Is this the same as Cacao nibs?

Looking for cacao nibs at my local grocery store to add to my chocolate stout. Is this essentially the same thing, says 100% cacao?

Don't know: I would need to see the back of it. Is there any coca butter or other greasy, creamy stuff? If so, don't use it. I actually just use cocoa powder (its literally coco nibs in powder form): heshey's did it for me on a chocolate stout. Came out good.

I would assume that's the same as baker's chocolate, which I believe you don't want to use due to the oils.

After simply using dutch-processed cocoa powder in a recent imperial stout, I'm far from convinced that cacoa nibs are even worth the money. my 2c.

You know, it looks like it might be, because it is 100% cacao, so there's no room for anything else in it...and I've looked at nutritional info/labels for it, since you put this thread up, and it says it has nothing else.

This I found on their website.

Ghirardelli has a 100% Cacao Unsweetened Baking Bar. While this is the highest cacao content possible, it is for baking, not eating since it is very bitter and has absolutely no sugar added.

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Ghirardelli® 100% Cacao Unsweetened Baking Bar starts with the finest cocoa beans from around the world. The beans are carefully roasted and milled to create the pure, rich Ghirardelli chocolate taste.

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Looks like it's usable. How much was it? I found Cacao Nibs at my local health food store and paid about 10 bucks for a bag of it. And passed that bar by on the same day at my grocery store. I thought "nibs" were like husks or something, not actual chocolate bits.\

Looks to me that it is just nibs pressed into bar form.

What's the rear label list as ingredients?

Cacao nibs are crushed beans. And stay away from anything with fats/oils/butter. I know a lot of people use cocoa powder for chocolate flavoring.

I used 16oz of nibs in secondary for a chocolate stout.

By the way, I think the simple fact that it's in bar form means you probably don't want to use it. There must be something binding all the cocoa together, right? Or it could be simply compressed nibs, which should be ok.

I'm sure somebody will chime in that they've used bar products that worked fine, but you gotta think there's better choices like powder or nibs.

Hello, How are you adding the cocoa powder and having it come out with a chocolate flavor.

I added cocoa powder to the secondary for 2 weeks before bottling on a stout and 6 months later the brew still taste just like eating cocoa powder straight from the can, nasty is all I can say.

Cheers

SpeedYellow said:

By the way, I think the simple fact that it's in bar form means you probably don't want to use it. There must be something binding all the cocoa together, right?

I'm sure somebody will chime in that they've used bar products that worked fine, but you gotta think there's better choices like powder or nibs.

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But it says 100% and the labels online don't list anything else.....

There IS something that can bind something with a melting point together....it's called "Heat, and Pressure."

WileECoyote said:

Hello, How are you adding the cocoa powder and having it come out with a chocolate flavor.

I added cocoa powder to the secondary for 2 weeks before bottling on a stout and 6 months later the brew still taste just like eating cocoa powder straight from the can, nasty is all I can say.

Cheers

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The powder is used most often in the boil and nibs in secondary. I am sure others have done the opposite and had it work, that is just my experience.

An alcohol extract could also be made by soaking the chocolate flavor source in a neutral spirit for a while and dumping the liquid into secondary.

Revvy said:

Looks like it's usable. How much was it? I found Cacao Nibs at my local health food store and paid about 10 bucks for a bag of it. And passed that bar by on the same day at my grocery store. I thought "nibs" were like husks or something, not actual chocolate bits.

Looks to me that it is just nibs pressed into bar form.

What's the rear label list as ingredients?

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It was only $2 which is what sparked my interest. I'll have to go back and look at the label...I woke up at 2am for some unknown reason so my brain wasn't thinking to take a snapshot of the ingredients!

WileECoyote said:

Hello, How are you adding the cocoa powder and having it come out with a chocolate flavor...

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You can add the powder at flameout. But I mixed the powder with some hot water then added directly to the fermenter, both primary and secondary. I don't think you'd want to skip the hot water, because the powder would probably just sit on top.

Revvy said:

But it says 100% and the labels online don't list anything else.....

There IS something that can bind something with a melting point together....it's called "Heat, and Pressure."

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Cacao beans can be up to 50% fat (cocoa butter), some (but not all) of which is removed when they are processed into cocoa powder. You would probably want to determine whether the bar contains a higher quantity than the nibs or powder (my understanding is that you want to exclude as much fat as possible from your beer).

Wal-mart has the ingredients listed as
"Unsweetened Chocolate. Manufactured On The Same Equipment That Also Makes Products Containing Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Milk And Soy."

http://www.walmart.com/ip/100-Cacao-Unsweetened-Chocolate-Baking-Bar/14172097

Revvy said:

But it says 100% and the labels online don't list anything else.....

There IS something that can bind something with a melting point together....it's called "Heat, and Pressure."

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100% may mean one thing to literal-minded folk like you and me, and something else when it comes to labeling laws. As an example, "Fresh! Never-Frozen!" meat is allowed to be stored at 26 degrees for an extended period of time, which would certainly meet my criteria for having been frozen.

I just found Scharffen Berger Unsweetened 99% Cacao Baking Chocolate Bar, but I've no luck with finding THEIR ingredient list to see what the other 1% could be....I thought if we could extrapolate from their additive we could figure out what 100% means....


*shrug*

Remember though, we're only "dryhopping" with this stuff, it's not breaking down into the beer in secondary, is it? Are any more fats/oils going to actually leach out into our beer at this stage, or is a high fat content really only an issue for the cocoa added during the boil or in the mash tun, where the chocolate could actually break down and "leach" fats into the wort?

Agreed with Revvy that this is probably the same as 100% cacao nibs, this is just compressed. Based on a bit of googling:

- Nibs = straight cacao bean, typically fermented. Approx 50% cocoa butter.
- Chocolate liquor = Unsweetened Chocolate = ground up nibs. (agrees with Wal-Mart's labelling).
- Cocoa powder = what's left when you remove the cocoa butter from the liquor.
- Bitter/semi-sweet chocolate = liquor + sugar + vanilla - some of the cocoa butter.

Since nibs have 50% cocoa butter, I'd have to think powder is better unless there's some flavor component that cocoa butter adds. I have to doubt that, though.

So I am striking out finding Cocoa Nibs in my hometown. My LBHS doesn't carry them, neither does my local grocery store. But I did find cocoa powder at the grocery store, several varieties in fact.
So the question I have and need a bit of confirmation is...
Do I use Cocoa Powder in the Boil (say with 10 minutes left of a 60 min boil) or do I add the Cocoa Powder straight to the secondary fermenter?

Which is better. I am planning on adding the cocoa powder to a milk (sweet) stout recipe and would like to add more chocolate notes to the finished product.

Thanks
Redbeard5289

Redbeard5289 said:

So I am striking out finding Cocoa Nibs in my hometown. My LBHS doesn't carry them, neither does my local grocery store. But I did find cocoa powder at the grocery store, several varieties in fact.
So the question I have and need a bit of confirmation is...
Do I use Cocoa Powder in the Boil (say with 10 minutes left of a 60 min boil) or do I add the Cocoa Powder straight to the secondary fermenter?

Which is better. I am planning on adding the cocoa powder to a milk (sweet) stout recipe and would like to add more chocolate notes to the finished product.

Thanks
Redbeard5289

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Call Complete Nutrition,
3780 Marketplace Drive Northwest #104
Rochester
(507) 226-8070

Or any health food or vitamin stores near you, even try the gnc's I found online near where you live.

Ask them if they carry Navitas Cacao Nibs or Frontier Natural Products - Cacao Nibs Organic, or Live Superfoods Raw Cacao Nibs or Valrhona brand Chocolate Cacao Nibs 100% Cacao

Or do a "google shopping" search for it near you. I found out last week while searching that one of the above brands is carried in just about any healthfood or Vitamin/bobybuilding shop. Cocao Nibs are considered a "suprefood," by the health food types. I was surprised to find out that they carried it at the vitamin warehouse chainstore at the end of my street.

Redbeard5289 said:

So I am striking out finding Cocoa Nibs in my hometown. My LBHS doesn't carry them, neither does my local grocery store. But I did find cocoa powder at the grocery store, several varieties in fact.
So the question I have and need a bit of confirmation is...
Do I use Cocoa Powder in the Boil (say with 10 minutes left of a 60 min boil) or do I add the Cocoa Powder straight to the secondary fermenter?

Which is better. I am planning on adding the cocoa powder to a milk (sweet) stout recipe and would like to add more chocolate notes to the finished product.

Thanks
Redbeard5289

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Hello, IMO do not add cocoa powder to the secondary, I found this out the hard way, I have 5 gal of an undrinkable stout (6+ months old) that I added cocoa power to the secondary, when I taste one every month you can tell the beer would be great without the cocoa powder, it taste just like cocoa powder out of the can, its very nasty.

Try it in the boil.

Cheers

WileECoyote said:

Hello, IMO do not add cocoa powder to the secondary, I found this out the hard way, I have 5 gal of an undrinkable stout (6+ months old) that I added cocoa power to the secondary, when I taste one every month you can tell the beer would be great without the cocoa powder, it taste just like cocoa powder out of the can, its very nasty.

Cheers

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In fact I don't even add it to the kettle, I put it in my mash tun, and let the grain absorb any oils that might be in there, and let the grainbed act as a filter.

Thanks Revvy,

I forgot all about the healthfood stores in my area. Probably cause I don't visit them nor shop at them.
Thank you for the guiding direction in my endeavor. It is truly appreciated.

Redbeard5289

Revvy said:

In fact I don't even add it to the kettle, I put it in my mash tun, and let the grain absorb any oils that might be in there, and let the grainbed act as a filter.

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Oh thats good to know, and their isn't any ill affects from boiling the cocoa powder for 60 or 90 mins ? extracting extra bitterness/tannins/astringent-ness ?

Cheers

That's the stuff I used in my breakfast stout clone. It's got a slight layer of oil on the top when fermenting, but hardly noticable once it's carb'd. Then again, the real FBS has hardly any head anyhow. Probably because there is a tiny bit of oil in the chocolates that they use.

I don't know if it's bad to boil cocoa powder, but I wouldn't do it since there's really no reason to do so.

If you whirlpool or remove trub, then you'd likely lose much of the cocoa powder too, since cocoa tends to drop out. That's why I added it to my fermenter along with the yeast, then added more at secondary. Both additions were mixed with hot water. My Mokah clone (see My Recipes) turned out very similar to Mokah, so I'm confident this process works well.

By the way, Whole Foods carries cacao nibs, but again I recommend against it since they're 50% cocoa butter.

I used the Navitas powder Revvy mentioned earlier. The mega-grocery store on the right side of the tracks had two kinds, one that was very high in fat and one that was very low. I found them by the vitamins. An 8oz bag ran me $10. About 1.5oz per gallon in secondary gave a flavor reminiscent of those 84% chocolate bars that often seem to be made without sugar. The head retention was poor, but I didn't add anything to the recipe to improve it, as foam isn't a concern of mine.

Well I finally was back at the store to snap a picture of the back of the label. The only ingredient listed is unsweetened chocolate as the label says 100% cacao. I think I feel pretty safe using this in my choc stout.

cbehr said:

Well I finally was back at the store to snap a picture of the back of the label. The only ingredient listed is unsweetened chocolate as the label says 100% cacao. I think I feel pretty safe using this in my choc stout.

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I'm seeing it has a bunch of fat. My impression is fat and beer don't mix.

jungatheart said:

I'm seeing it has a bunch of fat. My impression is fat and beer don't mix.

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Actually I'm holding my package of organic raw Cacao Nibs, and they have 12 grams of total fat and 7 of it is saturated fat.

I still think that if were merely "dry chcolating" with it at the end of fermentation the oils shouldn't be causing trouble. They shouldn't be able to break down and leach any fat into the beer, since there's no heat involved to break it down.

Aren't we just adding it in secondary or late primary to add aroma to the finished product? Just like dry hops? This is added to beers usually alongside some other kettle or mash tun chocolate addition- usually coco powder?

I can understand it being a problem in the boil, or tun where heat is going to melt the butterfat into the beer, but how is it going to get into room temp beer in a fermenter?

Even untempered chocolate has a higher melting point than tempered (basically skin temp for untempered) but that is still higher than the room temp we usually store our beer at.

I can't see how the fat at this point would really be an issue....unless you were heating the chocolate and melting it first.

Revvy said:

Actually I'm holding my package of organic raw Cacao Nibs, and they have 12 grams of total fat and 7 of it is saturated fat.

I still think that if were merely "dry chcolating" with it at the end of fermentation the oils shouldn't be causing trouble. They shouldn't be able to break down and leach any fat into the beer, since there's no heat involved to break it down.

Aren't we just adding it in secondary or late primary to add aroma to the finished product? Just like dry hops? This is added to beers usually alongside some other kettle or mash tun chocolate addition- usually coco powder?

I can understand it being a problem in the boil, or tun where heat is going to melt the butterfat into the beer, but how is it going to get into room temp beer in a fermenter?

Even untempered chocolate has a higher melting point than tempered (basically skin temp for untempered) but that is still higher than the room temp we usually store our beer at.

I can't see how the fat at this point would really be an issue....unless you were heating the chocolate and melting it first.

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If the chocolate is suspended in fat and the fat is never melted, how does the chocolate flavor get into the beer? If I threw a Hershey's bar into my primary I wouldn't expect any chocolate flavor in my beer.

jungatheart said:

If the chocolate is suspended in fat and the fat is never melted, how does the chocolate flavor get into the beer? If I threw a Hershey's bar into my primary I wouldn't expect any chocolate flavor in my beer.

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The chocolate nib addition I believe is like a dry hop addition, I don't think it's adding any flavor at that point, just aroma.

You would add the Hershey's bar to the boil or the mash tun if you want the flavor...not that you would because of the fat.

But cocoa butter's melting point is, 93.4 °f, so we're not chucking something in the finished beer that's going to be leaching fat. That's why I don't believe fat content is crucial at this point.

I still bet this product is fine....

And I bet you COULD just chuck a Hersey's bar in at that point, to impart the aroma the same way.....but I bet you'd need a lot more than you would with cocoa nibs. I bet the unprocessed or barely processed nibs have much more aroma, and that's why we choose to use them at this phase of the process.....and why we add our flavor additions of cocoa in the boil.

Intersting article on brewing with chocolate in All About Beer Magazine.

The section on nibs is interesting.

This brings us to cocoa nibs, the most raw, and hence, most intense of cocoa products. Nibs are essentially crushed cocoa beans that are either raw or slightly roasted. Raw nibs are lighter in color and don’t have the burnt edge that roasted nibs do, so pick your appropriate confection. Taste them before using and trust your instincts, which is often the homebrewers’ best directive. Raw nibs would fold nicely into a brown ale or porter, with the roasted nibs more at home in a stout. Each unaltered nugget is roughly the size of a barleycorn. They can be used directly in the mash, the boil, or suspended in conditioning beer like hops or spices.

As they are the precursor to cocoa powder, nib character is just as concentrated and powerful, and should be used with restraint. Three ounces in a five-gallon batch is a good starting point. To get maximum effect in the mash or kettle, mill them as you would your grain. I have found that the flavor is fully extracted in the mash, adding another roasted dimension to the brew. If used in conditioning beer, simply fill a small mesh sachet with the desired amount and suspend in the beer with a string. Since the extraction will be lower and mellower than if it is mashed or boiled, you will find that this approach will give a softer edge to the finished beer. Nibs are this brewer’s preferred choice for most brewing additions, as they are relatively unaltered, and can be sampled in their natural state prior to use.

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Which reminds me of watching aHeston Blumenthal Kitchen Chemistry Episode on chocolate just yeasterday where he took beans (one step of from nibs) and ground them down to powder with a mortar and pestle, and he mentioned that the fat didn't appear to come out until he ground them down for awhile.

So I think it takes a lot more handling either heat or a lot of working with grinding to get to the point where the oils are an issue.

Alcohol is pretty awesome at dissolving lipids--this is how rubbing alcohol works--so I think there will be enough oil extraction to kill the head, unless you compensate with a crazy amount of carapils or flaked whatever. I don't think that the beer itself will taste or feel oily. If you'd rather drink your beer than hold it up to the light and admire its beauty, you should be fine.

Considering that a lot of folks use nibs across the gamut of ways possible, and because nibs are 50% fats, perhaps the conventional wisdom that fats and beer don't miix is simply flawed. Otherwise nibs should be a huge fail.

SpeedYellow said:

Considering that a lot of folks use nibs across the gamut of ways possible, and because nibs are 50% fats, perhaps the conventional wisdom that fats and beer don't miix is simply flawed. Otherwise nibs should be a huge fail.

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Or, like I've been saying maybe it simply depends on where you add them....I don't think beer's power to "dissolve lipids" is as powerful as the abve poster seems to think. Remember beer is STILL largely water. That's why you still have to distill it to concentrate it enough turn it into a spirit with any power to do anything.

I think as long as there's no heat being applied no fat is coming out. I think adding too fatty a cocoa at other points is more risky then dropping it in to an pretty inert secondary.

Well I gave it a shot this weekend. I'm going to let it in the secondary for 2 weeks then bottle. I'll report back with results in 5 or so weeks.

cbehr said:

Well I gave it a shot this weekend. I'm going to let it in the secondary for 2 weeks then bottle. I'll report back with results in 5 or so weeks.

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How did it turn out?

originalben said:

How did it turn out?

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Yeah, what he said!

dgs5043 said:

Yeah, what he said!

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Sorry, must have missed the first response. Didn't turn out well...I'm not sure what happened but they all but one have been bottle bombs. Pop the top and about 75% fo the beer foams. Way over carbonated or some type of gusher infection? Taste is decent but it's hard to really tell what's going on. I'm not sure how but I must have not measured my priming sugar correctly? Choc aroma and taste is there, I'll have to try another one now that it's been another couple months and a couple have been in the fridge for a month+

I'd like to try this recipe again but I'm rather annoyed with my last few batches so I've been taking a break for a while

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. This morning I added a small amount to my batch (Amber Ale, I just wanted a HINT of chocolate flavor, not a chocolate beer). I will update and let you guys know how it worked for me since it seems to be easier and more readily available than plain cacao nibs. I'll be checking back in a month or so from now.

Any update on your Amber Ale?

So I'm doing a recipe that calls for chocolate extract at bottling time. I couldn't find any extract so my brewshops gave me nibs. Should I soak them in vodka and add the mixture to the bottling bucket?