Cherry Chocolate Stout

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Mcbobs

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Hey guys, as a new member and enthusiast just joining the board, I'd really like any help I can get on my first recipe. I've never brewed before, but I think a nice chocolate stout with a hint of cherry is something I can pull off quite nicely. Anyways, here is my ingredient list and any help/comments you have for me is much appreciated!

3lbs Light Dry Extract (60 minutes)
3lbs Wheat Dry Extract (60 minutes)
2.5lbs Roasted Barley (15 minutes)
1lb Flaked Oats (10 minutes)
1oz Saaz pellets 5.8% AA (5 minutes)

16oz Chocolate Baking Powder @ flameout
2oz Cherry Flavoring @ flameout

Nottingham yeast for pitching

Thanks in advance for any help! Really looking forward to getting my first batch underway!

-Matt

(ps. If I have misused any terms, please correct me as I'm still a learning noobie!)
 
Sounds interesting. Might want to balance it out on the hop side a little more than you have. 5 minutes will do pretty much nothing for bittering.
 
Hmm... Maybe I'll bump the time up to 15 minutes when I add the barley and then a second ounce at 10 minutes to round out the boil. This is all a HUGE experiment being my first batch AND first recipe. It should definitely be interesting to see how things turn out.

-Matt
 
Here's a couple of things that jumped out at me:

You're going to want to steep or mash the Roasted Barley and Flaked Oats. RB can be steeped, but I'm not sure whether steeping will get what you're looking for from the oats. They might have to be mashed. If you boil them, you will get a lot of astringency from the husks.

2.5 lbs Roasted Barley is a LOT. Might want to scale that down to 1 lb.

You might also want to bump your hop addition to 60 to get better bittering utilization.

Finally I would add the flavoring after fermentation is complete just so you add it to taste.

Good luck!
 
Flaked needs to be mashed to get what you hope to get from it, unless you're just looking to get haze.
 
As tempting as it is to be creative right away. I would recommend following at least one simple recipe for your first batch. That way you can get the process down. You may have a lot of questions on your first attempt. The more simple the better. Thats just my opinion though.
 
Alright guys, here's my revised recipe.

1lb Roasted Barley steeped 30 min
.5lb Flaked oats steeped 30 min

3lbs Wheat Dry Extract
2.5 Light Dry Extract
1oz Saaz Pellets 5.8% AA @ 60 min
1oz Saaz Pellets 5.8% AA @ 30 min

Pitched with Nottingham yeast

16oz Chocolate Baking powder in Secondary
2oz Cherry flavoring in Secondary

Estimated OG 1.058
Estimated FG 1.015
Estimated IBU 30.4
Estimated SRM 38.5
Estimated ABV 5.63

-Matt
 
Looks good. Remember to keep the water and grains below 170 when steeping, as going higher will lead to tannin extraction.

Let us know how it turns out.
 
Steeping flaked oats won't help you at all. It'll just lead to hazy, starchy beer. You've got no enzymes to help convert the starches into sugars in the oats. If you're really committed to the oats, you'll need to do a mini-mash by adding a pound or two of 2 row malt & if I were doing that, I'd up the oats back to 1 lb to give it some real character.

Also the full pound of cocoa powder seems a bit high to me. I was just listening to Jamil's show on Specialty beers where he gives his cherry chocolate stout recipe. He goes for 8 oz of cocoa (he says use Hershey's -- it has less fat than others which can cause problems). You can listen over at the Brewing Network's website. If you really want to brew a cherry chocolate stout, I think hearing his advice would be very valuable.
 
Okay. The more reading I do, the more confused I get and I'm beginning to think that creating my own recipe may be better suited for some time down the road.

Since I still really want to do a cherry chocolate stout, and at the least a chocolate stout, would it be possible to do an oatmeal stout kit and then adding chocolate into the secondary? I dont see a reason for not being able to, but hopefully someone can clarify this as to whether or not its feasible to do or not.

Thanks again for all your help so far guys!
-Matt
 
If you can, consider using cherries in the secondary instead of cherry flavoring. Cherry flavoring can easily go from "cherry flavored" to "cough syrup flavored" if you're not very, very careful.

When I wanted to make my Double Chocolate Oatmeal Snout recipe, I started looking through oatmeal stouts and seeing what they had going for them. Found one that looked good and worked off that. Might be a good idea for what you want to do as well.

If you're not comfy starting from scratch, then find something that works and then adding things to make it your own. That's what this hobby is all about... Playing with things and creating your own personal masterpieces.

I'd recommend adding the chocolate in the last 15 minutes of the boil though, unless you're going to use cocoa nibs in the secondary.
 
ChshreCat... Cough syrup flavored is exactly what I do NOT want. Although I really love almost all Sam Adams beers, the one that I really don't like at all is their cherry wheat because I think it has a super overpowering cherry syrup flavor. I just think it was way overdone.

What I'm really shooting for is just a slight hint of cherry that is barely there. More of an accent than anything with the chocolate as the main flavor in the stout. Brewmasterswarehouse.com has a 4oz bottle of cherry flavoring that is recommended for making a 5 gallon batch. I figured I would just cut the amount in half and go from there.

If I were to add a pound of chocolate baking powder in the last 15 minutes of the boil, do you think I would still get a nice chocolate flavor in the end? I really want a full chocolate taste, but having never done this before, I'm confused as to what might give me the result I'd like.

-Matt
(ps. Maybe a dumb question, but what are chocolate nibs?)
 
I put 9oz of fat free baking cocoa in mine and it gave me a chocolate beer. Not a beer with chocolate flavor. It's a CHOCOLATE beer. :D But that's what I wanted. I really, really like bitter dark chocolate. I also added a single vanilla bean in the secondary just to smooth out the bitterness. Worked great.

Cocoa nibs are basically bits of roasted cocoa beans that haven't been processed yet. About the purest form of chocolate you can get, but a little harder to get the flavor out of them in a beer. That's why they work well in secondary. Kind of like a dry hop. I've wanted to use them in secondary for a stout, then after I bottle I want to use the nibs in a cheesecake. Dark chocolate cheesecake with stout-soaked cocoa nibs.... *insert Homer Simpson drooling sound here*
 
Hahaha!

I just got done reading the whole thread about your Double Chocolate Oatmeal Snout and it made me hungry... It all sounded so good! Sounds like people really liked it!

After reading and reading and then all the info I just got from your thread, I think what I'm gonna do is start off with an oatmeal stout kit, add 9oz chocolate powder at the last 15min in boil, 8oz lactose at 5 minutes in boil and then when racking to secondary, add some vanilla bean.

Your thread really got my creative juices going and now I'm absolutely pumped to give this a whirl!

-Matt
 
Sweet! That's what it's all about, man! Have fun with it!

If you still want to go with the chocolate cherry, you can throw in a can of Oregon Cherries late in the primary as well.
 
I think for now, I'm just gonna keep it simplish to a chocolate stout and then build on it from there. It shall be a work in progress and maybe it can evolve into my own recipe! We'll keep it simple for now and build my way up!
 
Sweet! That's what it's all about, man! Have fun with it!

If you still want to go with the chocolate cherry, you can throw in a can of Oregon Cherries late in the primary as well.

+1, I added 3 cans of Oregon Cherries to my Russian Imperial Stout in the secondary and now that its almost 9 months in the bottle it has a mild, but present dark-fruit, cherry note to it. I was fearing the Sam Adams Cough Syrup like the plague when i was adding cherries and did well. :rockin:
 
About the cherries, I did the Bad Santa from BYO and it had 1.5 lb of dried cherries steeped in the first runnings for 30 min. The cherry flavor is great not too much just right.
 
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