Use a vegetable peeler to take off strips of the peels instead of a zester.
Soak peels in vodka for a few days to make an extract and to sanitize everything.
Dump the whole concoction in after fermentation is complete. Dry hop for a few days/week.
Adding to the boil or during primary...
The Irish are fun, but their beer and food is boring. (although a full Irish breakfast is pretty intense)
Irish stout is a great style, but it is simple and doesn't really lend itself to well to thinking outside the box, IMHO.
It's normal. You are being hyper critical.
Just like when I give someone a beer and they say "Thanks, the beer was good"
I want to rip my hair out. Good? Good how? What did you think of the carbonation? Were the hops apparent in the aroma? Was the body and mouth feel good and did they...
Yes, you can, and should use both to get the best of both worlds.
For the cocoa powder:
-I will heat up a small amount of water in a sauce pan and then slowly add the powder while whisking until I have added it all and have a chocolate syrup. I then add that to the boil right before flame...
Are you looking for chocolate flavor/aroma?
If so, steeping chocolate malt ain't gonna do it.
Since you can't get nibs, boil a bit of water then simmer and stir in 4-5 oz cocoa powder until you have a nice chocolaty syrup. pour into your fermentor but expect alot of trub. That should give...
Mashed this at 156-158 with US-05 finished at 10.20 which is right where I wanted down from 10.63
I added 4oz dutch cocoa powder at 1 min which I had slowly stirred into a simmering saucer pan of water until it was a nice chocolate syrup. This was I had zero clumping issued and all the cocoa...
Resurrection
Just put this in the fermentor. Slight change to the hop schedule and I used US-05 instead of Bell's yeast, hope that doesn't throw it off too much
Color was great, nice ruby color. Can't wait!!