Homebrew Peanut Butter Porter Recipe
Before you even think of brewing this recipe, make sure you either have powdered peanut butter, or you have de-oiled your peanut butter. For the few people who really know me, I’m freakishly addicted to Reese’s Peanut butter cups. So much so that I can’t have them in the house or I’ll inhale them. With that said, I’ve been contemplating brewing a Peanut Butter beer for a very long time.
First things First, decide on your poison, PB2 (powdered) or real peanut butter. Real peanut butter was my choice, 16oz jar. My logic was a bit more work, hopefully a more “authentic” flavor. But what kind of peanut butter? Well, oil is bad for your beer, so you need a way to separate the oil from the butter. Natural organic peanut butter will separate on its own given enough time. I spent about 6 weeks separating the peanut butter, draining out the oil, capping, waiting, draining out the oil, capping, waiting, you get the point.
Once you get your peanut butter oil free. If you didn’t already know, oil will kill the head retention on your beer (no fruit in beer), but at the same time also acts a cell wall strengthener for the yeast. When I brewed this beer, there was ZERO krausen on the beer, but my air lock was spritzing out water like crazy. Usually the little plastic cap that bobs up and down as co2 is release, in this beer it just stayed up like someone turn the gas on. There was some remaining oil in the peanut butter, but I couldn’t think of how to get it completely out.
The original recipe for this beer was a collaborative effort for Xbrew #1 which I participated in with several other awesome homebrewers.
Estimated Stats (at 70% brewhouse efficiency)
PBG: 1.068
SRM: 34.6
OG: 1.100
IBU: 50
FG: 1.022
ABV: 10.2%
Yeast-Wyeast Thames Valley Ale Yeast
Grain Bill
(154 degrees F 90 min mash)
14lbs- US 2 Row (8.5-9lbs DME)
2lb- US Munich 20L
1lb 8oz- UK Brown Malt
1lb 8oz- US Chocolate Malt
1lb 8oz- UK Amber Malt
1lb- US Carapils
8oz- White Wheat
4oz- US Caramel 20L
Hop Schedule (90 min boil)
1 oz- Magnum (90 min)
1 whirlfoc tablet (15 min)
1/2 oz- UK Fuggle (10 min)
1/2 oz- US Willamette (10 min)
1lb – de-oiled Organic Peanut Butter (5 min)
1 oz semisweet chocolate (5 min)
1/2 oz- UK Fuggle (0 min)
1/2 oz- US Willamette (0 min)
75 Minute continuous sparge @ 170 Deg
Fermentation Schedule:
2 weeks Primary
3 weeks Secondary
Kegged & Force Carbed. (5 days @22 psi at 45°)
Awesome! Thanks for the post. I can’t wait to try this one out. The recipe looks delicious.
Thanks Rnast! Turned out much better then I could have hoped for in such an experiment. It you try it let me know how it turns out.
Will do! How was the flavor/body? I’m curious about the choc/peanut balance specifically. Would you tweak this at all now that you’ve done it once?
it’s still evolving. More carapils to get some more head retention maybe another .5 oz of choc and possible a bit more peanutbutter. But, I’ll reserve that till it has had a couple more weeks in the keg.
This looks awesome! Definitely send out a tweet if you master the art of the PB/oil separation!
sounds really nice, Peter. I still need to give you feedback on your bourbon stout.
I gotta admit, it really tastes and smells GREAT!
This looks good. Funny! The first time I made a chocolate stout, I tried to use some good chocolate bars. I ended up getting no head retention and some congealed fat that I got out before bottling. I know the sort of patience this must take. I’d love to try some of this at some point. I do have some feedback about your Bourbon stout, too.
One thing I can say for sure is how fun it is to play with homebrew stuff.
@Mindy, Thanks! looks like I gained some fans tonight at #brewyork. the PB oil separation is key. I’m going to find a way to get more oil out.
@Mike (Leafygreen) Thanks man! Smells even better now with a couple more days carbonation and a decent head.
@Mike R – this is definitely a fun recipe, one I think I’m gonna brew again. I’m getting rave reviews from all that have tried it.
So I’m going to try to make this recipe this weekend. A few questions first:
1) I’m assuming a 5gal batch here.
2) What lovibond chocolate malt did you use? I have like 3-4 diff options locally.
3) Do you have more detail on the semi-sweet choc… are these nibs? powder?
4) Did you pitch a smack pack or make a starter? How big a starter if so?
5) Now that you’ve had a few more days, any changes you’d make?
Thanks so much in advance. I’m getting psyched already to try this one out!
Rnast, Good luck with this it was a fun recipe. If your not using powdered peanutbutter, I highly encourage you to get out as much oil as possible.
1 – yes it was a 5 gal batch
2 – Simpsons Chocolate malt – 375-450 (http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/simpsons-chocolate-1.html)
3 – I used Baker’s SemiSweet chocolate baking squares (1oz/sq)
4 – Ohh yeah, a huge starter, built up over 3 days 800ml -> 1600ml -> 2200ml (it was around 1/2 gal) the OG was 1.100, it need a big starter. the starters gravity was 1.050
5 – couple of changes, I would have tried to get more oil out, and used another 8oz or so to have 22-24oz of Peanut butter, used a total of 2oz of chocolate, a bit more carapils and another 1/2 lb of wheat or oats. Also i might have used some safe yeast to dry it out a bit more. It is super sweet with the FG at 1.026. I would have liked to get it down to 1.020.
Let me know how it goes.
Cheers!
hey guys, my wife came across this recipe on twitter, and I might have the perfect solution for the peanut butter:
http://www.bellplantation.com/products
It’s meant as an all natural peanut butter, we’ve used it and it tastes pretty good too, the hardest thing to get right is the consistency, which shouldn’t matter in this recipe.
Thanks @BeerMechanic! I actually order some a couple days ago. I’m hoping to get some similar results with it when I brew the next batch. Sorry Folks, but I will not be updating this recipe when I brew it.
@BeerMechanic Your link is the same product that Simply Beer mentions as PB2 in his post. I actually ordered some a couple of weeks ago after the “out of stock” on the website was removed. Well, even though it didn’t say “out of stock” anymore the product was still back ordered and I am still waiting. Retail locations in my area are all sold out. I’m hoping this means that the product is really delicious and popular. I guess we’ll find out.
After working with some natural peanut butter and attempting to separate out the oil, and having the same concerns that Simply Beer had, I decided to go with the PB2 product instead. It’s still natural ingredients, just with most of the beer destroying oils removed. I also decided to go with raw organic cocoa nibs so that I am not introducing more oils (cocoa butter) but still getting that chocolate flavor. I conducted some very scientific studies by sprinkling it on top of some ice cream. Mmmmm. I will update my results here once the PB2 shows up.
@rnast, I like your science!!! The separating of the peanut oils is a huge pain. Took several weeks(2months) to get those oils mostly out. I like your idea of cocoa nibs.
I hope all of you trying this recipe will keep us posted on changes, good and bad, you make to the recipe! CHEERS!
my bad guys, I’d skimmed through the post for the recipe and didn’t see that the PB2 was mentioned before. Cheers.
no worries Beer Mechanic, there have been lots of comments on this post. (thanks everyone) I order PB2 for a second recipe and it hasn’t been shipped yet. I’m anxiously awaiting my powdered PB!
So my PB2 finally showed up. I had the brew day yesterday, and the airlock was bubbling away this morning with some beginnings of krausen starting to form. I’m really excited to see how this one turns out. This was easily the biggest beer I’ve brewed to date – OG 1.105. I did make a few modifications to the recipe based on the great feedback in this thread. I’ll be sure to report back the final results.
@rnast, Sweet can wait to here how it turns out.
I put up a few pics of the brew day and the recipe I ended up going with – http://www.flickr.com/photos/rnast/sets/72157624003443981/
Thanks again for all your help on this – I’m chomping at the bit to taste it!
Took a gravity reading last night (11% ABV – 1.020FG). Not sure that yeast strain could attenuate more if it wanted to. Tasted it – nose is full on peanut butter, flavor has a lot of roasted&toasted nut aspects that complement the dominant peanut butteriness – finishes with subtle chocolate. You do notice the alcohol in this, but I think that will improve substantially once it’s been kegged and chilled. This will definitely be a dessert sipper. I am seeing some Beer Floats in my future.
Looks like a great recipe. Will definitely try it out when I get the chance.
With regards to the PB oil, I recommend a centrifuge. I bet that would get more oil out faster.
Cheers
Dave, a centrifuge would definitely work. I should’ve dusted mine off… 🙂 Let me know if you try out the recipe and what changes you make to it. I’m working on V4 right now. lets just say its a wee bitdifferent then this one. Cheers
On oil elimination , What about adding a quart of water to the pound me peanut butter and then make a “tea”? The fat should float more readily to the surface. Then pour it into an OXO fat seperater cup. Has anyone tried this? I’ve done it with chopped Pecans successfully.
DrBoone, sounds like a great Idea. another way I was considering trying was to actually “lager” or chill the beer before fermentation to about 35 deg, this should solidify the peanut Butter and then you could siphon out the wort from under the oil.
Pound of peanut butter
I tried refrigeration with the Pecan Tea. The Healthy oils in the pecans came to the surface but would not solidify. Pecan fats are 90% unsaturated. My natural Peanut Butter fats are 85% unsaturated. Its kind of a practical look at the whole saturated vs unsaturated thing. Maybe thats why they’re healthy and less likely to solidify in your veins.
Yikes! A dietary fat discussion on a beer site.
DrBoone Yeah, lets not go there 🙂 On another note, I’ll be posting another version of the PB Porter in a couple of days. Much simpler recipe…
Ok here it is after a couple of test versions, here is version 2 of the Peanut Butter Porter: http://www.simplybeer.com/blog/2010/12/09/homebrew-peanut-butter-porter-version-2/