Brewing with white peppercorns.

My mother-in-law recently returned from a two week trip overseas and was lucky enough to walk through the many streets and alleyways of Morocco where fresh herbs and spices were readily available for purchase. She emailed my wife and asked if I wanted any particular spices for brewing.....of course I was jazzed at the thought of using some of the highest quality spices available in the entire world. I requested cinnamon, saffron, and, of course, white pepper.

The white peppercorns she brought back are a thing of beauty. I've never smelled a cleaner, richer, and more enticing pepper aroma in my life and I'm trying to decide how to use them in a beer. (Side note: the cinnamon is so incredible I don't even want to ruin it by putting it in a beer.)

I'm looking to brew a Saison.....something close to 4 Hand Brewing's Pyrus, which is one of my favorites from them. I emailed them for some info and they said they add whole white peppercorns with 10 minutes left in the boil. Now, I seek advice from you fine brewers, has anyone here brewed with white peppercorns? If so, what style? How did you utilize them? Ground? Secondary? Boil?

I think I'm going to follow the response from 4 Hands and go with whole peppercorns at the end of the boil but I wanted to hear about other experiences while using this spice....mainly quantities. I brew on a 10 gallons system and I was thinking about 2 grams (whole) in the last 5 minutes along with the whirlpool would be plenty.

Simple 10 gallon all grain reciple:
10lbs Pils
9lbs White Wheat
1lbs Flaked Wheat
OG 1.054
Wyeast 3711 French Saison Yeast
Mash low - 149F - for maximum attenuation and boil for 90min to get rid of that undesired DMS precursor.

Bittered to about 12 IBUs using Pearle hops (love the minty/spicy/floral/earthiness of these hops)

I then plan to add 3lbs of organic peach puree once I'm down to about 1/3 of the original gravity. Once my FG is reached, half of this will go straight to a keg and the other half will go into a small wine barrel that I have stowed away which is riddled with Cantillon bugs from 100% Kriek Lambic.

Comment away, let me know what you think and recommend any and every detail that may help this crazy idea of mine turn out excellent!

Cheers,

Kyle

 

Just for clarification, my mother-in-law was in Morocco so she bought the highest quality white pepper at cost in a street market - so its much fresher than one can purchase in the states (I'm not springing for the high dollar stuff in this case). She was able to procure a giant bag of white peppercorns for very cheap. High dollar in quality, probably, but this is cheap in comparison to what I would probably pay otherwise for a much drier and less extractable spice from my local market. This is a statement I make with no intent to belittle yours. I may just be overly excited to brew with extremely fresh spice haha. MrOH, after reading your posts in the lemon zest thread I can do nothing but agree. Heat does drive off aromatic compounds, which is why so many top notch IPA producers put an insane amount of hops in at the end of the boil/when the boil is done.

I now plan to add my spice, in this case white pepper, the same way I add much of my aroma hops, floral honey, etc.....anything I want to play a huge role in the aroma. I'll kill boil, chill to 170F, kill my chill cycle, and continue to whirlpool for another 10 minutes with the pepper, and possibly aroma hops (more Perle), for another 10 minutes to steep the peppercorns like they were tea leaves. Begin the chill cycle again until I'm down to knockout and pitching temperature.

Now, my question leads into the peach puree that I plan to add. Should I down the amount of wheat that I plan to have in the mash per *reverseapachemaster's post and then compensate with an extra 3lbs of peach puree (the cans that this organic brewer's peach comes in are 3lbs each) so my final alcohol content isn't so high? I want the peach to be there, but not so prominent that it overtakes everything. How about this:

10lbs Pils
5lbs White Wheat
1lbs Flaked Wheat
OG 1.043 (without the lbs of peach)

I don't mind this beer thinning out to absolute nothing as far as body goes...1.001 would be phenomenal, but I don't want the amount of residual sweetness to be outdone by the alcohol content that the yeast produces once the peach sugars have been consumed entirely. Perhaps 3lbs added at partial fermentation and 3lbs more added in secondary once all the yeast is gone?

 

Unless I were to be adding a disgusting amount of black pepper, which could possibly turn the beer a different color (or more likely make it undrinkable), I have no reasoning behind using white pepper other than the fact that it is my favorite peppercorn available, and that I had a means of scoring it extremely fresh from a spice market overseas. I think white pepper melds well with the French Saison yeast, from past experience of drinking beers made with the two.