Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Stout....

Okay so I'm starting with an oatmeal stout recipe kit I got from Midwestsupplies. It is a partial grain with a malt extract. The ingredients "for this recipe include: 6 lbs. Dark liquid malt extract, 8 oz. Rolled Oats, 4 oz. Chocolate Malt, 4 oz. Roasted Barley specialty grains, 1 oz. of hops, yeast, priming sugar and a grain bag."

To this I'm adding bitter sweet cocoa power and a fresh cherry puree. I have a few question I'd like some help with...

How much cocoa to add?

When to add it? I was thinking half during the boil and half during the primary.

How much cherry to add?

I'm under the understanding that when I use homemade cherry puree that I should cook it to avoid contamination. Right?

When to add it?


Thanks for your help.

Dude, nice name! I dont' have any answers for you, but I'm going to be watching this thread with interest!

It is not required to cook the cherries. Heating them up will often release pectins, which will increase haze.

You can place them in the bottom of a secondary, and rack from the primary after fermentation has slowed down directly onto the cherries.

Make sure you use a blowoff tube, because the new fermentables will make the yeasties go nuts.

But how much? I want the Chocolate to be a primary flavor and the cherry to be a more subtle secondary or even tertiary flavor.

It's really hard to say how much to add, because everyone has different tastes and different recipes. What works for one recipe might not work for a second. However, generally 8oz of non-fat baker's cacao powder will give the beer a good chocolate flavor. The powder will create a lot of trub so you might want to brew about half a gallon more beer to give you a final volume of 5gal. As for the cherries, it's hard to say. You want a background flavor, so maybe start with .5lb per gallon, around 2.5lb should work. You can always add more cherry flavor later, using cherry extract.
Good luck!

That sounds so yummy mmmmmmmmmm

I can't really answer your question. I'd like to hear how it turns out for you. What you may want to do is search the site for other peoples reactions to using certain amounts of cocoa and cherry in thier own attempts. I plan to make a chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal, coffee stout sometime in the future (perhaps not till this next fall though) and searching the site here, has helped me get a better grip on how I might pull that off.

I'd suggest 2 lbs of cherries and 6 to 8 oz of cocoa powder. This should give it a nice choclately flavor with just a hint of cherries.

Whens brew day?? Sounds like a great beer, may have to give it a try if it works out well for you.

Supplies just arrived this morning... I'll be starting it tomorrow if everything goes well. Haven't even had a chance to open the box I've been at a beer tasting all day.

i have read that the chocolat should be added at the end of the boil and to also carry some of the chocolat muck at the bottom of your primary fermentor over to the secondary racking onto the cherries. this is supposed to help with both the flavor and aroma of the chocolat.

Alright... I just finished up. I added the cocoa powder to my boil just before putting into my primary. I'm saving the cherries for next weekish when I move to my secondary.

Thanks for your help everyone!

BTW my ORG was 1.045 if you were interested.