Submitted by kurtstenberg on Tue, 2009-12-08 22:17.
Well I have had the chance to pull of a 1.5 L into a 2L bottle and force carbonate. Other than a little more fresh yeast character that hadn't had time to settle out yet, the beer was quite pleasant. The peppermint as I thought was still slightly overpowering for my taste but I would not say for everyone's. I can still taste the beer in the background which seems to be a great dry stout. I have had the carboy in my garage now for a couple weeks and more yeast has settled and I am sure some of the edgy character will have dissapated in that time. I hope to Keg tomorrow and be back for a final update on the flavor analysis then so anyone who wishes to attempt this can have an idea of how much tea to use for their brew.
I agree that adding flavor to the secondary is the way to go. You could brew up the tea in say 2 litres water. Pull some beer out of the secondary, say 100 mL. Measure and add your flavoring to come up with the proper ratio. I recently did something similar with a blackberry porter. The first time I added to the primary and that was way too messy and hard to control the extra fermentation. ( I know that would not be an issue for you ). The second time I added the fruit to the secondary and It was way easier to come up with the proper ratio. I think I even ended the secondary fermentation with stabilizer and then added my fruit flavoring.
I think I might have tried adding the steeped tea to the secondary maybe. At the end might have been good, but the hi temperature might have driven off some of the aromas you were looking for. Not sure how delicate the aromatics would have been. Sounds good the the methanol taste might subside with aging.
Update on peppermint brew Dec 8 2009
Well I have had the chance to pull of a 1.5 L into a 2L bottle and force carbonate. Other than a little more fresh yeast character that hadn't had time to settle out yet, the beer was quite pleasant. The peppermint as I thought was still slightly overpowering for my taste but I would not say for everyone's. I can still taste the beer in the background which seems to be a great dry stout. I have had the carboy in my garage now for a couple weeks and more yeast has settled and I am sure some of the edgy character will have dissapated in that time. I hope to Keg tomorrow and be back for a final update on the flavor analysis then so anyone who wishes to attempt this can have an idea of how much tea to use for their brew.
Thanks for the replies!
Kurt Stenberg
flavoring beer
I agree that adding flavor to the secondary is the way to go. You could brew up the tea in say 2 litres water. Pull some beer out of the secondary, say 100 mL. Measure and add your flavoring to come up with the proper ratio. I recently did something similar with a blackberry porter. The first time I added to the primary and that was way too messy and hard to control the extra fermentation. ( I know that would not be an issue for you ). The second time I added the fruit to the secondary and It was way easier to come up with the proper ratio. I think I even ended the secondary fermentation with stabilizer and then added my fruit flavoring.
I think I might have tried
I think I might have tried adding the steeped tea to the secondary maybe. At the end might have been good, but the hi temperature might have driven off some of the aromas you were looking for. Not sure how delicate the aromatics would have been. Sounds good the the methanol taste might subside with aging.