ihavenoclevername

Recipes 

Hey!
I recently brewed my first batch in long time, and found a recipe I am interested in for my second...it's fro the most recent issue of BYO and is called the Hot Chocolate Porter...I won't write the whole recipe down, as I'm not sure if it ciolates copyright law or something...I'll just give a quick sketch.

It involves amber extract, chocolate malt, black patent, caramunich..nothing too strange there.

My question involves some of the other additions...the recipe calls for ancho chili powder (2.5 oz for a 5 gallon batch), cocoa powder (5 oz), and 8.0 oz of "milk chocolate bar" (these three ingredients are added at the beginning of the boil).

Th chili and cocoa powder don't seem to strange, but the addition of half a pound of "milk chocolate bar" threw me for loop, as I thought that this would add a lot of oils and such. Just curious as to if anyone has tried this recipe yet, and if so, what kind of milk choolate bar do you use? And if not, then what could I do...increase cocoa powder? Leave out the milk chocolate bar? I'm not that experienced of a brewer, and this would only be my second using a non-kit recipe (the first was a clone of a brew called Matacabras I also found in BYO, and I transferred to the secondary yesterday...smelled grea, and the samples I have tried during the fermenting process seem to have a lot of potential, but I don't wanna jinx myself)...

Any help is appreciated!

Cheers!

raptorvan

Recipes 

depending on your tolerance for bitter/ coffee tastes, i would dial back the black patent and/ or maybe go with a pale malt.

now, on to the chocolate bars...this is very surprising as the fats and oils from the bars would not be good drinking. im trying to figure this out...which issue was it? generally you add a chocolate liquor, powder or nibs specifically to prevent the fats and oils from getting into the wort.

NOW to remedy this, i refer to my first paragraph. i would use pale chocolate malt in place of regular chocolate (regular chocolate malt doesnt actually taste like chocolate, the name is derived from the color.) and add either coco-nibs or a chocolate liquor.

ihavenoclevername

Recipes 

Thanks! The recipe is in the Jan-feb 2012 issue...funny there is also a section with advice about adding chocolate to recipes...and none of them mentioned chocolate bars...the idea of a chili-chocolatey porter is what Got me, and I am not averse to altering the recipe a bit...

So, using the 6.6 amber LME, the 2.5 oz of Ancho chili powder, and the 5.0 oz of cocoa powder (in addition to the northern brewer hops and wyeast 1099), and leaving out the 8 oz of "milk chocolate bar" for the base recipe, what are some recommendations for a fairly simple extract/steeped grain recipe...regarding the grains the original recipe calls for .5 lv each of chocolate malt, black patent, and CaraMunich, steeped for 30 minutes after bringing 2 gallons of water to 160 F and turning off the heat....

Any ideas?

raptorvan

Recipes 

Sounds about right but I personally would nix the chocolate for about 10oz of pale chocolate malt. Look for unsweetened or bakers cocoa powder or 4-6oz cocoa nibs. Maybe some lactose for an iitty bitty sweetness or chrystal for a bit more sweet. New Holland brewery does a stout or porter with chocolate and ancho Chili. The Chili kinds dominates so maybe keep a dram od chocolate extract handy?

It goggles my mind why they would ask you to add chocolate bars...milk chocolate bars. That brewing 101.

ChiechiBrouw

Recipes 

I brewed this recipe yesterday (AG). I used light chocolate malt (as others have mentioned, dark chocolate malt doesn't really taste like chocolate) and used 1/2 the amount of milk chocolate (55%), filling in the rest with dark chocolate (70-99%). The runoff actually smelled more chocolatey before the chocolate/cocoa powder addition at the start of the boil.

I couldn't find ancho chili powder (I live in NL) so I ground two whole chilis (sans seeds), which was about 1/10th the mass called for in the recipe. I tasted the wort and it actually had a little heat to it already, so I think that was a good call The gravity was spot-on so I don't think the additives contributed too much in the way of sugar.

As for the fats, it is as expected; a thick, cloudy wort with zero krausen even at full-tilt fermentation (and probably zero head retention in the finished beer). However, something happened to the insoluble fats. At first, they separated out and floated to the top (as a white solid), but this morning the fermenter was cheerfully bubbling with vigorous fermentation and there was no sign of the fats so, either the yeast ate them or they settled out to the bottom. There is no oil slick on top, either. The cool thing is that wort looks exactly like a cup of hot chocolate!

This beer will go into the keg in three or four weeks--I'll try to remember to post an update.

raptorvan

Recipes 

I'm interested to hear about the results. Remember that most of the sugar from the chocolate will be fermented which is just one of many reasons to simply use bakers chocolate or.powder also, if it doesn't turn out or if it doesn't have that chocolate taste when you go to secondary I would strongly recommend using cocao nibs, they have a great chocolate taste without the extra baggage...and possibly a dram of chocolate extract? This is what I love about these recipes you can turn them into anything...these extract drams are awesome...a far cry from those funny tasting LD carleson bottles. I did a coconit one and a chocolate hazlenut one...just test batches and they were fantastic.

ihavenoclevername

Recipes 

Well, didn't have the funds to brew another batch, but I still got this one on the radar when I'm a little better off financially...so I too will be anxious to hear about how it turned out. One question about the light v dark chocolate malt...I am an extract w/specialty grains brewer now and for the forseeable future, and I want to say I read somewhere (maybe "Radical Brewing") that light chocolate malt "won't convert, or something like that...will switching to light chocolate malt make any difference if I am using the extract w/ grains recipe?

ChiechiBrouw

Recipes 

I just racked to the secondary. The amount of chocolaty sludge in the bottom of the fermenter was impressive. The beer itself is thick and cloudy. The FG is right on target. It's not too sweet, but still has a nice, full mouth-feel.

Having tasted the beer, I now understand the reason for adding chocolate bars and not just cocoa powder. I used a combination of three different chocolate bars plus the recommended cocoa powder and I can taste every single chocolate bar in the beer. Every chocolate bar has its own unique flavor profile and that profile is apparently transferred to the beer 1:1.

I get a hint of the ancho chili flavor, but it could easily stand much more. All-in-all it's a pretty decent beer, though still green (brewed it two weeks ago). I think that I will enjoy having a keg of it to get me through the rest of winter.

ChiechiBrouw

Recipes 

After a few weeks in the keg, the flavors have blended and this is one fantastic beer. Still no head whatsoever and maybe just a tad too much on the bittering hops (possible because I subbed dark chocolate for half the milk chocolate), but excellent nonetheless.

day_trippr

Recipes 

That's those chocolate bars doing their thing...

Cheers!