Chili Beer

[Dan H]

I am interested in making a Chili beer. I was planning on adding roasted jalapenos post fermentation, only I am not sure how much to use per barrel.
Any suggestions?

[Laughing Dog]

ChilI Beer

Dan,
When you say Roasted Chilies, Do you mean dried or a green chili that is roasted?
We make a chili beer but use dried peppers that we grind up and add into the fermenter prior to fermentation, the cellar guys hate me but it makes for a unique flavor. I use 11 pounds of dried peppers (3 different kinds) per 15bbl batch

Fred Colby
Laughing Dog brewing

[Valleybrew]

A real simple way to add chili pepper flavor is to make a chili tea or extract. Simply get the chilies of choice and chop them coarsely. Bring water to boil and remove from heat, stir in chili pieces, cover and let steep for 30 minutes. Cool the resultant extract and strain through cheesecloth. Add the extract into a sanitized keg, pressurize keg, counter pressure fill keg with desired "base beer" and your in business. You will need to experiment with how much extract at what strength goes with so much beer. I usually use a small graduated cylinder for the extract and blend with a pitcher of the beer I plan on blending it in. A little sample tasting, scaling up extract qty and your in business. Be careful tho..as you "test" your taste buds will get somewhat used to the heat and your final blend might be hotter than you planned. I use 4 - 6 smoked/dried chili varieties in my beer blended with an amber or gold ale.
Good Luck

[GeorgeJ]

i'm still yet to try a chilli beer i actually like.

any reccomendations?

[Dave Suds]

Chocolate chili stout

I made a wonderful chocolate stout once and before bottling i placed a half dried serrano chili in each bottle (without seeds) then bottled as usual. No infections and the beer was smooth with a perfect balanced bite. Chili and chocolate really go together well. It was a small batch (500 L) so the hassel placing the chilis in the bottle was´nt a problem.
David Meadows

[tariq khan]

best chilli beer

My vote for the best chilli beer is at Siebenstern in Vienna Austria, don't know if
they still do it but it was lovely.....

T

[beertje46]

i'm still yet to try a chilli beer i actually like.

any reccomendations?

Amen! I never found one suitable for drinking but GREAT to cook with.

[GeorgeJ]

Amen! I never found one suitable for drinking but GREAT to cook with.

surely easier to cook with A beer, and A chili?

theres some things i feel should be kept seperate - beer extinguishes chilli burn, so why mix the two in a beverage?

but im sure theres plenty of people out there who genuinely enjoy drinking it...

[Valleybrew]

We serve ours each Cinco De Mayo, I only usually produce 1/2 BBL, it usually sells out that day. I'm not a huge fan of spicy beers but I feel if you wisely chose your peppers I prefer lots of smokiness) and keep the heat to a minimum ( I prefer more of an after late flavor heat) and pair it with a beer that has some residual sugars the result can be quite pleasing. As far as cooking with a chili beer....why even waste the time to make it, just add the beer and chili separately to the dish. Just my .03 cents..

[beauxman]

Yeah, not a fan of chili beer but having done one once (not my idea) I second the motion for creating a "tea extract". I did just that and found it to be the way to go. Go easy and remember you can always "dose" more. Stay away from any powders or other nonsense! (again, not my idea).
-Beaux

[tariq khan]

chilli burn

George how about Ginger ? your a big fan of using ginger aren't you ? I think if the beer is over the top "hot" then it's not worth it but getting some real flavor out of the chilli is quite nice

T

[Valleybrew]

I currently have a Holiday Lager on tap that utilizes fresh ginger. I added 16 oz. of fresh very thinly sliced/juliened fresh ginger into my hopback. It was a 7 BBL batch. The finished product carries a wonderful ginger nose and a detectable ginger "bite". It is a fairly high IBU beer (around 70). It also had coriander and a small amount of licorise root in the last 15 min. of boil. Finished around 9% ABV. So you can see the beer is quite large and that level of ginger still comes through, so be careful with smaller beers. It is a totally different heat than chili beer though. Much more subtle and middle of tongue than the chili beers I have done, which tend to be back of throat heat.

[GeorgeJ]

George how about Ginger ? your a big fan of using ginger aren't you ? I think if the beer is over the top "hot" then it's not worth it but getting some real flavor out of the chilli is quite nice

T

so long as i NEVER get ginger all over my hands again, i like the stuff

i'm not so sure about the flavour thing, everyone seems to stick Jalapeno's in chilli beer ive seen, which i dont really think holds alot of flavour, just the heat.
its a shame really because theres so many different varieties of chilli, some with really nice smokey flavours. that'd be nice