stratslinger
Well-Known Member
I've got a chocolate stout in primary now, coming up on 2 weeks. I'll be sampling it tomorrow for gravity and to get a feel for how much chocolate character is in the beer (used chocolate malt in the grist and cocoa powder as a 5 minute boil addition).
I'm thinking about adding cocoa nibs if there's less chocolate character than I wanted. I've done a little reading up, and I intend to sanitize them with a couple ounces of vodka, if I need to use them at all. But I've read a couple conflicting pieces of advice on actually adding the nibs, and wanted to see if I could get a consensus:
Should I dump these into a secondary vessel and rack the beer onto them, or just dump them (carefully!) into my primary? I've been skipping the secondary now for my last several brews to very good results, but it seems like dumping something into the primary at this stage, no matter how carefully, could be a recipe for oxidation. Am I right, or am I just being overcautious?
I'm thinking about adding cocoa nibs if there's less chocolate character than I wanted. I've done a little reading up, and I intend to sanitize them with a couple ounces of vodka, if I need to use them at all. But I've read a couple conflicting pieces of advice on actually adding the nibs, and wanted to see if I could get a consensus:
Should I dump these into a secondary vessel and rack the beer onto them, or just dump them (carefully!) into my primary? I've been skipping the secondary now for my last several brews to very good results, but it seems like dumping something into the primary at this stage, no matter how carefully, could be a recipe for oxidation. Am I right, or am I just being overcautious?