Need help with a chocolate/chili porter

Trying to recreate the basic taste of New Belgium's Cocoa Mole, but I've never worked with chili peppers before. Any suggestions on the best way (in the boil, secondary, chopped up vs whole, etc) to get the flavor in there would be most helpful. My recipe is below.

5 gal batch
9# Pale
2# Caramel 80
1# Melanoidin
1/2# Pale Wheat
1# Flaked Oats
1/2# Chocolate malt
3 oz dark chocolate malt
1 oz Target (boil 60min)
2 oz cocoa powder (at flameout)
4 oz cacao nibs (secondary 10days)
Wyeast Denny's Favorite 50
The items I'm adding that I'm unsure how to do are: cinnamon, ancho chili, guajillo chili and chipotle chili

My best competition score was a Chocolate/Chili Porter (42 pts). I used BYO's Black Butte Porter clone for the base and then rehydrated chipotle chilis in boiling water, let everything cool, chopped the chilis a bit, and then put the chilis, along with the liquid, into the secondary along with cacoa nibs. I don't have my recipe in front of me so I don't remember the amount of water or peppers that I used, but I will try to remember to check when I get home.

I like the chiles in secondary for more flavor but you can add them at flameout if you prefer. From what I've read, it seems like adding the chiles while the wort is hot gives you more heat and less flavor but adding them in secondary adds more flavor and less heat.

Thanks, yeah if you can let me know the amount you used that'd be great. Any ideas on the cinnamon (sticks or powder and when to add)?

ReverseApacheMaster said:

I like the chiles in secondary for more flavor but you can add them at flameout if you prefer. From what I've read, it seems like adding the chiles while the wort is hot gives you more heat and less flavor but adding them in secondary adds more flavor and less heat.

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When you add them to secondary do you boil them first? This thread grabbed my attention and now I want to make a chili porter as well

I brewed a mole porter a while back. I used Ancho and Guajillo peppers. I deseaded and chopped them into 1" pieces, then soaked them in some vodka with the cocoa nibs for about a week. I then strained the peppers and nibs out and added the solution before kegging. Found it easier to add to taste this way.

Chuckus95 said:

My best competition score was a Chocolate/Chili Porter (42 pts). I used BYO's Black Butte Porter clone for the base and then rehydrated chipotle chilis in boiling water, let everything cool, chopped the chilis a bit, and then put the chilis, along with the liquid, into the secondary along with cacoa nibs. I don't have my recipe in front of me so I don't remember the amount of water or peppers that I used, but I will try to remember to check when I get home.

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Would like to know what you did if you still have the recipe notes. I brewed it yesterday and did 2 cinnamon sticks at 20 minutes and 2 oz cocoa powder for 5 minutes.

Toasting the chiles is important when it comes to releasing the harnessed flavors within.

Toast the split, dried chiles (sans the seeds and stem) in a flat, dry skillet until fragrant. The color will also change a tiny bit. Next, rehydrate in about 140-160 F water (hot to touch but not beyond 180 F) for about 10 minutes. You don't want to exceed that temp. because contrary to the belief that heat always kills flavor, the flavors of the chile will be released into the soaking water if you exceed a certain temperature, instead of releasing into your wort. You don't want that.

After the soak, drain and give them a rough chop. Add during the last minute of the boil and let them steep in the beer for about 30 minutes while cooling. This method will require slightly more chiles than if you were to blend the chiles with their soaking water and add that pureed mixture during the last 5-10 minutes of the boil. I'll let you decide which step to take.

FYI - Mexican cooks boil dried chiles quite frequently in soups, especially Tortilla soup. The flavor comes through very well. But then again, they always blend the chiles after the soup is finished to incorporate them fully into the soup. The chiles are not wasted or strained out.

hopheadva said:

Would like to know what you did if you still have the recipe notes. I brewed it yesterday and did 2 cinnamon sticks at 20 minutes and 2 oz cocoa powder for 5 minutes.

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I rehydrated 2 oz of Dried Chipotle Peppers in 1 cup boiling water for 5 mins. I then turned the flame off and let the mixture cool. Once cool, I chopped the rehydrated peppers and put them, along with the liquid and 4 oz of cocoa nibs in secondary. I sampled every 3 days, and, on the 12th day, i got the flavor I wanted and bottled.

WhiteDog87 said:

When you add them to secondary do you boil them first? This thread grabbed my attention and now I want to make a chili porter as well

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I simmer them with a small amount of water at 170F for a few minutes just to pasteurize them.

Chuckus95 said:

I rehydrated 2 oz of Dried Chipotle Peppers in 1 cup boiling water for 5 mins. I then turned the flame off and let the mixture cool. Once cool, I chopped the rehydrated peppers and put them, along with the liquid and 4 oz of cocoa nibs in secondary. I sampled every 3 days, and, on the 12th day, i got the flavor I wanted and bottled.

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Chuck, your method sounds pretty awesome. I assume with this amount of chipotles you're getting just a bit of heat? I'd want something where you feel just a bit of heat in the back of your throat.

Forgot to ask - what batch size was that for?

wintermute2 said:

Chuck, your method sounds pretty awesome. I assume with this amount of chipotles you're getting just a bit of heat? I'd want something where you feel just a bit of heat in the back of your throat.

Forgot to ask - what batch size was that for?

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Ooops, forgot to mention that I split my 5 gal base recipe into 2.5 batches, one with Chocolate Chili and one with Coconut. So, those amounts went into a 2.5 gal secondary.

The heat out of the box was much more prominent than I expected. After about 6 months, it was perfect. You were hit with the chocolate and smokiness upfront, with the heat at the end.

Hope this helps.