In preparation for beer I have been wanting to make for a while (Cilantro Line Pale What), I have set out to find the best way to incorporate the aroma and flavor of cilantro into my beer.

Not really knowing how the essential oils of cilantro can best be utilized in solution, I setup a group of controlled experiments to see what worked best. My primary approach was to expose cilantro to boiling water at various concentrations and durations. This should give me an idea if cilantro can be treated like hops (early for bitter, middle for flavor, late for aroma). The secondary approach is to use a french press to mix cilantro with beer to see how well the alcohol in the beer pulls in the essence of cilantro.

Preparation

To prepare the cilantro I simply pulled the leaves from the stems, collected them in a pile, and used a large knife to rough cut them down to a moderate size. All measurements were made based on volume (e.g. teaspoon, tablespoon) because the scale I had was not sensitive enough to accurately measure in tenths of grams.

Boil Tests

For each test one pint (16 oz) of tap water was brought to a boil and prepared cut cilantro was added and boiled for the specified duration. Once complete, the liquid was run through a strainer and into a pint for cooling. The pint was recorded and placed in the fridge/freezer to cool.

French Press Tests

For each test I took one beer, poured it into a french press, added cilantro, and waited to see the affects over time.

Conclusions

It seems pretty clear that boiling does not do cilantro good, like it does for hops. The longer the cilantro is boiled the more the flavor degrades into a tea and the aroma completely disappears. The 1 min boils show that aroma is preserved fairly well if you use enough cilantro. Conversely, I seem to get the best flavor with cilantro when combined with the beer itself. The aroma does fade, but at least the flavor is preserved somewhat.

This leads me to believe that the best approach will be adding a lot cilantro to the hopback for aroma and to secondary fermentation for flavor.