French Pressing/Infusing Beer

Homemade version of a Randall - why not?

Could also add things to stouts like coffee beans, vanilla beans, cacao nibs, coconut, etc.

 

might lead to flat beer. If I was going to try it I would grind the hops.

You'd probably be better off making an extract from whatever hops you wanted to used and just adding a small amount of that to the beer. making hop extract is theoretically fairly simple (I say theoretically because I've never tried it, just thought about it).

 

french press the old hops cones. waste of hops if you ask me.

 

That's the clincher for me.

 

Almost forgot; Imgur comments if anyone was curious: http://imgur.com/gallery/Fziinqr

 

A brewpub here in Denver has been doing this for a while.

http://blogs.westword.com/cafesociety/2012/01/bull_bush_offering_tableside_whole-hop_infusions.php

It's interesting and it makes the beer really flat.

 

I am very curious if anyone has successfully infused using extracts (vanilla or whatever) into a finished beer? I had a vanilla rye and loved it. So it spurred me to go out an buy a bottle of real vanilla extract and tried to put it in a Central Waters Bourbon Barrel Stout. I started off with just a cap full. Smell was great, but no flavor!! So I poured another cap into it, full smell (WOW!) but very bitter flavor. Any ideas or if you have successful done so please share.

 

I think the problem is you are using extract, you would be better off using actual vanilla beans or vanilla bean paste.

 

Pure vanilla extract (not imitation) should work fine. I did it once for kicks. Actual vanilla beans would be pretty tricky to add to a finished beer.

 

There have been people that put a vanilla bean or so in a BCBS and recapped and drank the next day, you lose some carbonation but I guess it "worked"

 

I've heard soak vanilla bean in a bit of bourbon, add bourbon infusion to regular stout = bourbony, vanilla-y stout.

 

That makes sense.

 

I guess I read on the homebrewers they talk about adding the extract after the boil (yes, i know we are not brewing the finished beer) and figured the same concept could apply. Extract is the meat of the vanilla bean, the water from the soak, and alcohol. I think the bitter i am getting is from the alcohol mixing with the beer.

 

if going flat is the biggest complaint people have with it...could you just infuse with the press then pop it in one of those fancy new co2 cartridge equipped growlers (once they make them) that's been on kickstarter recently? i sure hope so, because i love me some 4 Hands chocolate milk stout with PB2 powdered peanut butter infused. luckily, they bottled a batch recently, but before then it was VERY limited on tap a once a year if we're lucky. i'd still like to make my own at home!

 

I put a vanilla bean in a French press with BCBS this weekend and it came out nice. I cut the bean up into chunks but didn't scrape out the pulp. I let it sit in the fridge for quite a while, probably 4 hours or so. Nice vanilla flavor but it wasn't huge. I only poured out about 1/2 the bottle, and BCBS isn't very carbed anyway, so that wasn't an issue.

 

Nuts.com- reasonable vanilla, or Costco

 

would hop pellets work for this? or would i need whole cone?

 

I didn't get any Bourbon County Coffee stout this year, but I plenty of Bourbon County. SO, why cant I randal some fresh Intelligentsia coffee into bourbon county to get my bourbon county coffee fix? I think this is a pretty practical solution to the problem...

 

This thread is mind altering to me. Instead of French pressing all the sweet and overpowering flavors in to your beer why not buy one of those malt based cocktails like margarita, cosmo or mikes lemonade or twisted tea? This is proposterous.
I am speechless. Yes I m one of those former chefs that said " we will not substitute mashed potatoes for your dauphinoise potatoes" just take some heady or substance or ghandi and throw some pineapple juice in there because its not tropical or fruity enough for me. You want these dark sweet heavy and well brew stouts to all taste like chocolate coconut candy bombs. What happened to purity man???? And appreciation of the artist and style???? Homebrew with lots of Belgian candy sugar molasses coffee coconut and whatever but don't kick the brewer in the nuts.
Thank the lord I can appreciate the sanctity of a well crafted lager. My god...
Edit: and I've lost all appreciation for DFH for producing the Randal. I guess you figured out your freaky fruity beers weren't bringing enough in.

 

Proposterous? Mind altering?

By "former chef", did you mean "former drama major"?