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I haven't been able to find any good information on brewing with juniper berries. Does anyone have any brewing experiences with juniper that they could share?

I'm interested in brewing a Sahti inspired rye ale, 5 gallon all-grain brew. I'm mostly hoping for some juniper flavour, as I will be using Simcoe for bittering (and some Amarillo as late additions).

I am unsure about: (a) how much juniper to add; and, (b) when to add it.

Any advice, comments, or thoughts would be appreciated. Cheers to beers.

Here is a bit of info from a Brewing TV episode:

http://youtu.be/Op9vMQHeSDk

I've been playing with the idea of making Sahti for a while as well since juniper is pertty common around here.

josherArmstrong wrote:I haven't been able to find any good information on brewing with juniper berries. Does anyone have any brewing experiences with juniper that they could share?

I'm interested in brewing a Sahti inspired rye ale, 5 gallon all-grain brew. I'm mostly hoping for some juniper flavour, as I will be using Simcoe for bittering (and some Amarillo as late additions).

I am unsure about: (a) how much juniper to add; and, (b) when to add it.

Any advice, comments, or thoughts would be appreciated. Cheers to beers.

BYO just had an article on Sahti - I'll have a look.

I thought about brewing a sahti too, to bring to hoptoberfest, but decided against it since I couldn't find Finnish baking yeast. Anyway, with a sahti, you mash like normal, but then you line the bottom of your lauter tun with juniper branches and berries, and then run off. If you have a combined mash/lauter tun (like me), you have to find another way to mash, because if you have the juniper in the whole time, you get way too much flavour. I haven't actually made this though, that's just from what I've read.

I've thought about making Sahti as well, but as I have a combined mash/lauter tun, I wonder if you could first wort "hop" with juniper berries and branches somehow? I was planning to use a weizen yeast to get the characteristic banana

That might work too.

Never heard of sahti but I'd be interested in a quality beer with juniper.. Not the bready, half soured thing I read about on Wikipedia, haha

Are there different species of juniper/species that shouldn't be used in a beer?

I just watched an ep of Beer Geeks on the weekend...they were brewing the juniper branches and berries. Seasoned the strike water with branches. then put the branches in the mash...and then I think the bagged the berries and put them in the boil for a few min?

If you didn't see it, you may want to check it out

I can't find the ep on youtube...but this is from their site (not the full video just clips)

http://beergeeks.tv/episode-guide/season-1/episode-3/

Thanks for the responses. I'm not aiming to recreate a traditional Sahti (sorry but no branches for me), just planning on playing around with some similar flavours.

I've seen the Brewing TV episode and also caught Beer Geeks this past weekend, but I don't find them too helpful. At the moment, I'm leaning toward adding a tincture of berries and gin to the secondary. Still looking for more insights though. Cheers.

Juniper experience is pretty slim, although rogue makes a juniper beer. You could always ask them. Some of those guys can be really helpful.

I've got a pound of dry juniper berries from like a year ago, haven't gotten around to using em yet.

I just found the following in Sam Calagione's "Extreme Brewing" book...

For a 5 gallon batch, 2 oz of crushed juniper berries, 50 minutes into the boil.

I brewed a few batches with juniper berry and found that making a tea with them and adding it to the fermentor added the most flavor.
I especially liked them with ginger.......it was good.......
hope that helps!

josherArmstrong wrote:I haven't been able to find any good information on brewing with juniper berries. Does anyone have any brewing experiences with juniper that they could share?

I'm interested in brewing a Sahti inspired rye ale, 5 gallon all-grain brew. I'm mostly hoping for some juniper flavour, as I will be using Simcoe for bittering (and some Amarillo as late additions).

I am unsure about: (a) how much juniper to add; and, (b) when to add it.

Any advice, comments, or thoughts would be appreciated. Cheers to beers.

I only used about .5 oz of berries.....crushed and boiled separately for about 5 minutes......for a 5 gallon batch it was alot of flavor