Homebrew: Peanut Butter Porter Version 2
Since my original version of the peanut butter porter was such a hit, I’ve been working on it for awhile, refining it, trying different types of peanut butter additions. I believe I have found a great way to get the peanut into the beer without the problem of the oil. I’m going to give you the base recipe, which is almost more of a stout then porter, but Porter sounds cooler then stout :-).
Included in this recipe are 3 different types of Peanut, Choose one method. (in order of my preference)
- Unsalted Valencia Roasted Peanuts
- Powdered Peanut Butter (PB2)
- Organic Peanut Butter (one that the oil separates from the peanut)
If you are using the Peanut Butter (#3), then you should spend some time before you start the beer to separate the oil from the peanut butter. There are many ways to do this, time, cheese cloth, or centrifuge.
*** Make sure you read through the whole recipe before starting ***
Base Recipe:
11.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
2.00 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)
2.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine or CaraFoam (2.0 SRM)
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -15L (15.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
1 T Mash5.2 Stabalizer
The flaked barley helps improve the mouth feel (making it more of a stout) and a bit meatier with the big flavors. The Cara-Pils/Carafoam, helps improve the head retention. I avoided the black patent to avoid the roasted and burnt flavors it sometimes has. The chocolate malt is really for color and to help build the chocolate flavor in each sip. There will be cacao nibs late in the boil.
Mash:
45 min Mash In Add 22.50 qt of water at 166.8 F 154.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 9.00 qt of water at 208.5 F 168.0 F
Boil:
1.00 oz Magnum [10.50 %] (90 min) (I use Whole leaf)
0.50 oz Magnum [10.50 %] (60 min)
1.00 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)
3.00 oz Cacao nibs (Boil 5.0 min)
for Peanut Butter Method (#3)
1lb – de-oiled Organic Peanut Butter (5 min) *Stir in well!
for PB2 Method (#2)
13oz PB2 (2 containers) (5 min)
Fermentation:
English Ale Yeast w/ 800ml Starter
Primary:
7-10 days at 68°
Secondary:
3 weeks at 68°
3oz Cacao Nibs (5 days)
for PB2 Method (#2)
6.5oz PB2 (1 container) (5 days)
for Velencia Peanuts
1-1.5lb lighly crushed (not powdered) Velencia Peanuts (5 days)
Lager
Lager beer for 7 days at 38 before bottling to separate any oils
Final Stats:
Original Gravity: 1.094 SG
Final Gravity: 1.016 SG
ABV – 10.25%
Calories: 415 cal/pint
Bitterness: 23.3 IBU
Est Color: 30.6 SRM
Efficiency: 75.00%
Volumes of CO2: 2.4
stoked for the recipe. thanks. gonna experiement asap
Nice! I’ve planned on building a Peanut Butter Breakfast Stout using PB2 based on your original recipe. This will help me out tremendously. Thanks dude!
So does this mean if you use method # 1, with just the peanuts, that you don’t do anything in the boil; and the only peanuts that go into the beer is in secondary?
Thanks Andy! Looking forward to trying it at a future #brewyork
Matt, that is correct. the secondary addition on peanut is really strong and imparts a lot of flavor. The first time I tried it, I used 2.5 lbs of peanut and it tasted like peanut butter, not much like the peanut butter cup I was going for. I ended up using an additional 3 ounces of cacao nib in the keg to balance it out some what. It took 2 months for the flavors to subside to drinkable. By far the peanut secondary addition is the easiest but also the strongest. Good luck brewing it, if you do. Let me know how it turns out.
I may have to try and convert this to an extract brew soon. Sounds like a fun recipe, but I’m not ready for all grain yet.
you can use 12.2 lbs of pale malt extract to replace the 2 row.
I would like to make this brew, but dont have the equipment or know how for all grain. What modifications would you recommend for all extract?
slackerlack, allgrain is really not much more complicated then extract if you have the time you should give it a whirl although extract does take less space and time. For extract the only modification you need is to replace the 2 row with 12.2 pounds of light. steep remaining grains for 45 min @ 154 deg, bring to boil add the extract, follow remaining steps.
This is probably an obvious answer, but is this for 10 Gallons?
Hi Patrick, no this is a 5gal recipe.
I am planning to make this next weekend. I’m a bit lost on the adding the PB2 during Secondary, you wrote:
for PB2 Method (#2)
6.5oz PB2 (1 container) (5 days)
I am going use a carboy for Secondary, does that mean I pour the PB2 into the carboy 5 days into my secondary or 5 days before secondary is finished? Also if I pour the PB2 into the carboy, will it clump up?
I’m a bit new to brewing so please correct me if I misunderstood, and thanks for this great recipe.
Hi Albert, You want to have the PB2 in the carboy for 5 days, probably the last 5 before you bottle. If you brew it, please post a not about what you thought of it.
Hello, I went ahead and brewed this beer. I used Extract instead of the Pale Malt and I decided to go with the PB2. After 7 days in Primary, I transferred the wort to the carboy for Secondary. For the first 3 days, bubbles were coming out of the airlock and the activity slowly declined. One thing I noticed was there was no krausen at all in the Primary bucket when I transferred. Additionally, there was a small layer of oil bits floating on top (I assume this is coming from the leftover fat from the PB2) Did you get any krausen when you brewed? My wort is sitting in the Secondary right now with my fingers crossed…..
HI Albert,
Oil is a big problem with this beer, which is why you had no krausen. If you have the means you can chill the beer and the oil will separate from the beer. Or just go with it.
Which method of peanut better did you use, and what worked best, in your opinion? We have a group of guys clamoring to do something just like this, and I was hoping to learn from your experience since I’ve never brewed with peanuts or peanut butter before.
Also – if you were to do a 10 gallon batch, do you think you would double the Cacao nibs and the peanut butter? Have you done a 10g version?
Hi Chris, I prefer the Peanut method the best, but you need to sanitize the peanuts first (I found the hard way). I’m going to try freezing them for a couple of days first, see if that works.
I haven’t done a 10g batch, but yeah, you should double everything.
For the so day PB2 addition, did you just dump it straight in, or dissolve it in water first?
Hi Drew, I dumped the PB2 straight in. I let it dissolve in the boil.
Just tapped a keg of this great beer. I used V1 with the Valencia peanuts and was very satisfied with the flavor. Thanks for all your time and efforts.
Kevin
Glad to hear! What method did you use to sanitize the peanuts? I’m just finishing the primary on my 5th batch. This time I fermented at 60 deg with us-05 as to avoid any fruity esters.
Just bottled my own version of this beer using the peanuts added to secondary method. Freezing the nuts for 3 days appears to have not been adequate to sanitize them, as there was a layer of whitish mold on the top when I went to rack from the carboy at bottling time.
Any other suggestions for sanitizing the nuts? I racked from underneath the mold and am crossing my fingers that the beer will come out alright. Still tasted great when I sampled it on bottling day.
you could try baking them at 180 deg. Just be careful of not roasting them further
Alright Peter, I’m going to finally brew this on Sunday. I might bump the OG down a hair, because 18lbs is maxing out my current mash tun, but otherwise I’ll probably do this letter for letter. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Right on! Which method are you going to use?
I’m going to try the unsalted roasted peanuts. Maybe soak them in grain alcohol for sanitizing?
the alcohol will pull some of the flavor from the nuts, you going to add the alcohol too?
Can’ t wait to try this one, it sounds great!! Thanks for taking the time to put this recipe together. I do have a few questions though:
I will be modifying this to use extract. I see in the comments above that you recommended 12.2 lb. of extract to replace the 11 lbs. of 2-row but this sounds very high to me! A typical conversion is x0.75 for LME or x0.6 for DME, which would come out to 8.25lb. or 6.6lb, respectively. Am I missing something here?
Also, what method (if any) did you use to sanitize the PB2 and cacao nibs before the secondary addition?
You shouldn’t need to sanitize the pb2. I’ve never sanitized the cacao nibs, but maybe some else who has used them could comment here. Yes, .6 dme to grain not sure what I was thinking in the comment you referenced. http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/06/03/converting-all-grain-recipes-to-malt-extract/
My beer turned out great! I sanitized the peanuts with diluted vodka and then poured the liquid and peanuts into the secondary. I think that 5 days might have been a touch too long on the “dry peanut”, since it seemed like I may have pulled out some slight astringent flavors out at the end. Nothing horrible, but I think 1 to 2 days might do it.
I served it at a labor day party and it was a huge hit.
Sorry I didn’t get back to you but now that I am doing another batch I had to revisit to see what if anything was changing here. I bought the peanuts from Sunland and didn’t sanitize them as they were in a sealed container and had no problems what so ever. Right into the secondary. I usually make 6 gallons and use the base for a one gallon Habanero chilli stout. They both got me a second place in the state HBC. My version just reminds me of a snickers so that is what I call it My snickers stout
Well, that was hugely discouraging. I typed this long message and the capcha was wrong so it cleared out everything.
Bottom line is when you add the PB2 to secondary is it just the dry powder? No sanitation issues? How difficult to rack it out? Do you stir it up?
Thanks
That is the method I used, I didn’t have any issues. I don’t recall having any issues as the PB2 settled down to the bottom when I chilled it
I know this is a little old but I’m thinking about giving it a try with some of my own adjustments. I’d be doing an extract though. I know I’d need to convert the pale malt (already discussed) but would I still use all the other grains and keep the amounts the same and just steep them? 2lb of caramel, 2lb of carafoam, 2lb of barley flakes and 1lb of choco malt seems like a lot to steep……
OK, this is still bugging to the point I got BeerSmith and put your recipe in there to convert it. BeerSmith doesn’t account for the peanuts or the cacao nibs but has your IBUs kinda high for a porter (52 IBUs) and and ABV at only 8.4%. What am I missing here?
HI Justin, extract is going to give you different numbers, it isn’t a straight lbs of grain to extract. So I took my last recipe and converted it to extract, here is the new recipe. My latest version I used Willamette hops instead of magnum to back off the bitterness, but brewers choice… I also got 8.5 abv converting to straight extract, but extract also assumes an efficiency of 70%, my brew was close to 80%. I adjusted the extract to match.
12 lbs Amber Liquid Extract (12.50 SRM)
2 lbs Barley, Flaked (1.70 SRM)
2 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.00 SRM)
2 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt – 40L (40.00 SRM)
1 lbs Chocolate Malt (350.00 SRM)
1.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] – Boil 90.0 min13.3 IBUs
0.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] – Boil 60.0 min 4.2 IBUs
Steep the grains at 154 deg for 45min, add malt extract, bring to a boil