So I plan on brewing a beer with peanut butter. Oatmeal Stout with peanut butter sounds like it would taste pretty good. I have already gone through the trouble of removing most of the oil from the butter. Peanut butter is made up of Starches, Proteins and fats. I know what will happen if I ad the butter to the mash, it will convert some of the starches to sugar, what I don't know is what will the extra proteins and fats do to the beer? I know it will not ruin the beer I am more curious then anything.
Fats are an organic compound (like oil) in the lipid category. Even if you have removed most of the oil from the peanut butter I believe the fats would still contribute to a reduced head retention in the finished product equalling a flat headed beer which no one wants. I do remember a BYO reader contributed recipe a few years back where I think they brewed with chocolate and peanut butter. I'll see if I can find that article....
"A bad man is a good man's job, while a good man is a bad man's teacher."
Yeah I know there is a risk of losing head retention. I read on this home brew forum a guy who experimented with peanut butter and he was able to brew up a batch without any loss whatsoever of head on his beer. I am doing exactly what he is doing to take care of that problem. I bought the natural peanut butter with the oil already separated on top. I pour that off and then put paper towels in the jar to help soak up more of the oils. I keep replacing them till they are not really soaking up that much. i think at that point there is not much oils left or enough to make a big impact on the finished beer. If I still suspect there to be too much oils I might mix it in some water and let the oils rise to the surface.
There will still be a massive amount of lipids making it into your beer. Head retention wouldn't be the #1 I think, as much as the potential for oxidative reactions to occur with the fatty acids.
Give it a shot, and save some bottles if it is good at first, see how the flavor stability is.
This guy, I think his nickname was "Dirty Sherm" or something, had a peanut butter porter that was pretty famous/infamous in our NYC club. I didn't ever get the chance to try it, but people said it was pretty decent. The recipe is here: http://hbd.org/nychg/recipes/pbporter.html It goes over how he de-fatted the peanut butter.
