Beer Forum

I'm curious about adding chili peppers to an amber ale. Any one have any suggestions?

DJdissapointment wrote:I'm curious about adding chili peppers to an amber ale. Any one have any suggestions?

What kind of chili and what is your threshold for heat?
I would probably go with some dried smoked ancho powder and some fresh serrano in that sucker!
But that's just me!

The best pepper beer I've had was made with ancho peppers and just enough to barely pick it up in the aftertaste. You don't want it to stand out, just accent and make you thirsty.

Because I wouldn't want to risk a whole batch, I would probably go with the vodka infusion method and dose to taste at bottling/kegging.

The following method has won me awards:

9 jalapenos per 5 gallons, chopped including seeds and all, soaked in a few ounces of vodka (just enough to cover the peppers) for several hours on bottling/kegging day, then add just the vodka and bottle/keg as normal.

Very simple and very effective.

dmtaylor wrote:The following method has won me awards:

9 jalapenos per 5 gallons, chopped including seeds and all, soaked in a few ounces of vodka (just enough to cover the peppers) for several hours on bottling/kegging day, then add just the vodka and bottle/keg as normal.

Very simple and very effective.

this is almost exactly how i do it, i use 6 instead of 9 though. have won awards with mine too.

I made a green Chili Amber ale about 2 years ago and it turned out fantastic. A bit of green chili flavor and just a touch of heat.

I made my amber ale, transferred to a glass carboy for secondary and then added 6 chilies that I had roasted, frozen, diced, and soaked in vodka.
Dumped in all the chilies seeds and all with the vodka and left it for about 10 days.

This method did seem to kill my head a bit but it was done with an extract batch so maybe this could be aided by a recipe adjustment.
Cheers

ive been playing with peppers with my mango habanero ipa im making right now. i tried grilling 3 peppers, freezing and adding them whole for 10 days. not very much if any pepper flavor/aroma. could just be the style of beer that i need more. i just cleaned out 4 peppers of seeds and capsaicin, grilled and froze. i will try adding those in the next couple days and see how that fairs. if all else fails i will do the vodka technique at kegging.

I find that Habanero has a very clean, mildly spicy heat. I have used it successfully in Saisons. Also, grilling them will remove a lot of the heat, if that's your goal, as does removing the seeds.