kingmoltar

Recipes 

I made a batch of mead with chocolate as one ingredient. I am debating weather or no to make 2 more batches trying two different methods.

Method i used was to take bakers chocolate and melt it in hot water, then added the honey.

Optional methods are:

1st: Take bakers chocolate and NOT melt it in the water, just put it in the fermenter and add the must.

2nd: Use cocoa powder and have it in the fermenter when I add the must

any advice or thoughts would be appreciated

I will put up the recipe if it turns out, but i just made it last night and want to wait until i see if it is a drinkable product.

Matrix4b

Recipes 

I am not sure what the best method is. From what I hear the best method is to put it in the secondary and use Cacao Nibs or Chocolate Powder. Most recipies that I have seen use 1 pound or 16 oz. I plan on making a double batch, Chocolate and a Chocolate Mint using 2 pounds of Cacao Nibs each. I have seen recipies of up to 4 pounds but that was hugely overdoing it. This is all of course for a 5 gal batch. I also plan on putting 1-2 Vanilla Beans in it. Something that I have noticed on every candybar or chocolate bar or chocolate product that I have seen that they put in vanillian, that is basically vanilla. So a good chocolate flavor will need a little vanilla too.

I personally recomend that you go with the Coco Powder, unsweetened in the secondary. For a light Chocolate flavor I have seen 1 pound for 5 gal. For very heavy or strong chocolate flavor use 3 pounds for 5 gal. Now what I have seen on the internet is that you will need to extra-age this. I recomend that you let it age, preferabbly Bulk age for at least a year after it has cleared.

Hope it turns out well. I plan on starting my primaries in Mid June. Carboys need to be emptied first.

MedsenFey

Recipes 

There is essentially no difference between using melted baker's chocolate and cocoa powder in terms of flavor and the messy aspects of a chocolate mead. Once melted and in the mead, the baker's chocolate behaves just like cocoa powder. Cacao nibs may give you a much less messy alternative, and probably can provide you with a better cocoa flavor than your standard cocoa powder will provide given that the powders generally use bulk cacoa from Ivory Coast, and not the more "gourmet" criollo varieties from South America.

Medsen

oldmate

Recipes 

Medsen - What about the milk products and fats in the bakers chocolate? I wouldn't want that ANYWHERE near my mead. I have used cocao powder, but it takes a long time for it to mellow out.

__________________
Primary: Cherry Melomel

Secondary:

Bottled: JAOM, Amber Ale

kingmoltar

Recipes 

Looking at the ingredients list on the bakers chocolate box there is no milk products in it.

oldmate

Recipes 

I was unsure about the milk products (some do, some don't), but it would have a fat or an emulsifier to hold it together.

__________________
Primary: Cherry Melomel

Secondary:

Bottled: JAOM, Amber Ale

MedsenFey

Recipes 

The amount of fat left in baker's chocolate isn't enough to have any impact.

Personally, I've sworn off cocoa powder and bakers chocolate. From now on I'm using nibs or making something else. However, I will say that reading the thread here comparing the different chocolate batches showed Nesquick to be the best tasting. I have some questions about that, but you may want to check that thread out.

oldmate

Recipes 

I read that thread too, I was intrigued, I thought the amount of preservatives and artificial flavours would end up tasting terrible!

__________________
Primary: Cherry Melomel

Secondary:

Bottled: JAOM, Amber Ale

MzIce

Recipes 

Hi Ya'll! I posted a short bit on chocolate in mead 5 years ago on brew-monkey and thought I'd repost it here for consideration....

As far as chocolate goes...Cook's Illustrated Magazine had an article called Chocolate 101. It was in the Nov 2005 issue, so you might still be able to find it. To summarize part of the article:

Chocolate liquor, a dark pasty liquid made by grinding the nibs extracted from dried, fermented, roasted cacao beans, is pure, unsweetened chocolate, the base ingredient for all other processed chocolates. About 55% of chocolate liquor is cocoa butter. Suspended in the cocoa butter are particles of ground cocoa solids, which carry the chocolate flavor. Unsweetened chocolate is pure chocolate liquor that has been cooled and formed into bars.

Cocoa Powder is chocolate liquor fed through a press to remove all but 10-24% of the cocoa butter. To counter the harsh, acidic flavor of natural cocoa, the powder is sometimes treated with an alkaline solution, or 'Dutched'. Cocoa powder contributes a lot of chocolate flavor with little additional fat. You can 'bloom' cocoa powder in a hot liquid such as water or coffee. This dissolves the remaining cocoa butter and disperses water-soluble flavor compounds for a deeper, stronger chocolate flavor.

Since all other chocolates have sugar, vanilla, soy lecithin, palm oil or other ingredients added I'd stick with the cocoa powder and add my own vanilla. I'd also stay away from 'dutch' chocolate. Chocolate and vanilla always play well together! You might try adding the cocoa powder to the honey and water when heating and then add the vanilla as a bean after the mead is in a secondary so you don't lose the aroma. You can always add more cocoa if needed, when you rack your mead.

On a side note, you can always try Chocolate Extracts. Good luck playing with chocolate in your recipes.

kingmoltar

Recipes 

It has been since April and i haven't touched it yet. Had a flood in the basement, and all of the stuff down there is in our mead room. can't really get to it right now, but from what i read is I need to bulk age it anyway. I hope it turns out, i have already had an experiment go bad and had to throw it out. we'll see.