Chocolate Coffee Stout

New guy here and to the brewing scene trying to put my chemical engineering degree to good work (other than working for the man). I want to do a chocolate coffee stout, starting with a base of an Irish stout kit, and was wondering your opinion on the best way to accomplish this. Example - when I add the coffee, is it whole bean or ground and at what point in the boil is this added? Also, what's the best way to impart a chocolate flavor into the beer, with a malt or do you guys have other secrets? Let me know if this is too much manipulation on a kit, maybe I'll have to do one or the other.

TL;DR - best way to add a coffee and chocolate flavor into a part extract/specialty grain Irish stout kit.

Thanks Guys

use whole beans, you can either soak the beans in cold water for a bit to pull out the flavor or add some beans straight into your secondary.

As for the chocolate not really sure. I seen people put chocolate at the end of the boil. But I havent used chocolate.

RandomBeerGuy said:

use whole beans, you can either soak the beans in cold water for a bit to pull out the flavor or add some beans straight into your secondary.

As for the chocolate not really sure. I seen people put chocolate at the end of the boil. But I havent used chocolate.

Click to expand...

There's a chocolate espresso stout thread that's helpful. That recipe adds 8 oz unsweetened cocoa powder at start of boil...I'm doing it as we speak

Still learning the iPhone app here...

I recently bottled my choclate coffee stout,

I started with the coopers irish stout kit (the green can, not the white one). Boiled 1kg of DME and mixed with the can (I didn't want to boil the can for fear of driving off the hopping).

I didn't add any coffee as I found the kit to have some very significant smokey coffee notes when it went into secondary. For choclate I made a liquoer of 1 oz good vodka and several ounces cocoa. let sit for a week and then mixed it in at time of bottling. Make sure the liquor is liquidey though, mine was jellyish (too viscous) and I had problems dissolving it.

Three weeks on, and it's starting to come together nicely but still needs aging. It's certainly drinkable now but the flavours need to gel more to be really good imho.

also if doing a second batch I think I'd add the coffee after all, the flavor is there but you have to activly pick it out, I personally would prefer if it's a little more upfront

Hope that helps!

i did midwest supplie's Java stout a while back and it was a big hit. i lightly crushed the coffee beans, soaked in about a quart of cold water, filtered and added to secondary. also, i mixed 8 oz cocoa powder with 2 cups hot water (just enough to liquefy) and added to secondary as well. secondary for 2 weeks and bottle. tasted great!

Two weeks ago I did the BYO Founders Breakfast Stout clone. As per the directions I added 2oz. of ground Sumatran coffee at the end of the boil, also unsweetened chocolate as well as semi-sweet chocolate. The hydrometer sample after a week in the fermenter tasted amazing. Heres a link for the recipe. http://***********/stories/issue/article/issues/258-januaryfebruary-2009/1911-founders-brewings-breakfast-stout-clone

Thanks a lot everyone. All the comments were very helpful. Time to get brewing.