Chilli in beer - any recomendations?

[Bugeater]

I'm drinking my chili beer right now. Lot's of chili aroma and taste but zero heat. I could drink this beer all night long it's really good. I tossed 4 small cans of diced fire roasted green chilies into the boil and then dry hopped with some coarsely ground dry chipotles. I do think it needs a bit more heat. I may try an infusion of chipotles steeped in tequila added to the keg to taste.

Wayne

[greglovesbeer]

I ended up boiling (5 Min) & seeping (15 min) a flayed thai chili in 3 cups of water. Then using variants on a 3cup firewater to 6gal IPA ratio, I made a couple samples from a full sail IPA.

I decided it needed more heat, so I took the 1/2 of the firewater and put the chili back in and seeped for another 15 min with additional red chili flakes. Took the new spicyer 1/2 and mixed with the less spicy half. Did another sample, liked the heat, and added it with the dry-hop.

7 more days and we'll see how it turns out.

[ColdBraue]

I had a similar experience to Bugeater's, a dude in my homebrew club made a chili beer with an intense nose and flavor but just a very mild heat. He roasted fresh peppers (lots of different varieties) and used those in the boil. I think the key to that intense flavor and little heat is to de-seed and roast the peppers. That will caramelize the sugars, break open the cells and drive off some of the capsaicin or at least break it down. Then add those chilis to the boil. For more heat, dry hop with a dried chili variety to avoid a vegetative flavor. My chili Scottish 80/- was screamin' hot and a little "green" in flavor due to fresh chilli dry-"chilli-ing". That's a "lot" of "quotes."

Cheers,
Greg

Yet again, WTF do I know?

[mediumsk]

I'm drinking my chili beer right now. Lot's of chili aroma and taste but zero heat. I could drink this beer all night long it's really good. I tossed 4 small cans of diced fire roasted green chilies into the boil and then dry hopped with some coarsely ground dry chipotles. I do think it needs a bit more heat. I may try an infusion of chipotles steeped in tequila added to the keg to taste.

Wayne

"roots" a brewery in my town has an awesome summer beer that is almost a reverse of yours, a nice subtly fruity kolsch, then you swallow and you get this heat that you feel rising from your belly to your throat, no aroma though. aparently they dry hop heavily with habeneros. you might try that method to dial up the heat without changing your recipe

[olllllo]

A few weeks ago at GABF, I had one of the best chile beers I had ever had. It was from Wynkoop, and we had it fresh at the brewery. Man that beer was good! It had such an INTENSE chile aroma - and then just barely perceptible flavor. I have no idea how they did that, but I am in awe. When I smelled it, I thought I was only going to be able to choke down a few sips - because I thought it was going to be intense heat to match the aroma. But it was just perceptible. I could definitely drink a few pints of that.


Mylo

They use fire roasted Hatch in the secondary. You get an amazing aroma that way.

[Junket]

A few weeks ago at GABF, I had one of the best chile beers I had ever had. It was from Wynkoop, and we had it fresh at the brewery. Man that beer was good! It had such an INTENSE chile aroma - and then just barely perceptible flavor. I have no idea how they did that, but I am in awe. When I smelled it, I thought I was only going to be able to choke down a few sips - because I thought it was going to be intense heat to match the aroma. But it was just perceptible. I could definitely drink a few pints of that.


Mylo

They use fire roasted Hatch in the secondary. You get an amazing aroma that way.

I had that same beer two years ago, and had the same reaction as Mylo. I'm looking forward to having it again when I head out to Denver for Thanksgiving. Do you have any more info about the Hatch chiles and how Wynkoop uses them? Typically the Hatches are green chiles - roasted and not dried. I have a bunch of these in my freezer - what do you think about defrosting some, chopping and deseeding, then dumping into secondary?

[olllllo]

Most of the information I have about this technique is from Tom Hart, a friend of mine that used to be the Brewmaster at Rio Grande Brewing in NM. He won a Gold at GABF many years ago for his version. We talked about the Wynkoop Chile beer over beers there 3 years ago. It was his opinion that Wynkoop uses a technique similar to the one he uses which i will detail below.

I use 8 Hatch / 5 gallon batch.

Hatch are a cultivator of Anaheim, generally regarded as hotter and having a bigger depth of flavor.

From my experience in the garden, Home grown are hotter and smaller. You'll want to get a feel for the heat index and the mass difference.

Roast the chiles on a BBQ grill charring the skins on all sides. Normally for cooking you'll put all the chiles in a paper bag until cool so you can skin them, but in this case we want the skins and stems and seeds because they will add aroma.

Keep the whole because then you have more consistency. If you dice them, you will always have to dice them the same way making it difficult to scale and replicate. Peppers are cheap, so you can adjust with more or longer secondary time.

If you decide to chop up the peppers, you'll obviously get more extraction and you'll have to rack carefully as to not get any pepper material in any bottles. Keeping the pepper whole, mitigates this problem.

Freeze all of the peppers. This will break the cell walls. Keep them separated if possible so they will be easy to drop in the secondary easily. If they get stuck together, you'll have to let them thaw to get em apart. I prefer to drop them in frozen to reduce contamination. The alcohol in your beer should be sufficient to stave off any wild bacteria.

I kept mine in for 10 days, but you should taste often for your own preference.

[greglovesbeer]

So I'm sipping on my results now. This was for a 5 gallon batch

1 Habenero
2 Serranos
2 Fresnos
3 Jalapenos

Split peppers in half. Left everything intact
Oven Dried the peppers overnight.
Bring Vodka to a boil
Remove from heat
Add peppers
Let seep for 30 min.
Refridgerated Overnight
Removed Chilis from vodka
add Vodka to fermenter after 7 days of fermentation

This added the heat exactly how I wanted. Back end heat rather than pepper "flavor". The amount of heat is nice for my palate, but my wife can't handle it. For most, at a minimum, I'd cut amount of all the peppers in half, at a minimum the habenero.

Good Times.

Cheers,
Greg