Adding Jalapeños

Well, you might have heard that Billy B of the HomeBrew Academy allowed me to write a guest post on his blog. Check it out: Popcorn Jalapeño Cream Ale .

It describes my brew day for Gringo Cerveza Jalapeño Cream Ale. I talked about my inspiration and intention to brew this on this blog at Popcorn Beer #HomeBrew.

Being a guest blogger was a fun and interesting experience. The HomeBrew Academy's blog is followed more extensively than my little blog, so I am getting more exposure by posting there than I do here. If I add up the Facebook and Tweet numbers on the top of the page, just the people who posted it to Facebook or Tweeted the article would put this well into the top 10 all-time viewed posts on my own little blog.

And, not to brag, but if I look through those same numbers on other recent articles on the HomeBrew Academy's blog, mine are very high.

So, it appears people are "talking" about the article. I just don't know what most of them are saying. Of course, not many readers left comments, which is a little disappointing to me, but I am pretty pleased with the apparent social media response.

I am also getting quite a bit of traffic to this blog and sheppybrew.com from the HomeBrew Academy. The guest blogger experience appears to be a win-win. I am looking forward to my follow-up article in April.

In the meantime ... fermentation seems to have gone real well, and on day 4 I added Jalapeños to one of my little Mr. Beer fermentors.

My Jalapeños and an old Gringo

I think maybe these pepper are larger than the ones I got before because it sure seemed like a lot more than I remember.

I cut them up, put them in a nylon grain bag and soaked them in a mixture of vodka and star san for about 10 minutes. I was just going to use vodka, but didn't have enough. Then, I just opened one of my fermentors and shoved the whole bag in. Now, I will leave them in for a few days. Last time I left them in for 4 days. Since I think I might have more this time, I will take a sample every day. If it seems to be getting too hot, I will just pull the bag out.

The sample I took had a gravity of 1.007. My OG was high at 1.050. This makes my ABV around 5.8, which is not really a session beer anymore. Good thing I have nothing against alcohol. I think maybe the popcorn might have been more fermentable than the flaked corn.

I still had 3 bottles of the old batch left and had one tonight. It is still a great pepper beer. I am really happy with the way this held up. It is a real good pairing with tacos (which is what my wife made for dinner tonight. I sure am a lucky man.

If you happen to be a home brewer and have done a pepper beer. Leave me a comment and let me know at what point in the process you added the peppers. I am curious to see how others do it.


Go BlackHawks!