I want to make a hazelnut beer (or other nuts), and thought extracts might be the way to go. After doing some research online, I found most said to make extracts of spices/nuts/etc by soaking them in vodka for over 4 weeks. Now this sounds good, but I was thinking, wouldn't boiling the same product produce a relatively similar extract? Would this method also work for fruits? My guess that by using extracts, (from vodka or boiling) you get more unfermentables that would lend themselves better to adding a specific flavor or aroma in the wort or in secondary. The reason I ask is I added marzipan for cooking in secondary, and the resulting marzipan aroma/flavor was practically nil, so I thought, if I make a marzipan extract, using vodka or by boiling it, would that add a more flavor and aroma? I don't have access to many extracts except online, so I'd like to make my own, but this got me to thinking about the value of using extracts overall. Has anyone tried either method and would it be good to use the resulting extracts in beers?
Boiling in water will not extract the volatile aromatic compounds the same way soaking in ethanol will. So no, they will not produce a similar product.
