Thinking of a festive brew with chestnuts. What d'you think?

[luke_tucker]

Hi all,

I've started thinking towards Xmas already, more for selfish reasons than for thoughtful gift ideas, but I'm contemplating going for a spicy winter recipe with roast chestnuts in too.

I know that anything with fat in comes with its problems, but I'm not particularly fussed about head retention as long as something tastes good.

Just wondered if anyone has any thoughts/experience/advice on using nuts?

Luke

 

[RobWalker]

Pour in at serving - http://www.whittard.co.uk/coffee/coffee ... edium=base

Just a suggestion - you are right about fat, i've no idea how much the flavour would transfer over though, how could you process the nuts? blend into a paste maybe?

would think about the recipe a lot too, high mash temp and lots of toffee malt with low fruitiness and bitterness could be a good plan :thumb:

 

[calumscott]

Fats can cause problems but it seems that it might not be quite the scale of problem that is commonly perceived.

Check out the Cock Ale thread in the legends forum - a chicken carcass is going to have a lot of fat and that turned out alright... alledgedly...

To get flavours to come across, you could try what the winemakers do - ferment down the base beer then add your pureed chestnuts for a secondary ferment, that way the vigorous first fermentation won't attack the delicate flavours, you'll stand a better chance of the nutty aromatics surving to the finished pint.

 

[cutnrun]

you can buy chestnut flour... not sure what flavours you would get from it though!

 

[luke_tucker]

Thanks Calum,

I was thinking along the same lines in FV2 - I'm doing a chocolate and cherry stout at the mo and going for that approach.

And thanks for the Cock Ale post, it actually links closely to another idea I had, cheers.

 

[graysalchemy]

Just found this on Jims

And this

 

[luke_tucker]

Thanks graysalchamey, good read.

Right, I'm up for it. Think I'll roast and mash some nuts, then roast more and bash up small to go in fv2.

Just need to get my hands on some chestnuts now - don't get many down here in Cornwall.

 

[jkp]

How did this beer turn out? I've been looking for a Recipe with a Chestnut addition so would be interested in hearing your experiences.