How hot is too hot?

Jalepeno Vodka? Jalepeno Beer?

So I had been planning on updating tonight about what I managed to get through last week: namely wonderful pictures/descriptions of how I racked the current beer in primary (India Red Brown Ale) to secondary. This was an interesting story because I used pellet hops, but not in a hop bag during the boil. But that happens every time we brew beer... today's subject is far more interesting... At least I think so...

Jalepenos. In a beer. A porter to be exact.

The question was how to do it?

I got a tip from another homebrewer. simply make some extracts, and them add them into the beer after the fermentation. His tip though, was to try it out on small scale before the big day.

So I went off to the grocery store for Phase 1 and picked out some different chiles to start off with.

#1: The Jalepeno:


#2: The Serrano Chile:

#3 Dried Chipotle Chiles:

Anyways... After picking out my three types of chiles I moved onto Phase 2: How to prepare the chiles to make the best extract. I figured I had two options for how to go about it. I could A) Dice them in a food processor, then put them in vodka and get an extract, or B) crush them up in a mortar and pestle (okay so I actually have one of these for food, not just science) and then make the extract. So for each of the first two chiles, the jalepeno and the serrano, I did both. For the dried ones I cut them up, and used whole ones to make the extracts.


Phase 3: Now we sit and wait for a couple weeks and then add them into some beer and do a tasting. Eventually I will be able to pick which type of peppers, how to prepare them and then how much to add per batch. I'll keep you posted!