Tips on Adding Peppers to Homebrew

Fresh or dried, for their Jalapeno Saison, they add 1 fresh jalapeno pepper chopped up 55 min into the boil. Leave out seed/vein for milder flavor

 

10 12 oz bottles will get you a gallon. If you have a gallon fermenter, you're needing headspace in that fermenter and you're getting 8 beers out of this project. You can fill it to the top and the yeast will blow two beers out the top of your fermenter. Maybe they make them bigger for a 1 gallon batch? I really don't have a lot of experience with setup. I just know I see a lot of people brew with a 1 gal grower. It's funny to me. A 3 gallon fermenter is very forgiving. You don't have to fill it all the way up.

For the pepper, I'd devein and remove the seeds if you want to do fresh. It's easier to add heat later if you want it. Once it's there you'll have to wait for a long time for the heat to dissipate.

Peppers can go into the batch at the end of primary, or if you want to prolong the exposure, you can do a secondary. I don't think it would take more than a couple of weeks right after primary. I also wouldn't shy away from a ground pepper for a few days. A subtle chipotle flavor would mix well a red or brown ale. Maybe if you're getting into chocolate you'd look into a porter or stout. Lots of options here.

 

I do the 1 gallons, as well and @inchrisin is right about 8 or 9 bottles.

I didn't add peppers to the boil for my stout but I've got some fairly potent Chipotle flakes. I covered them in vodka in a very small tupperware. The tincture's got some real kick for the small amount and I'm also not sure when to add. I'm 3 weeks in come Saturday.

 

Anyone add peppers in the bottle? I've had pepper beers I liked and some I didn't but I've never had one I want 10 gallons of. How would it work if I bottled a few bottles off the keg and put some jalapeno slices in them?

 

I'll add 1 fresh habanyero for the last 10 minutes of the boil. I punch holes in the hab. small amount of heat but enough for me.

 

I prefer to soak them in some sort of tincture and use post boil.
With my imperial mole porter I made this past year I did two additions that I had soaked in a reposado in primary and then secondary. I still have some of the tincture, and it's fooking potent.
I suspect I'll put them down as a whirlpool for this years batch, and maybe play around with adding some of tincture on top of it to develop the heat a bit more.

 

So those of you that have used the dried peppers, did you just clean them with starsan, some of these, depending on source, are exposed to the elements i.e. bulk bins etc.