Misc addition
Black Peppercorns
Representative The maker publishes no figures for this product, so these are class-typical values instead.
- Type
- Spice
- Added at
- boil
- Form
- solid
- Formula
- n/a
- Concentration
- sold as the pure compound
- Typical dose
- 3-8 g per 20 L of wort
- Timing
- Cracked and added for the last 5 minutes of the boil, or steeped at whirlpool.
Before you use it
Crack it coarsely and add it late: ground pepper goes dusty and harsh, and a long boil drives off the aroma and leaves only the heat. Like grains of paradise, the bite builds in the package over a few weeks, so a dose that tastes right at bottling can be too much by the time it is drunk.
Description
Piper nigrum, cracked rather than ground, giving the peppery bite that a saison yeast only suggests. It is the usual way to push a farmhouse ale or a spiced Belgian further in the direction its phenols already point, and it does more work in a dry beer than a sweet one. Tellicherry is the same berry left to ripen longer and graded larger, and it is winier and more floral for it.