Chocolate Stout Question

Making an All Grain BIAB w/batch sparge chocolate stout. Loosely based on Southern tier's Chokolate but not an imperial. I am putting unsweetened cocoa in the last 2minutes of boil, racking on to cacao nibs in secondary and adding chocolate extract at botting. Not doing imperial because i am using lactose and heard it does not work well at higher gravities. Question is the Chocolate extract i got is 46% alcohol by volume (4oz) if added at bottling will this affect FG or taste on a 5 gallon batch. Some recipes call for 2-4oz to be used.

10# Maris Otter
1# carmel 60L
1# roasted barley UK
1# chocolate malt UK
8oz Fawcett Chocolate pale malt
8oz Flaked Barley
8oz Black patent
1# lactose sugar
1 oz Chinook 60min
1 oz cenntennial 15min
1 oz cascade 5 min
irish moss/ yeast nutrient
PH5.2 stabilizer
Amylase enzime in primary

1 liter starter of white labs london ale

152 mash in 90min 168 mash out 20min batch sparge 170

looks good but i would just ex out the chocolate extract in general and stick with the cocoa powder (suggest at flameout) and the nibs to age on. better flavor from those elements in my opinion.

Ive used chocolate extract and cacao nibs before. +1 to cocoa powder and cacao nibs for flavor, but the extract can really help add chocolate aroma. I'd say go ahead and use all 3. just be sure to add about half of the extract when bottling, give it a taste, then call it good or add more. I would not worry about the FG being changed a significant amount at all.

You may get bottle bombs adding chocolate extract at bottling, also will not help much with flavor.

A long time back I made a chocolate raspberry stout. I used only the cocoa and scored very well (two firsts in category). The aroma and taste were both there. The nibs sound interesting but I'd skip the extract personally.

Good luck with it; this was one of my favorites - I hope you are as pleased as I was.

FWIW the PH5.2 sounds like overkill with this grain bill - although I am not at all familiar with your local water.

LBussy said:

A long time back I made a chocolate raspberry stout. I used only the cocoa and scored very well (two firsts in category). The aroma and taste were both there. The nibs sound interesting but I'd skip the extract personally.

Good luck with it; this was one of my favorites - I hope you are as pleased as I was.

FWIW the PH5.2 sounds like overkill with this grain bill - although I am not at all familiar with your local water.

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Chicago tap water filtered to remove chlorine