BeerBorg

Been a few years, lost my recipe. Give a look over plz and tell me if it looks good, or should I change it. Tossing this around in me head, yea, I know, scary! Looking for a small amount of heat, not burning but it will be a winter warmer type brewski. I want the pepper to be the show, not the malt or hops. I'm thinking of just using a bitter hops boil to balance the batch, don't want aroma/taste of hops or malt. I want a *full* mouth feel, not a thin brew. Last time I brewed one, young, could barely perceive the pepper. 3 months later, had nice taste/aroma. I kept some for a year and wow, it would blow the top of your head off... LOL. I had added the pepper, couple slices to the bottle and boy, did it grow hot with time!! The peppers come from my garden. From my experience and from others that use my peppers, they are extremely HOT! For some reason, my garden soil gives me jalapeno peppers that are more like habeneros. HOT is an understatement. I cleaned some last night and my hands are still on fire, should have worn gloves.... LOL, I know better. It will be the first BIAB I've done in a long time, will be using the Cajun Injector I built years back from a thread on here. It can only mash at 150, unable to adjust to anything else, it adjust digitally but in 25 degree increments so 150 is the temp.

Thunkin: 3 gallon batch

mash for 60 minutes - 6.8 lb 2-Row (new brand to me, will start another thread on this)
same - 4 oz Cara-pils
FWH - .54 oz Centenial (not locked in on hops yet, will depend on what I have on hand when I brew this).
Jalapeno, seeded/de-viened (the peppers still bring a huge amount of heat but has great flavor)

For pepper amount, what do ya'll suggest? My peppers run average 4 to 5 inches long. There were a few threads some time back but I don't remember if anyone came back after brewing with peppers the amounts they used and what/how much it brought to the party. I do want to drink this christmas/new years time frame and into Jan when our temps are well below zero degrees. Should they be included in the mash or carboy? I don't want to put in bottle again (peppers), don't want time to increase heat level like it did last time. I'm thunkin it should be carboy for a week before bottling, after primary is done. I will bottle this, I don't want the pepper heat/aroma to remain in the keg down the road!.

If I remember correctly, I used 3-5 in a 5 gallon batch, seeds and all. I chopped then up and soaked them in vodka overnight and threw them in the fermenter along with the vodka.

I may have used a few in the boil and done the vodka soak with a week to go in fermenting. Unfortunately, I didn't take detailed notes (or I did, but not in my Google doc) so I don't have the exact recipe.

Final recipe, what say ya'll?

6lb 4 oz 2-row
10 oz Crystal 40L
10 oz Flaked Oats
4 oz Carafoam
1.62 oz Saaz @ 60 min.
US-05
3 peppers chopped, 2 de-viened/seeds removed, 1 with seeds/viens soaked in Vodka for 2 weeks and put in carboy at 1 week if primary is done. Bottle 1 week later.

Est. ABV 5.9%
Est. OG 1.061
IBU 33
SRM 7.3

Any/all comments welcome!

Looks good. Let us know how it tastes.

I'm sure flaked oats are fine, but I'll just throw out I think I would have thunk Flaked maize.

It would be good as an alternative to flaked oats.

mashani wrote:I'm sure flaked oats are fine, but I'll just throw out I think I would have thunk Flaked maize.

It would be good as an alternative to flaked oats.

Good call. I used what I have on hand. If I like this, I'll order some maize next time. I wonder..... ouch... I have access to lots of fresh from the field corn, or will have, harvest has not started yet, could I just crush this like grain and use with brews? Or is flaked maize malted or treated somehow?

I think you would need to cook the field corn to convert the more complex starches to sugars and/or simple starches. Once you do that you can throw it in the mash. Look up how to do a cereal mash if you've never done one, that's what you would want to do.

Flaked corn has already had a similar process done to it.

Finally transferred into bucket to ferment. Got a little higher OG than planned but I'm not complaining, should have been 1.061, came out as 1.063, close enough to make me happy! Nice flavor for blending with the peppers, can't wait to taste this winter. I'm hoping for some upfront albeit light up front pepper flavor with back of tongue all the way down the gullet warming. I think without the peppers this would still be a nice easy brewski.

Stuck to the final recipe, start to finish. The OG came in at 1.063 and finished out at 1.004. Gives me an ABV of 7.7%, not going to be a session brewski but will warm ya down to your toes! Very nice pepper aroma with a slight spicey (heat) back end to 'er. I think this is going to be the turkey day kick in da pants. My future son-in-law will be here, hope this knocks him on his arse..... hehehehe