Hello,
I thinking of working up a Pecan Porter (Clown Shoes has a pretty good one), and was wondering if anyone has ever worked with this addition. Interested in level of roasting, was addition to Mash or secondary (I read about people doing each), and amount used.
Thanks
Jeff
I made a pecan pumpkin brown ale. I pureed 2 pounds of pecans into a paste (with my Cuisinart) and added that to the mash towards the end of the boil. But I would recommend an extra step to remove more of the oil. If I were to brew this again, I'd bake the pecan paste to extract the oil before adding the paste to the boil, plus this would also give a roasted flavor to it as well.
Nanc
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/ah-nuts-using-nuts-brewing-140666/
The thread I posted seems pretty informative about various methods to accomlish this. My opinion would be to roast them then chop to a dust and soak them in vodka or another liquor for a while to create an extract and add to your taste in the keg or before bottling. I would imagine that most of the aroma and flavor chemicals your looking for would disolve in the vodka nicely and carry over to your beer just what your looking for, there's just a lot of fats and proteins in nuts to deal with that you dont want in your beer, and I think using a spirit as a vehicle to disolve oils and and whatnot and transfer that to the beer will result in a clearer, more flavorful, more aromatic result. I would thing adding them to your mash would cause some of the flavor components to be boiled off or otherwise muted. I've never done a nut infused beer, so I defer to experience, like Chirocky, who's known to make great beers and has experience in this arena.
Thanks Joe and Nanc, appreciate the input. Based on Nanc's style and the varying approaches in the HBT link, seems I just need to decide the direction I want to try out.
If you could, let us know, which method you choose and how it turns out. Good Luck!