Thoughts on Peanut Butter

[ere109]

Last year I took my first crack at brewing a peanut butter ale. I decided to use PB powder, which I later came to regret. The brew came out very bitter/sour, and I imagine that all of the usable sugars in the powder were so accessible that the yeast just ate them up and left all of the un-goodness behind.
So I've been decanting the oil from two jars of real peanut butter for about a year, and the jar is about 80% what it started out with. I'm ready to give it another try, but want to do it "right" this time. My main question is, when is the right time to add peanut butter?
I've read posts about adding for the full boil, and others about adding it to secondary. I've got a wild question - what about adding it to the mash? I could stir the PB into my hot water before adding grains, then mash for an hour. If nothing else, the PB oils would float to the top, so I could theoretically pull most of that off, which would give a better head.
Downsides? Alternatives? I really want a tasty peanut butter ale that I can be proud of. Let's get the discussion going. Who has a successful recipe that wants to share?

 

[SouthBay]

Try looking up fat washing. Basically it's a technique for extracting flavors from fatty stuff like whipped cream and pb without getting any of the oils. Then, just add that to the secondary.

As far as adding pb itself, id think itd be good in the last five min. Then rack to fermenter from under the floating oils

 

[derekge]

Bump. I'd like to see some good advice on adding PB to the secondary. Peanut Butter Porter just sounds so tasty!

 

[BaronVonMeisterburger]

If it was my batch, I'd try using crushed roasted peanuts in the secondary.

 

[ere109]

I may make a 10 gallon batch of this beer, break it in half, boil five with pb, add it to secondary on the other five. That could solve the mystery.
I've read several other posts on making peanut butter beers, so I'm surprised we haven't seen other comments.

 

[edmanster]

Sounds like you didn't have enough dexrtin malts or use any maltodextrin or lactose sugars to add the needed sweetness for the peanutbutter to come through... Yes, any and all sugar added is gonna be eaten unless it's a alcohol sugar!!

 

[headbanger]

I recently had a peanut butter stout from a local micro-brewery and it was awesome! I had never even thought of adding peanut butter to a brew prior to that, but ever since I have been thinking of it a lot. The next time I'm in there I will try to glean some info from one of the brewers, they are usually pretty willing to divulge their methods so we'll see what comes out of it.

 

[ere109]

Sounds like you didn't have enough dexrtin malts or use any maltodextrin or lactose sugars to add the needed sweetness for the peanutbutter to come through... Yes, any and all sugar added is gonna be eaten unless it's a alcohol sugar!!

Can you expand further on this?

 

[edmanster]

Can you expand further on this?

powered peanut butter is basically de-oiled roasted peanuts, sugar and salt... When adding to a beer recipe you take account that the sugar will be eaten and you will loose the sweetness.. You can adjust your hops to help with adding a malty backbone to help or add sum dextrin malts (carmel, cara, crystal) to leave sum sweetness behind to aid in the flavor of peanut butter... You can also use alcohol sugar (maltodextrine, lactose, etc) like you would in a sweet stout...