Chipotle porter

[Zancudo]

Hi Lads,

Greetings from the Emerald Island!

Let me introduce myself.
I'm a mexican lad who's been living in Northern Ireland for the best of the last 8 years. I've wanted to make my own beer for years and just 2 months ago I took the plunge. I got a coopers starter kit with the included standard lager kit. I made every mistake possible but the beer turned out ok. I was initially unhappy with it until I had a bottled coopers lager which tasted extremely close to what I did. Everything worked fine in the end but that kit was just not my cup of tea.

I'm now drinking a John Bull porter and have a coopers heritage IPA in the fermenter (which from today's gravity test is tasting great.)

I have a question which is multipart so I'll break down the issues:

Being a native of the Sonora desert I grew up with the sweet elixir that is Bacanora (I'm a new member to the forum so please wikipedia it) living in ireland and drinking great whskeys I was blown away by strongly peated irish and scottish whiskeys that have that smokey flavour that I relate to the cactussy taste of Bacanora. Since I've had my first porter here I've been obsesed with the idea of a strong porter with a similar dark smokey (but-not-woody) flavour. The connection was immediately made: Chipotle chillies!!!!!!

I've read around the forums and am happy to read that it is not a new idea but rather common! Great news!
I want to do this properly so I have some doubts:

On my current kit porter I did an experiment to get a nice chipotle taste to it. I don't know if I did it right but the results are great:

I didn't want to ruin a full batch so I did a small experiment. I put just one chilly on a small jar to cure in whiskey for 2 days before bottling to kill any nasties (not sure if this really helps to avoid contamination). The whiskey (blackbush from bushmills) was a delight to drink afterwards. I cut the chilly in 10 parts and put the slices straight into 10 bottles. The result is a great beer with a nice spicy after taste that I am loving so now I want to make a full batch of it and make it better.

The whiskey tasted great, it had a VERY spicy after-drink effect but a very nice smokey chipotle taste during drinking. The beer is great and has a nice and mild after-taste spicyness but I feel that I've lost a lot of the smokey effect. My questions are as follow:

Do I need to do the whiskey-curing step or should I just drop the chillies in the fermenter? (I don't have a spare vessel so can't do secondary)

should this be done after fermentation is finished and if so for how long?

I wouldn't mind dropping the chillies with the whiskey (about 125ml) to a 23ltr vessel but would be worried if the alcohol content messes up with the yeast and prevents proper carbonation.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

As stated before I'm just a newbie and reckon I will be trying kits for a while before I know enough to take the plunge to AG which is my ultimate goal.

Cheers

 

[pittsy]

Hello and welcome to the forum , many here brew with chillies and such like . They will help out when they see your post Usually you can add spices after around 3 to 4 days from start and leave in fv for the rest of your fermentation (10 to 14 days total ) :thumb:

 

[joe1002]

Welcome to the forum :

I'm afraid I can't help you but as Pittsy says, someone should be along :thumb:

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

Welcome!

Not really a beer brewer, so I'll apply my wine-making knowledge.

Re. the whiskey, you probably can add it to the brew. 12.5cl of 40% bushmills will increase the ABV of 23L of beer by ~0.2%, so a 4.5% brew would become 4.7%, which I'm reasonably confident will not kill off your yeast. Bottle conditioning adds about 0.2% ABV to the finished brew, so you'd get a 4.9% porter at the end of it.

I have no idea what effect the whiskey will have on the beer's flavour, though since it's Irish whiskey it'll be much milder than using a Scotch single malt, and MUCH milder than an Islay whisky! It'll be safer than an Islay malt too: I once suggested using a dram in Caribou Blood, a Canadian cocktail of wine, whisky and maple syrup, and was promptly eviscerated by a certain other forum member who (justifiably) views Islay malts as the gods of all whiskies.

If you try it and find you want a stronger whiskey kick without upping the ABV, Talisker might be a good choice. It's from Skye and is similar to Islay malts in many ways, but you're not as likely to be disembowelled by irate Ardbeg worshippers :lol:

Irish whiskeys tend to be mild in flavour compared to Scotch whiskies, primarily due to two main differences in production: Firstly, Scotch whiskies are usually double-distilled, Irish whiskeys typically triple. Secondly, the malted grain used in Irish whiskeys is usually lightly peated, while the malted grain for Scotch whiskies tends to be more heavily peated, with Talisker and those from Islay (esp. Ardbeg & Laphroiag) being amongst the most heavily peated of all. Traditionally the malted grain used for whisky is dried using peat as a fuel source, resulting in a smoky flavour in the finished whisky, so the more heavily peated a whisky is, the stronger and more smoky the flavour - which might be what you want.

As an alternative to the chipotle chilli, what about using smoked paprika?

 

[Antony]

Sounds like you've had some success already. Personally I would look at using a highly peated whisky, as that will give a stronger smoky flavour relative to the spice.

Some BBQ people use something called liquid smoke to flavour their meat, maybe that could be a port of call. Also that Tennessee distillery (I won't swear) sell old whisky casks that have been chipped up to use on BBQ's. Maybe that could add an interesting flavour.

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

Some BBQ people use something called liquid smoke to flavour their meat, maybe that could be a port of call.

The liquid smoke stuff isn't pure smoke flavour, it includes lots of other things you might not want in your beer, such as soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and onions.

 

[Zancudo]

Hi All,

I really love this community and am happy I finally decided to become an active member instead of just reading through the archives.

As already mentioned, I had a partial success already. I only made the experiment with 10 (333ml) bottles as I wasn't sure if it would work and didn't want to throw a full batch down the drains. Now that it has I'm kicking myself for not doing the whole batch that way.

I appreciate all comments and replies. @Tim_Crowhurst don't get me started on peated whiskeys, If it is smokey I'll have all of it!

Regarding the smokiness of the final brew, I'm happy enough with using just the chillies. Chipotles are always touch and go. Even the canned stuff (sold in Mexico) varies widely in terms of smoke and spicyness. I happen to have a wee bag that is amazing in both accounts. My idea of 'curing' them in whiskey beforehand was to try to kill (or at least drunk out) any nasty microorganisms. Chipotles are sundried Jalapeños which are then put in bags with venting holes and shipped worldwide so I just wanted to make sure I would not contaminate my wort. Also, for the nice caramel-treacly taste of a porter I thought that whiskey would not alter the final taste in a bad way.

I have bottled a batch of coopers heritage IPA today and have brewed a John bull Ale. That should keep me busy for a week as I prepare for the next Chipotle porter.

This is my plan so far and any comments are again welcome:

Last time I had one chilly for 3 liters of beer. Simple math says I should use 7.6 chillies for the full batch of 23 liters. However, I did not drop the whiskey last time which was heavily flavored when I drank it after bottling. So:

6 chillies in 12.cl of Blackbush dropped to the FV (With the whiskey) about 5-6 days after brewing allowing (at least) another 6 days for infusion should do the trick. Right?

I'll report back once I get to taste it. Really looking forward to it!

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

The length of time you infuse the chillies in the whisky is worth playing around with. A longer maceration should give more chilli flavour for fewer chillies.

 

[Brewbob]

Hmm, you've got me thinking, I've just had a packet of mixed dried Mexican chillies from the South Devon Chilli Farm. That might be an idea for my next brew, and also coriander, in the style of that wheat beer which I can't remember the name of...