Help with a RIS extract

I want to make a Spicy Mayan Chocolate Imperial Stout.

For those of you fortunate enough to have Chauao's Spicy Mayan Hot Chocolate, this is a bit of the flavor im looking for in the beer. It's really good, and would I think be interesting in something big like an RIS.

It's a Partial Mash since I don't yet have a All-Grain set up.

Here's what I have so far. Please comment.

Batch Size: 5 gallon
Boil: 3.5 gallon

4# Light Dry Extract (Late boil 15min)
5# Dark Dry Exract (Late boil 15min)

2.5# Pale Malt 2 row
.75# Caraaroma
.5# Chocolate Malt
.25# Roasted Barley

1oz Columbus 14% (90min)
1oz Challenger 7.5% (45min)

2 pkg Nottingham

some amount TBD Spicy Mayan Hot Chocolate mix from Chauao (Chocolate, Cinnamin, Pasila Chile). Added last 5 min of boil or at flame out (enough to melt it in)

the only suggestion i have about the chocolate is you will want to give it enough time to melt and have any cocoa fat boil off as to not impede head production on the beer. I would deffinitly not add at flame out...5 minutes should be good

I just looked it up and that stuff has 7g of fat in each 3Tbsp serving. That's a lot off fats to introduce to your wort. I bet you could do your own blend of fat free cocoa powder, pasilla chile, cayenne pepper and cinnamon (what they use in theirs) and come up with about the same thing. That way you won't have to worry about so much fat ruining your head.

I would ditch the dark dry extract personally. You have more control over your recipe if you stick with the light stuff (the dark stuff already has a bunch of specialty grains included in it). I would also bump up the amount of chocolate malt and roasted barley (i like my RIS's to have a defined roasty, coffee flavor and aroma). Lastly, I would also have to say that ChshreCat is right about introducing fat into your wort - avoid if at all possible.

ChshreCat said:

I just looked it up and that stuff has 7g of fat in each 3Tbsp serving. That's a lot off fats to introduce to your wort. I bet you could do your own blend of fat free cocoa powder, pasilla chile, cayenne pepper and cinnamon (what they use in theirs) and come up with about the same thing. That way you won't have to worry about so much fat ruining your head.

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with that much fat in the beer your going to want to give it plenty of time to break down in the boil...or you could always rack off from under it...in theory it should float

Definitely skip the dark extract, go with the lightest you can get all the time. Since you're mashing anyway pull any malt-derived color and flavor from mashed grains. Then you don't have to worry about reproducing the recipe as all-grain or if the dark DME is not available.

You might also try a more neutral bittering hop than Columbus. Challenger is good AFAIK or Magnum would work well.

Trencher said:

You might also try a more neutral bittering hop than Columbus. Challenger is good AFAIK or Magnum would work well.

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Can you really taste the difference in a bittering hop?

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'll have to evaluate and change things up a bit (zero dark DME for instance). Maybe add a little more of the chocolate and roasted grain.

Check out the recipes for the 08-08-08 RIS a number of us brewed last year. With 88 IBU and 8.88% ABV this was a wonderful beer that aged very well. I'd love to brew another batch myself, in fact!