I Want to Give My Porter........

A chocolate-hazelnut flavor. Any suggestions? I havent brewed yet obviously. I have the ingredients for the American Porter from Ballast Point in San Diego. I want to add a little something to it.

When you say chocolate flavor do you mean milk chocolate flavor or dark chocolate flavor? And when you say hazelnut are you specifically referring to hazelnut or will any nutty flavor do?

With regards to the chocolate flavor a dark chocolate flavor can be added by adding baking chocolate (usually powdered) to the brew in the last 5 minutes. If you want the beer to be sweeter with the milk chocolate flavor you have to add the baking chocolate and some lactose. Lactose is an unfermentable sugar that stays sweet in the beer.

With regards to the hazelnut flavor, the only way to get real hazelnut flavor is to use a hazelnut extract. If you are interested in adding a nutty flavor in general, there are several specialty grains you could add to your mash or steep to get the nutty flavor. If you post the recipe you plan on using perhaps we can see which of the grains will have that nutty flavor and suggest some other grains to add or swap out with.

I make a choclate porter that uses a pound of Choclate malt. I know this is a lot, but it winds up with a flavor like dark choclate. Bitter, but not too bitter- at least for me. I agree with Donasay, if you want nutty flavor, you can add another specialty grain to get the nutty flavor.

i have seen some recipes that call for real chocolate i have not tried this but i have used coco before and my opnion was it was a little bitter. if you want to get a chocolate and hazelnut flavor you might try some nutella.

Yeah maybe some sort of coffee bean would be fun to try in it?

thanks for the tips.
I was thinking more of a dark chocolate flavor, not too sweet. I dont want a sweet beer. The recipe I am using calls for .5 lbs of chocolate malt. I have tasted the beer that this is supposed to resemble, and I didnt get that much chocolate flavor. I am looking for something that will take that chocolate flavor up a notch. As far as the hazelnut, I would prefer hazelnut to be the actual nutty flavor. I was also considering getting some chocolate-hazelnut coffee beans and coarsely break them up and adding that to the grains I am using in the boil. Anyone have experience with something like this?

What type of flavor does that nutella stuff give?

I always wanted to add a little coffe flavor to my oatmeat stout, wasnt sure how to do it because there seems to be alot of ways, Probobally boiling it with the grains is safest, anything else i guess might add bacteria.

A chocolate hazelnut flavored coffee may be the easiest way to go, adding it in secondary....Although I wonder if there would be a way to use NUTELLA Chocolate Hazelnut spread in it, like some people de-oil peanut butter then add it to their stouts I think n the boil....that might be an experiment worth trying....

I was just reading BYO's 150 clone brews issue, and there is a Rogue beer called Hazelnut Brown Nectar, and the recipe calls for 1/8 oz of "Stearns and Lehman Flavor-mate hazelnut flavoring". I have never heard of it, but thought it may help in your hazelnut flavor quest!

Revvy - you suggest adding the coffee to the secondary. What do you think about chopping up some beans and adding them to the grains in the boil?

Enderwig - thanks for the hazenut tip. I have never heard of it either. I wonder if it is a grocery store type item or a specialty brewing item.

So I was at the grocery store and bought about 3/4 cup of chocolate macadamia coffee beans. I would like to use this in my brew and I am thinking of chopping them up and adding them to the grains in the boil. Does anyone have experience doing this? Does anyone think this is a bad idea?

Well, my thought is you wouldn't want to use beans in the boil. I mean, boiled coffee tastes like crap. You might want to make a 1/4 pot of the coffee, super strong, and then add that to secondary.

YooperBrew said:

Well, my thought is you wouldn't want to use beans in the boil. I mean, boiled coffee tastes like crap. You might want to make a 1/4 pot of the coffee, super strong, and then add that to secondary.

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Do you have experience with that technique? If so, how does it turn out?

Wouldnt there be a risk of infection, or would the alchol made while in primary take care of that. Thats why i suggested boiling crushed beans in the wort, i dont think it would taste bad at all. It'd be like 8% coffee instead of 100% coffee from the maker.

If you look through the different threads and recipes for coffee in stouts found using the google search function, you'll see that the majority of brewers us the coffee in the secondary...and quite a few us cold pressed or steeped coffee....

http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&...Search&sitesearch=http://www.homebrewtalk.com

Maybe adding coffee at flameout is a better option boiled coffee is real bitter.


<EDIT> The Brew Goddess has spoken.

Chris_Dog said:

Maybe adding coffee at flameout is a better option boiled coffee is real bitter.


<EDIT> The Brew Goddess has spoken.

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That is a good compromise option. I am just afraid that if I wait to put the coffee in the secondary, at that point I will be so scared of messing something up I already spent so much time on that I wont add the coffee at all. I guess I could put the crushed beans in a muslin and let them sit in the wart while it cools, giving it a little while to "brew" in the hot water, similar to brewing coffee.

I put coffee in my oatmeal stout and I really loved the flavor. It really made it taste rich. Don't boil the coffee beans, as stated above boiled coffee is not very good. I just poured a pot of coffee in after the boil just before cooling (actually, come to think of it i realized I forgot the coffee and actually added it after it cooled, but i suggest not forgetting) and it came out very good.

Letting the beans steep in the wort as soon as the boil finishes would probably work too but would likely be a more subtle flavor.

jeeper said:

I put coffee in my oatmeal stout and I really loved the flavor. It really made it taste rich. Don't boil the coffee beans, as stated above boiled coffee is not very good. I just poured a pot of coffee in after the boil just before cooling (actually, come to think of it i realized I forgot the coffee and actually added it after it cooled, but i suggest not forgetting) and it came out very good.

Letting the beans steep in the wort as soon as the boil finishes would probably work too but would likely be a more subtle flavor.

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Thanks for the input. Your probably right about there being a more subtle flavor if I did it the way I was suggesting. Adding a nice strong pot of coffee after the boil is a good idea too. I mean, I am going to need to add water to it anyways right (5 gal or so pot)? I guess all I need to figure out now is how strong I want the coffee taste to be and think how to work that out. I think I am going to go with your method. You get the coffee into the mix at the beginning, and you have the control of the strengh and amount of the coffee added.

couple questions for you -

When you added your coffee, did you make it really strong? Did you do a whole pot (like 10 cups or whatever)? How strong was the coffee taste in the beer? Did you use regular coffee beans or flavored?

morebeer has a kit of jamil's chocolate hazelnut porter

http://morebeer.com/view_product/18424/102191

As far as I know making coffee can be somewhat like making beer. If you boil the beans to long the water will leech flavors that you don't want. I'm still new to beer making, but it seems to me if you boil the coffee beans with the rest of the grains you have a higher chance of getting some of those undesirable off flavors. I would be more inclined to making a strong pot of coffee and adding that instead.

If you use a regular drip coffee machine to make the strong batch it might take the water to long to filter through, so I would watch that as well. I'm thinking a French Press is the way to go. That way you can control how long the water is in contact with the beans.

How about instant coffee? Has anyone used that?

groceryboy said:

As far as I know making coffee can be somewhat like making beer. If you boil the beans to long the water will leech flavors that you don't want. I'm still new to beer making, but it seems to me if you boil the coffee beans with the rest of the grains you have a higher chance of getting some of those undesirable off flavors. I would be more inclined to making a strong pot of coffee and adding that instead.

If you use a regular drip coffee machine to make the strong batch it might take the water to long to filter through, so I would watch that as well. I'm thinking a French Press is the way to go. That way you can control how long the water is in contact with the beans.

How about instant coffee? Has anyone used that?

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I think I am just going to brew a regular pot of coffee and pour that in.
Im not going to get that fancy with it.

I did think about instant coffee too. Like if you got some tasters choice and threw it in there. I wonder how that would be?

So brewed up the batch. Added a pot of strong coffee after the boil, but prior to cooling. It is in the primary and has been fermenting like crazy. I will let you all know how it turns out!

I've wanted to try brewing a pot of coffee to pour in. My roomate and I made a porter and crushed and steeped with the grain about a half a pound of coffee and gave it a stuble coffe taste. It worked great but im sure there are thousands of ways to do one thing