Chocolate Milk Stout - NB Kit

Got this kit today and will probably be brewing in the next 7-10 days. Here's the basic recipe:

Size: 5.00*gal

Original Gravity: 1.054
Terminal Gravity: 1.013
Color: 23.79 (30.0 - 40.0)
Alcohol: 5.3% (4.0% - 6.0%)
Bitterness: 35.6 (20.0 - 40.0)

Ingredients:
0.25*lb Extra Dark Crystal Malt
0.75*lb Pale Chocolate Malt
6.0*lb Dark Liquid
1.0*lb Lactose
1.0*oz Cluster (7.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0*m
0.5*oz Cluster (7.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30.0*m
1.0*ea WYeast 1332 Northwest Ale™
4 oz. Cacao Nibs - added dry to secondary fermenter

I want a very big chocolate aroma and am willing to modify this recipe. Will 4 oz of cacao nibs going to give the finished beer a strong aroma? Would increasing the cacao nib amount for secondary increase this, positively? Would increasing the amount of cacao nibs be a bad idea?

You have chocolate malt and cocoa nibs. IMO what you should do is plan to do tgis recipe as is. Then before you add nibs after fermentation is complete. Take a gravity reading. Taste it. Then decide if you need more nibs. But remember your already adding 4 oz so that should give you some definite flavor.

Four ounces definitely has an impact. When I used them for the first time last year I got a bunch of recommendations on here to soak them in vodka before adding them so I dumped them in enough vodka to cover them the day I brewed. I let them sit there for three weeks and pitched to the secondary. There was an impact for sure. I'd be careful adding more because they do add a bit of bitterness to the beer as well which could through off your balance if you added more than called for.

jcam91 said:

You have chocolate malt and cocoa nibs. IMO what you should do is plan to do tgis recipe as is. Then before you add nibs after fermentation is complete. Take a gravity reading. Taste it. Then decide if you need more nibs. But remember your already adding 4 oz so that should give you some definite flavor.

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inhousebrew said:

Four ounces definitely has an impact. When I used them for the first time last year I got a bunch of recommendations on here to soak them in vodka before adding them so I dumped them in enough vodka to cover them the day I brewed. I let them sit there for three weeks and pitched to the secondary. There was an impact for sure. I'd be careful adding more because they do add a bit of bitterness to the beer as well which could through off your balance if you added more than called for.

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Thanks for the input!

Another thought I had was to split the batch...which I seem to do a lot of as I learn this hobby. Take some of it and sub in vanilla bean instead of cacao nibs. Maybe do a small batch with both cacao nibs and vanilla bean. Thoughts on either of those ideas?

Either of those sound great to me. I've never used vanilla bean but had a friend who did for a nice big porter and it was fantastic. I think you need to slice them open before adding them. And find an actual vanilla bean, not the extract.

inhousebrew said:

Either of those sound great to me. I've never used vanilla bean but had a friend who did for a nice big porter and it was fantastic. I think you need to slice them open before adding them. And find an actual vanilla bean, not the extract.

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Ive done a vanilla treatment for secondary before, split, scraped, vodka'd.

I just bottled this kit last week. When I transferred to secondary, I added about half of the package of nibs because I did not want a huge chocolate presence. I left the nibs in there for about 3.5 weeks instead of the recommended 2, because I was too busy with the holidays and everything.

The beer has a very strong chocolate aroma and taste, even with only half of the recommended amount. It has not finished bottle conditioning so maybe some of it will age out.

Ok. I will not increase the cacao nibs. Thanks for the input, all!

So this one has been sitting at 1.020 for about two weeks. Im assuming its not gonna drop any more. I was expecting it to drop a little more.

Tasted about right. Decent body. Not overly sweet. Thinking about moving to secondary for treatments. Any recommendations otherwise?

tbrown4 said:

So this one has been sitting at 1.020 for about two weeks. Im assuming its not gonna drop any more. I was expecting it to drop a little more.

Tasted about right. Decent body. Not overly sweet. Thinking about moving to secondary for treatments. Any recommendations otherwise?

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Unless you have to free up primary I wouldnt bother with secondary. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Is it chocolatey enough for you?

jcam91 said:

Unless you have to free up primary I wouldnt bother with secondary. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Is it chocolatey enough for you?

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I haven't done the cacao treatment yet.

tbrown4 said:

I haven't done the cacao treatment yet.

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Oh woops then you do want to secondary lol sorry lol

tbrown4 said:

So this one has been sitting at 1.020 for about two weeks. Im assuming its not gonna drop any more. I was expecting it to drop a little more.

Tasted about right. Decent body. Not overly sweet. Thinking about moving to secondary for treatments. Any recommendations otherwise?

Click to expand...

I have brewed a chocolate milk stout before and I had this problem. Mine stopped at the 1.026 range. The only brew I've ever made that stopped there. Granted, my apartment was cool (maybe around 63 degrees at times) but other beers would continue to ferment in these conditions. I thought it was the massive amount of chocolate I boiled in (approx. 5 oz. nibs, 8oz. bittersweet), somehow hindered fermentation. I'm still not sure, but I think the chocolate in suspension actually made a much higher gravity reading. In fact, the OG which was meant to be around 1.062 or something was waaaay higher.

Anyways, racking to secondary helped bring the TG down to 1.020 or so I think because it thinned out the solution. This might not be any help to you because you didn't boil in the chocolate. However I'm writing this because like you, I wanted a chocolate bomb of a stout and after fermentation was over it still wasn't chocolaty enough for me. So I added chocolate extract, an entire little bottle {maybe 2 oz?}) and that worked perfectly. I made it for my breast feeding wife. It was her favorite ever. I called it "Suckling milk chocolate stout"

Soak the nibs in 1 oz High quality vanilla extract and enough vodka to cover. Give it a week and a half in secondary.

I made this as is 6 months ago and it was great. Wouldn't change a thing. Served it on nitro. Very good.

Wanted to check in here. I ended splitting this batch for secondary. 2.5 gallons sat on 2 oz. cacao and 2.5 gallons sat on three vanilla beans. Both sat in secondary for 9 or 10 days. About a week in to secondary I began tasting both every day or so. Prior to bottling I took a half gallon off each to make a blend. Of the three varieties our hands down favorite is the vanilla milk stout, followed by the cacao vanilla blend. I'm not at all happy with the straight up cacao variety. Far too bitter and hardly any chocolate aroma. I think next time I very might just make a full 5 gallon batch with vanilla and no cacao.

When did you add the lactose? I was thinking of making this but haven't made a beer with lactose yet

You have to let me know how it turned out man. That sounds BADASS!

I did a chocolate raspberry stout about a month ago. It is tasting great out of the bottle now. Looking at your recipe the major difference in yours and mine I added 3/4 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder in last few minutes of boil.
I messed up put lactose in then as well. Should have waited to get a good reading.
Secondary was racked on to 4oz. Cocoa nibs and 4oz raspberry extract. I should have only used 3 Oz.
The raspberry is kinda strong but its fantastic.