[ewpert]

Recently someone on the forum gave me the idea for doing a beer "Chopped" competition.  A basket of mystery ingredients that we must use to make a beer.  My friends and I are calling our version "Skunked."  (Trademark pending.......)

So I'm throwing this out to the Forum for the list of ingredients.  They should be ingredients you would ACTUALLY want to make a beer with, but challenging enough to throw us some curves.  Ultimately the goal of the show "chopped" is to make a dish that's incredible......so we should have something in our "baskets" to give us some blueprints for an incredible beer.

All ingredients welcome......we'll probably have a base malt of pale ale, but all hops, fruits, yeasts, styles, etc are up for you all to decide.  We're looking for 4-7 different ingredients!

Thanks all!

[kylekohlmorgen]

Chile spiced dried mangoes

Breakfast cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Count Chocula, Trix?)

Oatmeal Cream Pies

Girl Scout Cookies

Rose water/rose petals (tough to make this ingredient noticeable in the final product)

Fresh herbs: cilantro, thyme, basil, rosemary, fennel, marjoram

Cucumber

Limeade

Dried beans or lentils

Corn tortillas or those weird 'wrap' shells

Spices: Curry powder, turmeric, Pink peppercorns, cayenne, cumin pods, cardamom pods, fennel seed, or just have the nice ladies at Penzey's pick something at random.

Or just go to an ethnic market (Indian, Mexican, and 'Asian') and pick stuff up that smells good.

[narvin]

I have tried to mash breakfast cereal before back in my stupid, stupid youth.  Please don't.

[denny]

I have tried to mash breakfast cereal before back in my stupid, stupid youth.  Please don't.

It was the secret ingredient at one of our Iron Brewer comps a few years back.  I'll never forget the color of a Froot Loops mash....

[dmtaylor]

We made a club brew a few years ago with Frosted Flakes and an entire German chocolate cake.  It was one of the worst beers I ever tasted.  Dumped it all down the drain.

However now I just made a batch of pale ale with Grape Nuts about 10 days ago.  Tasted it a couple days ago.  It needs more hops, but it tastes very good.  I don't taste any Grape Nutty flavor, but it tastes just fine as a regular pale ale.  I think I used around 15 or 20% Grape Nuts for the total grist, and I really don't taste it in the final beer at all.  Next time I'll have to try a higher percentage.  Of course, Grape Nuts is kind of like cheating -- unlike most other cereals, its primary ingredients are wheat and malted barley.

[bluesman]

Skunked might be a good title....but interesting would be a good descriptor.

I recommend sticking with ingedients that will make remotely drinkable beer (maybe even "good" beer)...otherwise it will be a skunkfest for sure.

[Joe Sr.]

Cucumber

I just had a sample of a Goose Island beer this past weekend called Cucumbersome.

I believe they said they dry cucumbered it, though it may also have gone into the kettle.

The beer tasted like cucumber.  I'm not sure if that's good, but it was pretty wild.

FWIW, I did not go back for a second sample.

[AmandaK]

I have tried to mash breakfast cereal before back in my stupid, stupid youth.  Please don't.

It was the secret ingredient at one of our Iron Brewer comps a few years back.  I'll never forget the color of a Froot Loops mash....

Hahaha. I love homebrewer 'war stories'.

[erockrph]

Radishes

Parsnips/Carrots

Prickly Pear Cactus

Lychee

Persimmon

Garam Masala (or any other spice blend )

Basically walk through the produce and/or spice and/or granola section of Whole Foods or any other good supermarket and grab whatever looks interesting.

[tomsawyer]

Jelly, jam or marmalade.
Oatmeal raisin cookies, the dry kind that should have less oil in them.
Wild rice.
Beets.
Instant mashed potatoes.

Or do something with a babyfood theme:
dry cereal (oats or rice or wheat)
canned babyfood (fruit and/or veggies).

[HoosierBrew]

Skunked might be a good title....but interesting would be a good descriptor.

I recommend sticking with ingedients that will make remotely drinkable beer (maybe even "good" beer)...otherwise it will be a skunkfest for sure.

+1 to ingredients that might make good beer.

[vista]

If this happens...can we at least all agree Sam needs to be involved somehow?!

(Crickets)

[Slowbrew]

How about bird seed?  See how may folks would try to malt it first.  8^)

Paul

[morticaixavier]

How about bird seed?  See how may folks would try to malt it first.  8^)

Paul

yeah, that's me.

[ghumphrey]

My club has been doing something similar for a few years now called "Iron Buddy Brew" as a way for brewers who are newer to the club to pair up with club veterans. The teams collaborate and come up with a brew that must incorporate 3 of 10 ingredients drawn randomly from a hat. Ingredients range from wood to breakfast cereal to cookies to spices.

This year we had to incorporate three or more of the following: cumin, Rice Krispy treats, oranges/orange peel, pomegranate juice, cherries, maple syrup, zingers, doughnuts, nutmeg, or raspberries.

We're having our annual Iron Buddy Brew Challenge Thursday at our meeting. I'll post back what crazy s**t people came up with.

http://rhbc.co/forum/iron-buddy-brew-ingredients-announced

Here's a link to the list of possible ingredients we used: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1329979/rhbc/Iron_Buddy_Brew_Ingredients.pdf