Experimenting with nuts

[karlos_1984]

I'm tossing up ideas to add something to a K& K dark ale I want to brew at the weekend.

I've mentioned using toasted oats in another thread, but I'm thinking of giving this a miss.

I though I might get some nice flavour out of toasting some slithered almonds, or walnuts or a combo of other random nuts in the pantry.

Has anyone ever done this? I figured I'd roast them in the oven, leave them for a couple days then perhaps smash them with a rolling pin and steep them (remove from water then boil for sanitary practice) and add the remaining liquid to the FV.

I don't expect to extract any fermentables by this but hoping just some of the nutty flavour. Is this doable or is it a waste of time? Again, just an idea at this stage.

 

[The Captain!!]

I was lucky enough to receive a nut porter from Ben10 once which was amazing. 

My understanding is that you roast first then put them in the beer but not sure at which stage, I thought mash but can’t be certain

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

1 minute ago, The Captain!! said:

I was lucky enough to receive a nut porter from Ben10 once which was amazing. 

My understanding is that you roast first then put them in the beer but not sure at which stage, I thought mash but can’t be certain

What happened to Ben10??

[The Captain!!]

1 minute ago, Greeny1525229549 said:

What happened to Ben10??

No idea, he stopped posting when the floods were up Townsville way. I do hope he’s alright.

[karlos_1984]

3 hours ago, The Captain!! said:

I was lucky enough to receive a nut porter from Ben10 once which was amazing. 

My understanding is that you roast first then put them in the beer but not sure at which stage, I thought mash but can’t be certain

That's the issue I'm facing here. I don't know when either. I've already roasted some slithered almonds, kept them in a ziplock bag. There's not a lot of info out there but some say during the mash, others say that's a no no and that it's best to put them in a muslin bag and add after primary firmentation, same as a dry hop essentially. Dunno which would be better.

[The Captain!!]

So I’ve done some reading over the last few hours and there’s a couple of routes. 

Vodka tincture. Soaking roasted nuts for about a month then adding to the primary after straining.  

Roasting and adding to the mash, creating conversion of the carbs in the nuts too. 

Personally id go the mash way.

Either way you probably want to add head building malts like wheat or catapils/foam. 

Hope that helps.

[porschemad911]

Have a listen to this interview with Holgate about their Hazelnut Brown and subsequent cloning attempt... Might have something useful for you. 

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/post1630/

[karlos_1984]

Thank you both. I was leaning toward the mash idea also. I have about 500g of dry wheat malt extract on hand. Would that suffice for use in a mash with some nuts or do I need the actual cracked grains to extract the relevant sugars etc.

I'll have a listen to that article shortly cheers.

[Otto Von Blotto]

As I mentioned in another topic, you can't mash in extract. You will need some base malt grains (e.g. ale malt or pilsner malt), cracked. Steep them in water, but maintain the temperature, around 66 degrees should work fine. I'd go around 3-4 litres of water per kg of grain.