. That's my hope at least lol. The wort didn't have a distinct peppery smell to it, not that means anything, but that gave me a little hope there. I'll post an update once it's carbed and drinkable in a month or so.

I did use a tincture when I put vanilla beans in a few stouts that's a good tip to try it with spices though.

 

There's actually a Black Pepper Saison in the homebrew recipes forum that I made with good results. I think if I remember correctly there was 2 tsp of crushed black pepper added at flameout. A little goes a long way, but that adds a subtle peppery-ness that compliments the yeast well, IMO

 

I have always taken whole peppercorns and just cracked them up a little bit and thrown them into a mesh bag in the secondary.

Like most of these sorts of additions, I like doing them in the secondary in a bottling bucket, because I can frequently taste it and package the beer once I feel like the flavor is where I want it to be. Adding them earlier in the process would seem to remove some of that control.