Are cocoa nibs necessary?

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Krazykripple

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I've got a chocolate milk stout that's just about finished primary. i threw 1lb of chocolate malt and 4oz of cocoa powder in the boil. should i bother putting cocoa nibs in the secondary as the recipe says or will that make it too overpowering? i drank my gravity sample and it's tasting pretty good but i'm worried the chocolateyness will fade
 
Nibs are more bitter, not very sweet. I would say if your beer is too sweet, add the nibs. It won't make a huge difference, but it will help a sweeter beer to be percieved as less sweet while also adding some complexity. If you're worried about the chocolate fading, I'm going to throw a whacky unconventional idea out there and say to bottle prime with a chocolatey liquid sugar solution. I've never heard of someone using cocoa powder + sugar + water to prime, but I'm sure it would work. Boil it first, strain and rack the beer on top of the cool solution before bottling.
 
Taste after fermentation. Powder can just sink to the bottom when alcohol isn't present yet to keep it in solution. If too light on flavor, add nibs with a sliced vanilla bean (helps to bring out the chocolate flavor of nibs).
 
I used super bitter baking chocolate bars in mine. It was the first beer I ever brewed that I didn't like and everyone else kept asking me to brew again.
 
Is there any reason to use nibs compared to cocoa powder or baking chocolate? Nibs are so much more expensive and are a little harder to find. It seems like the flavor extraction would be better from the more processed materials. Is there any problem with cocoa powder or baking chocolate staying in suspension or giving off flavors?
 
In my experience, no matter what you use, adding after fermentation, in an alcohol environment, helps to keep the chocolate in the beer rather than in a puddle at the bottom of the fermentor.

Whatever you use, it has to be sanitized some way. I typically will put the chocolate in a small hop sack and soak the bag in a Tupperware of cheap vodka then add the bag plus vodka to the fermentor.
 
I did 10oz ghirardelli 100% cocao powder, during the boil in a 10 gallon batch. Talk about a massive pile of chocolate sludge at the bottom of the carboys! It wasn't quite strong enough for me so i took two vanilla beans and soaked in vodka for a week, removed the vanilla beans and soaked lb of nibs in the vanilla vodka. I heard in baking at least that vanilla inhances the flavor of chocolate Very tasty brew!
 
If you're asking about the differences in each:

In baker's chocolate, there is some sugar added, which is obviously fermentable, so that will add to the alcohol content AND will add some chocolate flavor.

For cocoa powder, if you add unsweetened cocoa powder, there should be no sugars present, just processed cocoa, which should add some chocolate flavor.

For cocoa nibs, there's no added sugars - just a portion of the raw unprocessed cocoa bean. This will add a very bitter cocoa flavor, but it tends to be pretty subtle.

I've got a chocolate stout that just went on tap a week or so ago. 5 gallons aged for about 3 weeks on 6 ounces of cocoa nibs, which had sat for a few days in a few ounces of vodka. The stout itself had some chocolate malt and unsweetened cocoa powder as a late boil addition - so I guess the nibs technically make it a triple chocolate stout? Anyway, I felt like there wasn't quite enough chocolate to it at the end of primary, so I went with the nibs, and it's pretty much perfect where it's at now.
 
That's chocolate essence, right? The one recipe I've read that included it said that it'd contribute mainly aroma elements in beer, though I've never tried it myself so I can't say first hand.
 
So I guess my original question is why wouldn't you use cocoa powder? Is there any reason not to? It seems so easy. It gives you chocolate flavor without any fats/oils that are in nibs and any sugar that is in the baking chocolate. Its a powder so you should probably get good flavor extract and its super cheap.
 
DrHop said:
So I guess my original question is why wouldn't you use cocoa powder? Is there any reason not to? It seems so easy. It gives you chocolate flavor without any fats/oils that are in nibs and any sugar that is in the baking chocolate. Its a powder so you should probably get good flavor extract and its super cheap.
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it's just that I already put some in late in the boil. I guess a little more can't hurt. I put about 4 oz in the boil, any idea how much I should put in the secondary?
 
Yeah I have no idea. Do the different types actually give different flavors?

There are also different types of cocoa powder that probably have different flavors. That might be an easy thing to vary to get more flavor/depth.

"Cocoa powder" is used for baking, and for drinking with added milk and sugar. There are two types of unsweetened cocoa powder: natural cocoa (like the sort produced by the Broma process), and Dutch-process cocoa. Both are made by pulverising partially defatted chocolate liquor and removing nearly all the cocoa butter; Dutch-process cocoa is additionally processed with alkali to neutralise its natural acidity. Natural cocoa is light in colour and somewhat acidic with a strong chocolate flavour. Natural cocoa is commonly used in recipes that also use baking soda; as baking soda is an alkali, combining it with natural cocoa creates a leavening action that allows the batter to rise during baking. Dutch cocoa is slightly milder in taste, with a deeper and warmer colour than natural cocoa. Dutch-process cocoa is frequently used for chocolate drinks such as hot chocolate due to its ease in blending with liquids. However, Dutch processing destroys most of the flavonoids present in cocoa.[5] In 2005 Hershey discontinued their pure Dutch-process European Style cocoa and replaced it with Special Dark, a blend of natural and Dutch-process cocoa.
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- Wiki
 

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