Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Chocolate Coffee Stout (Chocolate Jitterz)

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ok so i brewed this last night and primary is underway. Mashed with 4.5 gallons and it yielded maybe 2.5 gallons. Sparged with about 5.5 gallons to get up to the 7 gallion boil. I was suprised that the batch size actually got down to a little less then 5.5 gallons.... So that's where I am - The color is not black black but a very very dark brown like others have stated. It tastes good and I am pleased so far. Thanks for the recipe.

Quick Question: Did you have any concerns adding the cacao nibs to the secondary in regards to sanitation? I was going to buy some nibs from the local co-op that carries them. Do I need to do anything to the nibs before adding to the secondary for 2 weeks?
 
ok so i brewed this last night and primary is underway. Mashed with 4.5 gallons and it yielded maybe 2.5 gallons. Sparged with about 5.5 gallons to get up to the 7 gallion boil. I was suprised that the batch size actually got down to a little less then 5.5 gallons.... So that's where I am - The color is not black black but a very very dark brown like others have stated. It tastes good and I am pleased so far. Thanks for the recipe.

Quick Question: Did you have any concerns adding the cacao nibs to the secondary in regards to sanitation? I was going to buy some nibs from the local co-op that carries them. Do I need to do anything to the nibs before adding to the secondary for 2 weeks?

I used 9oz of raw cacao nibs without any treatment. Didn't bother with secondary, just added them into primary after 2 weeks and left them there for 2 more weeks prior to bottling. Its been bottle conditioning now for two weeks and has turned out fine with no contamination. I did soak the vanilla bean in a small quantity of vodka to help extract the vanillin prior to addition. As an aside, due to an auto syphon malfuntion during transfer I had to maunal syphon by mouth very carefully, and am relieved that the batch survived!! The cacao nibs clogged the syphon so some sort of filter!
 
I used 9oz of raw cacao nibs without any treatment. Didn't bother with secondary, just added them into primary after 2 weeks and left them there for 2 more weeks prior to bottling. Its been bottle conditioning now for two weeks and has turned out fine with no contamination. I did soak the vanilla bean in a small quantity of vodka to help extract the vanillin prior to addition. As an aside, due to an auto syphon malfuntion during transfer I had to maunal syphon by mouth very carefully, and am relieved that the batch survived!! The cacao nibs clogged the syphon so some sort of filter!

Hey thanks a lot for the tip on filtering out the cacao nibs before doing the auto syphon. I didn't even think about that.
 
Another quick question. So my HomeBrew store didn't carry Servomyces Tablets which speed up the fermentation process. Should I keep my beer in the primary longer because of this? If so another week?
 
Another quick question. So my HomeBrew store didn't carry Servomyces Tablets which speed up the fermentation process. Should I keep my beer in the primary longer because of this? If so another week?

Leaving it a week longer won't do it any harm, but you should be able to tell when fermentation has finished when the final gravity has been reached (~1.027) and is stable.
 
I was thinking the same, in regards to it wouldn't hurt, but I ended up putting the 5.5 gallon batch in like a 13 gallon carboy and it's pretty hard to take gravity readings. Not the smartest idea on my behalf
 
I was thinking the same, in regards to it wouldn't hurt, but I ended up putting the 5.5 gallon batch in like a 13 gallon carboy and it's pretty hard to take gravity readings. Not the smartest idea on my behalf

No, that wasn't very smart of you.

A quick question: I was going to take ~a gallon and add chilis to the secondary with the nibs and leave out the coffee, as an experimental side batch. Any recommendations for a little carboy I could use to do this? I had an old Mr. Beer barrel that caused an experimental batch to get infected last time, so I want something I can rely on.
 
I also did not have the Servomyces Tablets, I just brewed this beer about 10 days ago. Fermentation seemed to have come to a halt but my gravity ended up being at 1.036. Would it still ferment even though there seems to be no activity (if i had left it in)? Would the tablets have made all the difference? Would a yeast starter have helped? The temps were all good at pitching time and during fermentation.

Sorry I am a bit of a novice, any advice/info would be appreciated. I am going to brew this beer again, I want to get it right, it sounds like a great beer. I guess I will still keep this batch even though the abv will be slightly under 5.
 
According to the recipe on the first page of the post - the tablets are added with 10 mins remaining in the boil. "1.00 items Servomyces Capsule (Boil 10.0 min) Misc"
 
Im gonna brew this after this trip im on. Looks like a good recipe. Im sure any yeast nutrient will work right?
 
I do, shoot me pm with your email. Unfortunately I can't attach the file via the phone app. But I have it on the phone so I can email it to you.
 
Brewed this a few weeks ago and bottled it the other day. It smelled terrific. When is this beer going to be good and ready to drink? I put december on the box, is that too soon? I changed the hops around a little to what I had available ( Willamette and cascade).
 
I was thinking of trying this one next. I'm a noob home brewer, so this might be a bad idea, but I was thinking of soaking the vanilla bean and chocolate nibs in bourbon before adding them to primary.

Do you think this is OK or will it just be too much going on?
 
I brewed this last year and I'm still slowing (savoring) my way through it. It is an outstanding beer. I made mine with fresh ground expresso (still warm from the grinder!) and Ghiradelli cocoa.

It was a lot of work to make, but worth every bit of it!
 
I brewed this last year and I'm still slowing (savoring) my way through it. It is an outstanding beer. I made mine with fresh ground expresso (still warm from the grinder!) and Ghiradelli cocoa.

It was a lot of work to make, but worth every bit of it!
Sounds yummy Cody! Cheers!
 
How much coffee did you actually use? I'm trying to figuer out what I'll use for roughly 1.25 gallons(1/2 of my 2.5g batch). I'm going to add at bottling time.
 
I used 24 oz. of cold brewed coffee at kegging. This was made by using course ground coffee steeped in 24 oz. of filtered room temperature water overnight, then strained through a coffee filter. I used twice as much coffee grounds as I would have used to brew regular coffee.
 
3. Add 24 oz. of Cold Brewed Coffee at kegging. Use course ground coffee steeped in 24 oz. of filtered room temperature water overnight. Use twice as much coffee grounds as you would for regular brewed. Strain through paper filter before adding to keg.

I am gettin ready to cold-brew the coffee now, the bag of coffee that I bought at the store (yeah I'm not much of a coffee drinker :p though I love the flavor in other things) says to use 1 rounded tbsp per 6 oz of water, and you call for 24oz, but say to use double. So I am gonna shoot for using 8 rounded tbsp. I will report back in 3 weeks once its carbed in the keg! :mug:
 
It is a bit confusing the way it's worded, but you have it right - 8 rounded tbsp per 24 oz water. I hope you enjoy! Cheers! :mug:
 
Is there a DME recipe for this? I'm not so bad-ass as to go all-grain.

When I was doing extract and I saw an AG recipe that I wanted to try what I would normally do was replace the pale or 2-row malt with light or extra light DME at the following ratio - Per 1 lb of grain use 0.6 lbs of DME.

Alternatively, I plugged this recipe into brewtarget, and changing the equipment to a half boil extract batch - boiling 3 gallons, losing 2 quarts during the 60 min boil, and topping off with 2.5 gallons of water post-boil - and I replaced the 11 lbs of 2-row with 6.4 lbs of Light DME. That got me to an post boil OG of 1.072 - Exactly what this recipe calls for. I would then steep the other grains (total coming out to 3.63 lbs) for 30 minutes before starting the boil.

That being said, I have not tried this. That would have just been my process were I to try to attempt this.
 
I brewed 2 batches of this just the other day and was very pleased with the look of everything so far. The question I had was, have any of you guys had Southern Tier's "Choklat" Stout? An excellent beer but maybe a bit too much chocolate for my taste. As the original poster stated, the recipe may need to scale back on the chocolate to make it a bit more subtle. Thought I'd ask if anyone has had that beer AND brewed this beer to give me a heads up.
My feeling is that I will do each batch a different way using varying amounts of chocolate and coffee in each to see what I like better. Thanks!!
 
I like ST Choklat and brewed this beer last year. They are completely different animals though. This came out a lot crisper / smoother whereas ST Choklat is a bit heavy / boozy. Chocolate is evident in both, but I don't think that it is overpowering at all in this recipe.
 
I am looking at making a 10 gallon batch of this but cannot get the BeerSmith recipe to come up. I use BeerSmith and am a registered user there but even searches there cannot find it. I can probably rebuild it then scale it, but would really appreciate an importable copy of the recipe. I am planning on doing this as my second batch in my new BrewTroller semi-automated brew system (Blichmann 20 gallon pots and 14 gallon conical fermenter).
Thanks in advance, this recipe looks very interesting.
Mike
 
So I didn't add the Lactose during the boil. I've had this brew aging for a few months now. I'm just now getting around to transferring it to a secondary to add vanilla bean and chocolate. What should I do with the Lactose now, just leave it out? When I read the recipe I assumed it was to be added for your carbonating sugar at bottling. I could add it into the secondary but would I need to add more yeast, since the yeast cake will be pitched when I make the switch to the secondary?

Thanks in advance for the responses!
 
I would bet you could go ahead and add the lactose into the secondary. Lactose is a non fermentable sugar so the yeast is not a concern. It should add a little body to the beer and some sweetness.
 
I would bet you could go ahead and add the lactose into the secondary. Lactose is a non fermentable sugar so the yeast is not a concern. It should add a little body to the beer and some sweetness.

Excellent, thank you! That's what I will do. :mug:
 
sub'd, not sure when i'll get around to this one but I'm leaning toward more and more stouts and porters lately.
 
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