Appreciate a review of this chocolate raspeberry stout recipe

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

SilentAutumn

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2011
Messages
119
Reaction score
5
Location
Ann Arbor
I came up with with this recipe for a chocolate raspberry porter based on suggestions from other HBT recipes (and based on what I had on hand). Would appreciate if folks could give some insight before I brew this up if it's going to come out decent. Thanks!

Recipe Type: Extract
Yeast: US-05
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: ?
Final Gravity: Estimated: ?
IBU: ?
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: ?

Steep for 30mins at 155°F:
0.5# Breiss Caramel 20L
0.625# (or 5/8#) Chocolate Malt
0.3# Black Patent

At 60:
3.3# Muntons Extra Light LME
1 oz. Northern Brewer 8.0% AA

At 15:
0.5# Brown Sugar
6 oz. Droste Cocoa Powder

At Flameout:
3# Plain Light DME

After 2 week in Primary:
5# Fresh raspberries (Frozen - Sterilized in bourbon)

Then to secondary, then bottle

Questions:
1) The cocoa powder comes in 8.8oz boxes. Should I add the remaining 2.8 oz's with the raspberries? Would that be chocolate overkill?
2) Should I be adding vanilla to the recipe? I know it's a personal preference question, but curious if anyone has tried with and without and noticed a big difference.
3) Does that seem like enough hops?
 
In case anyone is curious, I ran this through Beer Calculus and tweaked it a bit. I went with this:

Recipe Type: Extract
Yeast: US-05
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.066
Final Gravity: Estimated: ?
IBU: 23.1
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 35 SRM

Steep for 30mins at 160°F:
0.5# Breiss Caramel 20L
0.625# (or 5/8#) Chocolate Malt
0.3# Black Patent

After steep, when bringing to boil:
0.5 oz Northern Brewer 8.0%AA

At 60:
3.3# Muntons Extra Light LME
0.5 oz. Northern Brewer 8.0% AA

At 15:
0.25# Brown Sugar
6 oz. Droste Cocoa Powder

At Flameout:
3# Plain Light DME

Notes:

1) I'll have to see how it tastes after it's been in primary for a while to decide if I want to add the remainder or that Cocoa powder. I don't think I'll need it though. Given that my hops are a little light, I'm hoping the cocoa powder will add some bitterness (from theses forums, I've heard that it does). When first added, the cocoa smelled great. The wort didn't smell like wort, just cocoa, But at flameout, the sweetness was dissipating and I could get wafts of the bitter cocoa.


2) My DME clumped up on me for the first time ever at flameout and gave me the hard candy. I'm attributing this to some of the oils still present from the cocoa added at 15. Just took a little extra stirring to get it to dissolve.

3) OG reading came in at 1.061. I think this is partly due to the fact that I still had some tiny clumps of DME at reading time. Also, my final fill was 5.25 gallons. I wanted a little extra room when I rack off of the cocoa and raspberries to secondary. I imagine the 5# of raspberries I'll be adding in about a week will kick things up a point or two.

4) Beer Calculus gave me an estimated FG of 1.018. We'll see what those yeasties can do with that!
 
Back
Top