Recipe question in Brewing Classic Styles

I've been using the all-grain recipes in "Brewing Classic Styles" for a few brews, and several weeks ago I brewed the Black Widow Porter (pg 156). I cracked open my first bottle tonight. While I liked the beer, I felt it was missing the chocolatey flavors I really look forward to in a Porter.

I looked again at the recipe, and noticed something. The percentage of chocolate malt in the recipe is 0.75 lbs, or 6.3%. But the 6.3% is based on using the malt extract version of the recipe. When you use the all-grain option, incorporating 0.75 lbs of chocolate malt is only around 4.8% of the grist, not the 6.3% Jamil seems to imply is desired.

Should I be recalculating the amount of specialty grains I need when I use the all-grain option for the recipes? Or, are the recipes intended to be used as-is with only the extract being substituted for the grains listed?

Thanks

I don't have the book, but providing the OG for the extract and the all-grain versions are the same, 0.75 lbs of chocolate malt will give similar effect on the beer. Actually, in the all-grain it may have a greater impact as you extract additional sugars when the grain is mashed versus being steeped.

The reason you are calculating different percentages is because you are baseing it on the total weight of ingredients and not on the total sugars (or gravity points) the ingredients supply.

How long has your beer been in the bottles? The flavour will improve significantly over time.
I read recently that chocolate malt doesn't actually add a chocolate taste. I can't remember if it was in Palmer's book or Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing. How about using cocoa nibs?

I think you should leave it, as the all-grain versions usually say something like:

"replace the extract with x lbs 2-row and mash at 152". No mention of adding add'l specialty grains, for the most part.

Yes I agree that you should leave it as is. Like the last post has said, the all grain option is only about replacing extract with base malt, the amount of steeping malts doesn't change.
Incidentally, I noticed that the "Chocolate Hazelnut Porter" recipe uses the same amount of chocolate malt as the "Black Widow Porter" but it also uses .5# of cocoa.
I'm curious to know what recipes you've liked from the book. I have made the Belgian wit, Belgian Saison, Belgian Dark Strong, and the English IPA. The only one I can I a truly liked was the Belgian Wit and this was only after I brewed a second batch to blend with it because the coriander or orange peels were overpowering.

Also, as Jamil states many times on Brew Your Own podcast, not all dark malts are created equal. There is no standard for what chocolate malt must be, some companies its a darker 400 lovibond chocolate with a higher roast that'll be a bit more coffee/chocolate/roast flavor, others its a lighter 200 lovibond roast that tastes completely different...While i dont think he specifies in the recipes if you can(if your getting the grain locally) is sample the chocolate malt to see if it actually has the flavors you want.

[)QUOTE=Sir-Hops-A-Lot;5764868]
I'm curious to know what recipes you've liked from the book. I have made the Belgian wit, Belgian Saison, Belgian Dark Strong, and the English IPA. The only one I can I a truly liked was the Belgian Wit and this was only after I brewed a second batch to blend with it because the coriander or orange peels were overpowering.[/QUOTE]

I've made the Special Bitter (pg 120), the Blonde (pg 96), American Amber (137), and the robust porter. I really liked the SB and the Blonde. The American Amber was okay, and the Porter so far is okay. The porter has only been in the bottles for 2 weeks, though, so they have plenty of aging left to do.