recommendations for a pepper to use in Milk stout

I've added anchos and chipotles to an imperial milk stout I helped a few others brew. It turned out excellent. I did an alcohol extract for ~ 4 weeks before the peppers were added.

 

Ive been wanting to put habaneros in a beer lately. Has anyone else tried that?

 

New to brewing myself but have already been working on using serrano peppers in my next milk stout. Just a touch of heat for those that don't enjoy the burn and a wonderful flavor profile.

 

Roasted Hatch New Mexico Chiles...only gold I've ever won (with a 44)...I think a milk stout is the way to go or at least something with a less attenuative yeast with a little sweetness to balance the approachable heat. Next up for me...a chocolate chile beer in the not too distant future.

Great article in Zymurgy on chile beers. (sorry, forgot which issue) Good luck, companero

 

I brewed a milk stout with ancho peppers once. Tasty!

 

I could see something like a pasilla working well (more flavor than heat) though if your after a bit of heat and flavor pequin is a good choice

Any pepper can be good, especially if you use large quantities to get lots of pepper flavor, and you can minimize the heat by soaking it alcohol and scraping off the inside of the pepper. The link below talks about how to do it. It works really really well, Ive made salsa using only habaneros that people love because of the amazing citrus flavor the peppers have, which most people dont notice much due to the burning sensation

http://www.instructables.com/id/Remove-the-Heat-of-a-Pepper-not-simply-de-seeding/

 

No the extract is probably not necessary. We did it (and I recommend it) so you can add to taste at bottling/kegging time. We did not want a beer that was super insanely hot. As it turned out, we wound up adding all the pepper potion to the batch anyway, and it wasn't too hot... but the idea is still a good one. Despite all of this, no, you don't need to make an extract - just choose the amount and style of peppers you use wisely.

(And if you are thinking of a stout - I highly recommend chipotle - the smoky flavor from good chipotle peppers are excellent.)

 

do you want:
-spice
-flavour
-smoke

peppers will give you some of the 3 characteristics, so what are you looking for? decide, then choose your pepper accordingly.

 

I split a batch of porter once, half to bottle plain and half to age on chocolate, cinnamon, and 1 x Poblano and 1 x Anaheim. Bother were cut up into large pieces and roasted in an over until they started to develop black spots on the skin. Added to the secondary and racked the beer on top. After conditioning for a couple weeks, the heat was way too much and pepper flavor dominated.