Chestnut Beer

[stef]

I'm trying an experiment when i have some free bottles. My folks have chestnut trees at their farm- today i picked half a sack while i was there.

Planning on gently oven roasting them, then smashing them, then BIABing with the resulting crushed nuts. Thought i might go with a few kgs of nuts and mash at normal temps for a fairly long time.

No idea if it will work, or what the resulting 'wort' would taste like. Would proceed with normal processes once i have got the chestnut wort, probably just ferment with us05 at 18ish degrees.

Anyone tried anything similar? I'll post results in the coming weeks if anyone is interested.

 

[maxmcbain]

Will the oil from the nuts effect the head

 

[marksfish]

do chestnuts have the enzymes needed to convert the starch to sugars or would you need some malt?.

 

[stef]

Not too sure about the oils, but yes, i reckon theres a pretty good chance it wont hold any head. And as far as the conversion goes, i think they are able to convert themselves, but not 100% sure. I'm pretty sure gluten free brewers (amongst others, such as italians?) have brewed chestnut beer before. could be wrong though.

 

[darrenp]

Bridge Road Brewers do a Pilsener with local chestnuts added to the mash.

Was up there last week and grabbed a 6 pack sampler. Tried the Pilsener today but drank it straight from the bottle. Too many VB drinkers around and didn't want to stand out using the glass I brought along as well as the opposable thumbs that I have to hold it. While I was drinking it I regretted not using the glass to check it out properly, even more so now. Could certainly pick up the nut flavour but felt it was more of a gimmick. Certainlly something worth trying as an experimental brew and wouldn't think you would have too many dramas. Check out the BRB website to see if you can get more info out of it.

Starting to think you may be talking about full mash using using just the chestnuts which wouldn't realy relate too much to anything I said but would certainly be very interesting.

 

[gap]

Not too sure about the oils, but yes, i reckon theres a pretty good chance it wont hold any head. And as far as the conversion goes, i think they are able to convert themselves, but not 100% sure. I'm pretty sure gluten free brewers (amongst others, such as italians?) have brewed chestnut beer before. could be wrong though.

Read this. I think you will find that Chestnuts cannot convert their own starch to sugar. They need barley to do so.

http://www.michiganfarmbureau.com/farmnews...hesnut_beer.xml

Regards

 

[stef]

Bridge Road Brewers do a Pilsener with local chestnuts added to the mash.

Was up there last week and grabbed a 6 pack sampler. Tried the Pilsener today but drank it straight from the bottle. Too many VB drinkers around and didn't want to stand out using the glass I brought along as well as the opposable thumbs that I have to hold it. While I was drinking it I regretted not using the glass to check it out properly, even more so now. Could certainly pick up the nut flavour but felt it was more of a gimmick. Certainlly something worth trying as an experimental brew and wouldn't think you would have too many dramas. Check out the BRB website to see if you can get more info out of it.

Starting to think you may be talking about full mash using using just the chestnuts which wouldn't realy relate too much to anything I said but would certainly be very interesting.

Lol.

Thanks Gap, appreciate your help. Looks like i might need to add some malt...