Chili Pepper Beer

I have been home brewing for about 10 years now, and have had a couple of chili beers. how is this done? should the peppers go into the bottle and bottle condition, or could i throw the chilis in the secondary? i dont want to do it in the boil because i dont want to loose any heat from the chili. any help would be great. also, should i used fresh chilis or will dried be ok? i only ask becaus i want to do a ghost pepper beer and fresh pods are a bit pricy to get in western washington.
 
Jerret,

Hi homebrewer here in NC for the past 14 years and I made my first chili beer last summer. When I made my beer which was an American Amber I just brewed the beer and fermented it with no chili's at all. After fermentation I transferred to secondary and then I added chilis. I went to the grocery store that day and bought some peppers. I took 2 Anaheim 2 Serrano and 1 Jalapeno and put them on the grill for about 10 minutes or enough to char and blacken the skins. I then took them off the grill chopped them up so I could fit them in 5 gallon glass carboy and added them to the beer. I even left the stems on them too. I left the beer in secondary for a week then tranferred the beer to a keg. I didn't put the chilis in anything I just let them float. This was not an issue when I transferred to a keg. The beer turned out really good with a nice level of heat. It was not a my mouth is on fire heat but very detectable and pleasant. I and a few of my friends drank it and it turned out good enough that you could and they did drink a couple of pints in one sitting. I was pleased with how it turned out. What you need to watch out for with these beers is making it over the top hot so that you can at least drink the beer and it is not a glass of fire. I believe just using 1 habernaro would turn a beer into a really hot drink. I have never had a ghost chili before but given it being regarded as the or one of the hottest peppers I would be cautious as to how much of one pepper you use. Maybe start with a 1/4 of the pepper. You can always add more if you want more heat but you can't take it away. As for dried vs fresh I think dried would work but I believe fresh would be better but honestly it is your choice I don't think there is anything wrong with using dry chilis. As for adding chillis to a bottle I think leaving them in contact might make it mushy and the pepper would break apart after being in the beer for a long time. I would avoid that route if it were me.

Best of luck I hope this helps!
 
Thanks for the info. i am actually looking to make a very hot beer. small batch(2gal) going to go with and ipa so the bitterness will help bring out the heat a bit more. i think your right about the bottle thing. going to put one whole naga jolokia in the secondary and see how it finnishes. im hoping for 250,000+ scoville IPA. going to shoot for around 9%abv
 
At 2 gallons your plan makes sense then to make it as hot as possible. Mine was a 5 gallon batch so I didn't wanna overdue it for the volume that I had made. Ah yes an IPA my favorite style of beer. I agree the bitterness will add nicely to that beer. Hope it turns out well let me know how it goes.
 
I just made a beer here at my brewery with Aji Charapita peppers

1lb of peppers for a 7 bbl batch, which is 217 gallons, and there is still heat to the beer

I also took that pound of peppers, and did 2 different vodka soaks and rinses to the peppers to try to extract as much heat out of them as I could without crushing them or cutting them open.

If you were to poke holes in a single bhut, and throw it into 2 gallons, you would hate life itself after you drank a glass

no joking aside, it would ruin your entire day, and night for the matter once it came out

I threw my peppers into the fermenter after 8 days when I crashed it and did my second yeast dump. Since you are doing it on a homebrew scale, throw it in the secondary, but remember, its going to be obnoxious.
 
I just made a beer here at my brewery with Aji Charapita peppers

1lb of peppers for a 7 bbl batch, which is 217 gallons, and there is still heat to the beer

I also took that pound of peppers, and did 2 different vodka soaks and rinses to the peppers to try to extract as much heat out of them as I could without crushing them or cutting them open.

If you were to poke holes in a single bhut, and throw it into 2 gallons, you would hate life itself after you drank a glass

no joking aside, it would ruin your entire day, and night for the matter once it came out

I threw my peppers into the fermenter after 8 days when I crashed it and did my second yeast dump. Since you are doing it on a homebrew scale, throw it in the secondary, but remember, its going to be obnoxious.
well since i am a glutten for punnishment it sounds as if one bhut will do the trick. i am going for a new style FPA (Fire Pale Ale :)
 
Whoa, I just noticed your sig, Wheebz. You used to brew at Southern Tier? That's quickly become one of my favorite breweries since moving to WNY.
 
very cool thing i was in miami with wheebz,and on the shelf was some southern tier..

even better eating at darwins trying all his new beers.....




hay wheebz when you gonna come party ??
 
I recently had some Ghost Face Melter from Real Ale Brewing in Blanco TX. I was told that they added the pepper at the very end into the barrel (the beer was on cask). It was a strong mild on my personal scale, and this was from a single ghost pepper into a standard keg. If you add 2-3 into a 2 gallon batch that should produce some serious heat.
 
I talked a friend that homebrews into making a chili beer. We went with a sliver of habanero (no seeds or white connective tissue, just the orange fleshy part) per bottle. It was drinkable, but the heat made you want to drink to cool the heat, but that was just another mouthful of heat. It wasn't so bad as to make us throw it away, we eventually drank the 12 bottles we made, but we both concluded, beer was better without the heat. I think I'll stick with peppering meat and eating it and washing it down with a nice cold beer.

if you guys like chili-beer, go for it, but I'm one beer lover that will stick with a nice cool creamy Guinness.
 
Some of the brewers in San Diego brew with this a lot, primarily Ballast Point Brewing Company (Habanero Sculpin IPA). From what others have told me, they generally add the chiles once brewed but sometimes also during ferment. You can do your own experiments with a 1/2 gallon to gallon of brewed fresh beer, or a bottled beer for that matter.. For a half gallon of beer add dried chiles. I usually start with 1/2 to 1 superhot or 1-3 hab level. Let sit at room temperature for 3-6 hours then refrigerate. Enjoy once cooled. Ends up as liquid heat if too much, and just perfect when balanced properly. You could do the same thing with a pint, just scale back your chile quantity. Was able to spice some IPA with some Antilles last year and it turned out awesome! Liquid heat after a while but very good.
 
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