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1st Capsimel

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Nysrock

Nysrock

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 13, 2010
42
0
0
Lansing, MI
So my friend has a bumper crop of Jalapenos this year and since I have a variety ripe also we decided to make a nice spicy mead. While most of the meads (very few to date) that I have made so far have been for mainly consumption we want this one to be able to be used for cooking and such too. We're basing the idea off some Jalapeno wine that he has bought in the past.

I have some questions before starting this though.

#1. Should I just cut the peppers in half, quarter or what?

#2. Should I treat the peppers a day before to sterilize or will the day of be ok?

#3. I was thinking of adding some lime for balance and was wondering if primary addition or secondary would give me the best flavor?

Thanks for any help with this and I'll post in the brewlog when we actually start the batch going.
 
A million and one ways of making capsimels etc.

Me ? I'd just make a straight traditional. At the same time, I'd have removed the stalks of the peppers, then blitzed them in a food processor, put the pulp into a suitably sized preserving jar and topped it up to just above the level of the peppers with vodka.

Shake the preserving jar once a day/couple of times a week while the main ferment is finishing.

Once done, I'd strain off the vodka and press the pulp of the peppers.

Then once the main ferment has been racked off the lees, the "peppered vodka" would be used for topping up and then racking is carried out in the normal way.....

Why like that ?

Well it ensures a smooth, trouble free ferment. Also, the vodka removes/kills off anything that might be living on the peppers, but it also extracts the capsaicin and flavour. The capsaicin is a fatty alkaloid that is easily dissolved in alcohol.

I might add that Jalapenos are quite low on the scale of chilli pepper heat (scoville heat units). They are very fleshy and have quite a high water content for peppers, which is why they're more suited to straight cooking or preserving in brine.

I tend to use a much hotter pepper i.e. something like one of the hotter habaneros, or Bhut Jolokia or "Dorset" naga...... (one of the hotter scotch bonnet types would also work well).

S'up to you really.....

regards

fatbloke
 
Well my friend has all the Jalapenos. I currently have Habaneros, Cayenne, Red Chile and Infernos. I'm hoping to have some Ghost Chiles growing next year.
 
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