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Chipotle pepper dry hop problem

Northern Brewer General
#1

I am making a recipe with smoked grains and for a little kick at the end, it says you should “dry-hop” the beer with 3 chipotle peppers for the last couple of days in the fermenter. I cannot find chipotle peppers to save my soul within a two hour radius of my house, BUT I was able to pick up some fresh GROUND chipotle pepper. I am thinking of mixing some in some water and making a “tea” that I could add to the fermented beer. Two Questions:

  1. What do you think of this method? Would you do something different?

  2. How much ground chipotle pepper would you add to the beer that would be roughly equivalent to putting three whole chipotle peppers in the beer, then removing them before you keg?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

#2

If you’re worried about the powdered pepper ending up in the finished beer, you can either make a tincture with the pepper and vodka, then strain the vodka into the fermenter, or use a large paper teabag to hold the pepper and drop it directly into the fermenter then remove before bottling.

#3

If you’re looking to order whole chipotles, penzeys spices is a local store that also ships.
Here is a link to their chipotle selection:

http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/results.html

With ground pepper, i think you would get a higher transference of heat…so I would estimate down and maybe only use 1 to 1.25 teaspoons of ground in a fine teabag.

Like shadetree said, you could make the tincture, which would allow you to taste the heat of the whole addition and scale as need be.

#4

The chipotle peppers are a smoked pepper, so you get both smoky and hot (but not real hot). If you don’t want smoky, just use 3 jalepenos = no smoke and more heat.

cheers.

#5

[quote=“Fox”]I am making a recipe with smoked grains and for a little kick at the end, it says you should “dry-hop” the beer with 3 chipotle peppers for the last couple of days in the fermenter. I cannot find chipotle peppers to save my soul within a two hour radius of my house, BUT I was able to pick up some fresh GROUND chipotle pepper. I am thinking of mixing some in some water and making a “tea” that I could add to the fermented beer. Two Questions:

  1. What do you think of this method? Would you do something different?

  2. How much ground chipotle pepper would you add to the beer that would be roughly equivalent to putting three whole chipotle peppers in the beer, then removing them before you keg?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.[/quote]

I did a Chipotle Blonde recently and ordered Chipotles from Amazon. I’ve got Amazon Prime so they were on my doorstep in two days.

#6

[quote=“StormyBrew”]The chipotle peppers are a smoked pepper, so you get both smoky and hot (but not real hot). If you don’t want smoky, just use 3 jalepenos = no smoke and more heat.

cheers.[/quote]

1+ if you already have a smoked beer then the chipotle (smoked jalapeno) won’t be missed from the smoke malt base beer. I’d just use regular grocery store green jalapenos. BTW, most of time, 3 jalepenos in 5 gallons will add some jalapeno flavor and aroma and only mild heat if you don’t add the seeds. For my jalapeno cream ale I use 5 or 6 jalapenos for flavor and a couple of serrano peppers for heat. Even that is mild enough that almost anyone will still drink it, not just pepperheads.

#7

5-6 should be about right for 5 gallons. i used 3 with seeds in my 3.5 gallon batch of pale-a-peno and the mrs (our house pepperhead) felt it was just right. flavor and aroma…but too hot for my a$$.

cheers

#8

Might just do the jalapenos, since I have some homegrown in the freezer. Do I need to do anything to them before I put them in, besides wash them? Is washing enough? Would you slice them up, or just toss them in whole?

#9

We used fresh. Blanched them first, then cut them lenthwise in half and stuffed them in the carboy-secondary.

cheers

#10

I have made Jalapeno Wheat beer and Jalapeno Cream Ale.

If you want to use Jalapenos:
Chop the stem off
Slice them length wise in 1/4s
Clean out the seeds
Lay them on a cookie sheet and bake them for 20 min @ 350F
Let them cool and throw them into your secondary

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