Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Chocolate Coconut Stout

7lbs - 2 row grain
3 lbs - flaked oats
2 lbs - English chocolate malt
1 lb - "nocturnal grain blend for northernbrewers.com
1 lb - English black malt

1 oz - Fuggle (aroma)
1 oz- uk first gold (bittering)

Safale -04 yeast

5oz priming sugar for bottling

20 oz unsweetened coconut flakes (toasted before added to secondary)

4 oz- bakers chocolate bar unsweetened (last 10 in boil)

1 oz- coconut extract (added with priming sugar at bottling)

1/8 oz - almond extract (added with priming sugar at bottling)

Mashed grains at 155 for an hour.

Added chocolate bar 10 mins before flame out.

Left coconut shaving in secondary for 7 days.

OG 1.071
FG 1.021

ABV 6.4

Wort temp during fermentation 70 degree Fahrenheit.

The only hiccup I had with the recipe was my poor efficiency rating which lowered my ABV to 4.4.


Awesome flavor even though I thought I added way too much chocolate when I tasted throughout the fermentation process. Coconut flakes and extract really balanced the chocolate flavor.

Had a dark color head when I poured it into my cup but it dissipated quickly.

After four weeks the coconut flavor dissipates and is no longer really noticeable. The chocolate is still an overwhelming flavor but not in a negative way.

In the coconut beer I have had, the coconut flavor can be very temperature dependent.

36 - 42 degrees and you might not taste it.

44 - 52 degrees and there it is!

YMMV

Cool experiment! I made a coconut beer with toasted matter added at every step. The only addition that kept the flavor in place was in the keg. No extracts were used; I suspect that the post-fermentation alcohol leached the flavor out of the coconut in much the same way as a liquor infusion.

So it's more like a complex chocolate stout now?

I took smooth's advice and changed the temperature of my last two beers and it did help bring out the coconut flavor again. I kept them out of the refrigerator and let them sit in room temperature. That apparently worked to a certain extent. I still feel that I need to improve my coconut adding method for this recipe next time i try it.

The flavor was more pronounced after I let it sit in the bottles for about 1-2 weeks. After that the coconut flavor diminished.

Try a post-fermentation addition. It worked in my case.