Need help with a Imperial Chocolate Stout Recipe

Since I have tried Southern Tier's Mokah and Choklat I have wanted to try my hand at making a imperial stout with a strong chocolate flavor. Now I have never brewed with chocolate or tried to make anything with a strong chocolate flavor before so I figured I would ask the pros on BA for their opinion. Also was planning on using some lactose. I have never used it before and do not know what a good amount is.

Here is the base recipe I am planning on using. I am using the DME since I am new to all-grain and the last RIS I did my efficiency was lower than planned I think due to the amount of grain in my mash tun.

Boil Time: 90 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons
Efficiency: 70%

14 lb - Pale 2-Row (63.64%)
0.5 lb - CaraMunich (2.27%)
1 lb - Special B (4.55%)
1.5 lb - Roasted Barley (6.82%)
0.5 lb - Chocolate (2.27%)
0.5 lb - Brown (2.27%)
1 lb - Milk Sugar (4.55%)
3 lb - Dry Malt Extract - Light (13.64%)

HOPS:
3 oz - Chinook (AA 13) for 60 min, Type: Pellet, Use: Boil

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
10 oz - Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa, Time: 1 min, Type: Flavor, Use: Boil
2 each - Vanilla Beans, Time: 1 min, Type: Flavor, Use: Boil

YEAST:
Fermentis / Safale - Safale - American Ale Yeast US-05

Mash at 154
Mash out 168
Batch Sparge

Doug,

Grain bill looks ok for an Imperial Stout. Is this something you generated yourself?

As far as the Lactose goes, that is the amount I use in my Milk Chocolate Stout. It adds just enough creaminess to it without being overboard.

I must admit I've never worked with Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa before. I've always just racked to Cacao nibs in the secondary to get the chocolate flavor to come through as it conditions. This has always worked well for me.

I've also never added vanilla beans to the boil before, but have had great success by adding 3 Madagascar vanilla beans to the secondary that have been split, scraped, and soaked in a cup of vodka for about 2 weeks. Before bottling/kegging, you can always add some real vanilla extract to enhance the flavor/aroma if you feel it's not intense enough.


Hope this helps,

Steve

The recipe is not mine, one I borrowed with a few very minor adjustments.

I may scratch the lactose due to an article on BYO that a couple brewers (Lancaster Brewing and Left Hand brewing) recommended against using it in high gravity beers.

I have never used Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa or vanilla beans but everything I have read says to add the vanilla to the secondary which is what I will probably do. I may use some cocoa nibs in the secondary if I can get some.

Hmmmm....interesting. I don't remember reading that article. I'll have to look into it.

I know there are a lot of suppliers out there that carry cacao nibs, so I can't imagine it's hard to find them.

I use 4 oz. when I do my chocolate milk stout. This imparts a nice subtle chocolate flavor and aroma to it. I imagine you could use a little more than that if you really wanted to amp it up.

I'd second adding vanilla beans to the secondary. I only use one that I cut open and into pieces, soak in rum, then poor it all in. After about 10 days or so it's pretty good. Use this regularly in my vanilla porter.

stevek767 said:

Hmmmm....interesting. I don't remember reading that article. I'll have to look into it.

I know there are a lot of suppliers out there that carry cacao nibs, so I can't imagine it's hard to find them.

I use 4 oz. when I do my chocolate milk stout. This imparts a nice subtle chocolate flavor and aroma to it. I imagine you could use a little more than that if you really wanted to amp it up.

Click to expand...

Here is what I was talking about.

"The common misconception is that if a beer is a stout, it must be high in alcohol. Yet most, with the exception of imperial stouts, are actually in the 4–6% alcohol by volume (ABV) range. (Lancaster Milk Stout is 5.2%; Lefthand Milk Stout lands at 5.3% while Samuel Adams Cream Stout falls to 4.7%.) Higher gravity beers might not work well with the lactose, Christoffel says. Adding lactose will not change the alcohol content, only the beer’s character and “I wouldn’t recommend using it in an imperial stout recipe,” he says. “There will be a conflict of flavors. The imperial stout has a rich body to begin with. The Plato is high already so there will be some residual extract. It would make the beer a little too sweetish because of the starting gravity. I’d say your really good results are going to be with a stout that has a gravity between 14–16 °Plato (SG 1.056–1.064). I wouldn’t go much higher.” "


http://***********/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/1160-milk-stout-it-does-a-body-good

I've just bottled my "Gothìc Chocolate stout" this weekend, It was made by adding a LOT of cocao powder in the primary fermenter. I've boiled 2 liters of water ad added about 225g of powder and than added this kind of choccolate cream before pitching yeast. the reason why I didn't add chocolate at the end of the boil is because by doing a whirpool a lot of chocolate will set at the bottom of the pot, so I don't like to waste it.

I've added only one vanilla beans at the end of the boil just to taste if this addiction is going to add some smooth flavor. In the past I've tried using vanilla beans by soaking them in vodka as someone has written before, but the point is that I can actually taste more vodka or rum flavor in the final beer than vanilla, so I'm trying something different.
I've also added some cacao powder with the priming sugar.

The one thing that I've noticed is that the more chocolate you are going to add, the longer time the beer will need to be the best. Adding a lot of cacao powder seems to give to the young beer un unpleasent flavor.

Dnolan36 said:

Here is what I was talking about.

"The common misconception is that if a beer is a stout, it must be high in alcohol. Yet most, with the exception of imperial stouts, are actually in the 4–6% alcohol by volume (ABV) range. (Lancaster Milk Stout is 5.2%; Lefthand Milk Stout lands at 5.3% while Samuel Adams Cream Stout falls to 4.7%.) Higher gravity beers might not work well with the lactose, Christoffel says. Adding lactose will not change the alcohol content, only the beer’s character and “I wouldn’t recommend using it in an imperial stout recipe,” he says. “There will be a conflict of flavors. The imperial stout has a rich body to begin with. The Plato is high already so there will be some residual extract. It would make the beer a little too sweetish because of the starting gravity. I’d say your really good results are going to be with a stout that has a gravity between 14–16 °Plato (SG 1.056–1.064). I wouldn’t go much higher.” "

http://***********/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/1160-milk-stout-it-does-a-body-good

Click to expand...

That makes sense.

Thanks for sharing.