Was hoping to do a chestnut brown ale this weekend, and the kit calls for but does not include them. My wife cannot find any at her usual store. Anyone ever had to buy these, if so what store? I guess this may be an online purchase but that rules out brewing this weekend.
You can usually find them this time of year. I know I’ve seen them at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. If you don’t have either of those near you try your local specialty/natural/trendy grocery store.
I’ll check that out. Do you know if it makes a difference of raw nuts vrs roasted when brewing?
Asian markets / stores carry them too.
Does the recipe specify? Most chestnut recipes I’ve come across call for roasted, so if you buy raw you’d need to roast them yourself anyway.
Does the recipe specify? Most chestnut recipes I’ve come across call for roasted, so if you buy raw you’d need to roast them yourself anyway.[/quote]
If you have never roasted them before, punch a small hole in the shell with an ice pick or something, so the steam can escape…They make a pretty good mess when they start exploding!
No it doesn’t now that you mention it but it does say 20 min in the oven, so I guess that means I need raw or forget baking if all I can find are roasted.
The 20 minutes in the oven is roasting, so I’d just get roasted and save yourself a step. Let us know how it goes.
:cheers:
I’ve come across them in grocery stores in the produce section without looking too hard. They’re not all that exotic. Quite honestly, though, I think that using them in a beer would probably be a total waste of money. If you really want a noticeable nut flavor in your beer, seek out a flavor extract. That may sound like cheating, but I assure you, that’s all most any brewery would do. They’re just too expensive to use in quantities large enough to impart any real flavor in a beer. If you insist on using real chestnuts in your beer, I would strongly advise keeping the hopping level to a minimum so that the bitterness doesn’t overpower the flavor imparted by the nuts, which is probably going to be pretty subtle unless you use a huge amount of them. Likewise, use only enough caramel malt to augment their flavor, otherwise the nut flavor will be overshadowed by excessive sweetness. But I guess you’ll be using a kit, so these things will be pre-measured for you. It’s something to keep in mind in the future if you decide to design your own recipe, though.
I saw them last weekend at World Market.
I was able to find some tonight ( at the same store my wife couldn’t ). But yea its a 1 gallon all grain kit from The Brooklyn Brew Shop, never ordered from them before so I’ll probably do it per their instructions except for the fermenter, I got a 2 gal plastic pail for that.
Awesome! Happy brewing!
