What's the best technique to add chamomile?
I've made a Witbier with tangerine peel and coriander. Though Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing suggests chamomile as a good "secret ingredient" for Witbiers, I didn't have any on hand when brewing, so i missed my chance to add it to the boil (and I've wondered how well the taste and aroma would persist anyway).
So now i have a few options:
- Add it directly to the secondary (akin to dry hopping), maybe after a little boiling to avoid introducing bacteria
- Make some chamomile tea and add that at bottling
- Make a spice potion with vodka or the like, and add that at bottling time
The question: which is most likely to impart the best taste and (secondarily) aroma? And how much would you suggest for a 5 gallon batch?
I want it to still taste like beer, not chamomile tea, but I'd like to impart a reasonable amount of flavor to the result.
Concerns I respectively have for the the above options are:
- I'm not sure the essence will get released without boiling.
- I've seen other recommendations for this, with some complaining the result was too strong.
- I've seen one opinion elsewhere that this spice potion approach doesn't wind up producing much flavor.
Topic secondary-fermentation flavor spices homebrew
Category Mac