Adding chocolate to a chocolate stout
 

Hey there,

I've got a soon to be chocolate stout that's wrapping up fermentation.

I've read a few threads where people talk about basically making "hot cocoa" and adding it to your secondary.

My thing is that I'm thinking about skipping secondary all-together and just adding a hot-cocoa/sugar mix to the bottling bucket and bottling right away.

My fear is that during secondary, a lot of the cocoa will fall out of suspension and make for a lot of uneven flavors.

I added 8oz of cocoa (make into a paste with water first) 10 minutes before the end of the boil. This resulted in a very nice level of chocolate taste, nice and balanced.

How long has it been in your primary? Stout's are meant to be aged somewhat. I usually throw my Stouts in a secondary and let them disappear in the back of my closet for awhile.

Cocoa makes a pile of trub like you wouldn't believe. Put the cocoa in the fermenter and let it sit there for a while unless you want a inch or so of sediment in your bottles.

I added (artificial) chocolate extract to my stout at bottling time. The first few bottles were great and very chocolatey. Over time the taste has mellowed and now (after 7 weeks in the bottle) there's just a hint of chocolate flavour, but still quite a bit of aroma.

I wouldn't be surprised if natural chocolate extract gave a somewhat nicer and longer lasting flavour, but given that it's over ten times the price I think I'll be sticking with artificial for my next batch.