Pepper and Cocoa Nib Addition Technique

[briangaylor]

We are about to scale up a pilot recipe to the 20bbl system and wanted to see how people are adding chili peppers and nibs to a fermenter?

We will be unitanking this batch until it is kegged off.

We were going to add both nibs and peppers after crashing the yeast out and keeping them there until we get the flavor we are looking for (hopefully within a week).

Any last minute advice for how to get them to circulate in the beer (we may recirc like we do for a dry hop if we are crunched for time) without plugging up any ports? We are assuming we will need to put them in a bag of some sort as they wont crash out like hops? Any last minute advice (deseed the peppers?, crush the nibs more? etc)


Thanks!

Brian

[Brandjes]

We “sanitize” our nibs in vodka at about 1oz per lb. Bag them and secure so the bag doesn’t sink to the bottom. The sanitation process helps extract the flavor and aroma


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[briangaylor]

We “sanitize” our nibs in vodka at about 1oz per lb. Bag them and secure so the bag doesn’t sink to the bottom. The sanitation process helps extract the flavor and aroma


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Do you secure before filling the fermenter or do you somehow do it after? The only idea we had was a fishing line type setup that suspended the bag from the dry hop port and hopefully the string isn't enough to cause a pressure leak or air ingress...

[Brandjes]

Our fermenters are little (4bbl) but we have a 3 or 4” port on top and a cap that has a ring welded to the inside. Tie it off with appropriate length nylon line, sanitized of course.
We add our nibs at 6 days in, same as dry hop. We don’t recirc. Again... smaller tank, but we get good results


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[briangaylor]

Are the nibs heavy enough to sink themselves in fermentation temp beer?

[brianbackfire]

Place in a bag in a brink and flush beer back and forth between the tank and brink over a couple days. Should do it


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[Swags]

liquid cacao

we tried nibs and didn't get a lot of flavor. then we got a liquid cacao product that was pretty awesome.

it's just water and nib powder in solution.

good luck

[GlacierBrewing]

we tried nibs and didn't get a lot of flavor. then we got a liquid cacao product that was pretty awesome.

it's just water and nib powder in solution.

good luck

I had really good results using the liquid Cocao product. Just added to the brite tank and carbonated. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Prost!
Dave

[briangaylor]

I had really good results using the liquid Cocao product. Just added to the brite tank and carbonated. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Prost!
Dave

If you are happy with your source/vendor do you mind sharing? Was it trial and error with the dosing or did they provide a good baseline to start with?

Thanks!

Brian

[GlacierBrewing]

If you are happy with your source/vendor do you mind sharing? Was it trial and error with the dosing or did they provide a good baseline to start with?

Thanks!

Brian

Sure Brian,
The company and product are called Cholaca, https://cholaca.com. They provide pretty good direction on dosing. My customers all really like this beer. 👍

Prost!
Dave

[UnFermentable]

We “sanitize” our nibs in vodka at about 1oz per lb. Bag them and secure so the bag doesn’t sink to the bottom. The sanitation process helps extract the flavor and aroma

Just as a heads up, Vodka is not really a great sanitizer. It will probably reduce the amount of bacteria or organisms to a degree, but alcohol really needs to be 60% or higher to be considered an effective sanitizer in most cases. So anything over 120 proof would be much better. However, Vodka is quite effective at extracting flavors. I have done it with whisky with good flavor results but the same is true. It is only 80 proof or 40%. Grain alcohol or 70% ethanol would probably be better choices. Here is a good link with info on disinfecting with some common chemicals.

https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection/disinfection-methods/chemical.html

I have used the nibs with good results in general, but would opt to try the liquid cacao over nibs. Nibs will sink in the beer. We hung our additives (nibs, coconut, oak chips, ect) in the fermenters by a nylon string and nylon bags in the past, through the dry hop ports. If you use a thin enough string and lay it over the gasket, it should seal fine. We spund tanks, so they were able to hold pressure. Of course it is even easier when you have the welded loop as Brandjes said.