Chocolate Ale - My Approach

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Ryan_PA

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Below is my approach to what I hope is a great recipe. I have thought through this for quite a while, and hope I have done good research and made good assumptions. I will be brewing tomorrow morning. I am looking for a critique of the approach and suggestions.
I do not have the actual recipe I plan to brew as it is on my home machine and I am at the office now.

Building my chocolate ale
Requirements:
* I want the end product to have a noticeable chocolate aroma, with a silky smooth chocolate finish
* I prefer a beer with a moderate amount of mouthfeel, that is not cloyingly sweet or with a moderate to high hop bitterness
* I will bottle this beer as I have read this may take time to condition, and natural carbing will benefit the beer.
* The batch will be 5 gallons-all grain
* The majority of the beer should bottle condition for a minimum of 2 months (preferably 3-4)

Base recipe:
I plan to brew a basic southern brown ale, just above style guidelines for ABV, and on the lower end of the IBUs since the chocolate will add a bittering factor.
In an effort to improve head retention, I will include flaked wheat to the grain bill. There will be no heavily roasted grains in the bill, the highest color grain will be a small addition of crystal 120. I want any roasted flavor to come from the cocoa.
I plan to use Nottingham yeast.
I plan to ferment at 60 degrees. Primary for 1 week, secondary for 3 weeks. Normally, I do not use a secondary for this style, but I believe there are benefits in this case.

Special ingredients:
For chocolate flavor, I have pure un-sweetened ground cocoa from a gourmet market and chocolate extract in shipment.
I plan to add a amount of the ground cocoa to the mash (~1 oz) and some to the secondary (~1 oz). The extract, I plan to add at the time of bottling and my current planned addition will be around 3-4 ozs.
I also plan to add 3/4 cup of lactose to the boil (15 min) in an effort to soften/aid the edge of the chocolate.

References:
Chocolate extract recommendation from Denny Conn - Link
Chocolate extract source - Link
Brewing with Chocolate (BYO) - Link
Formulating and Brewing a Winning Chocolate Porter (Maltose Falcons) - Link
Cheesefood's CCA Recipe - Link
 
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This sounds very interesting. I look forward to seeing the recipe posted.
 
My thoughts:

You'd be better served going a little heavier on the roasted elements from grain. Chocolate will not really give you anything in the finished product in term of roastiness. I'd use some chocolate malt, without a doubt, and some roasted barley.

Personally, I like using unsweetened baker's chocolate in the boil in addition to the cocoa powder. Never used chocolate extract flavoring, but that might work too. The reason I love the baker's chocolate (I used 8 oz of it in my chocolate-espresso stout) is that in addition to the flavor, it also lends an incredibly creamy, silky texture to the beer.

You're spot-on WRT to the lower IBU.

You could also (if you're into it) add some brewed/cooled drip coffee to the secondary or primary. Make sure it's good coffee, though...no folger's. That's what I did, and to this day it's one of my favorite beers.

Maltodextrin powder adds body and silkier mouthfeel without sweetness, as opposed to lactose.

Everything else sounds good. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the feedback Evan. I will not really plan on adding the coffee, but I know that is a great complimenting flavor for a beer like this. Below is what I am currently mashing:

Chocolate Ale
Batch Size: 5.5 Gal
All Grain
Est OG: 1.049
IBU: 10.8
SRM: 15.4

Grains:
2 Row Pale - 7.5 lb
Biscuit Malt - 1 lb
Flaked Wheat - 0.5 lb
Chocolate Malt - 0.25 lb
Crystal 120 - 0.25 lb
Crystal 60 - 0.25 lb
Maltodexrin - 4 ozs (added at 15m left in boil)

Hops:
Goldings (4.2 AA) 60 Min
Goldings (4.2 AA) 15 Min

Yeast:
Nottingham

Extra:
1 oz of pure un-sweetened cocoa added to mash
1 oz of pure un-sweetened cocoa added at 15m left in boil
Irish moss
3 oz chocolate extract at bottling
 
Small update:

My actual OG came in a little higher than anticipated at 1.053, I seem to really be dialing in my crankandstein, first time over 80% eff.

I drank the initial hydrometer sample and think I am really on to something here. It was a really well flavored wort sample (perhaps my favorite yet). The yeast was at moderate krausen within 10 hours (not sure when it took off since I was out of the house from the end of the house from noon till 10:00.

Fermentation is going strong now at 60 degrees. I am really looking forward to the final taste of this beer...
 
Ryan sent me a couple of these - here's my review:

Appearance:
Medium brown, cloudy. Pours with a thick, light tan head.

Aroma:
Sweet chocolate and light caramel with roasted notes and an overtone that I can only describe as a fairly generic "beer" smell.

Flavor:
Chocolate malt. This tastes exactly like opening a bag of chocolate malt, inhaling the dusty goodness, then cracking a few kernels between your teeth. After a few sips, the cocoa/chocolate flavor begins to manifest itself in a pleasant, lingering aftertaste.

Mouthfeel:
Well carbonated. Surprisingly light and refreshing, especially considering the significant addition of maltodextrin.

Overall:
This is an enjoyable beer. It's light bodied and light flavored, despite the deep color and the addition of 2+ lbs specialty grains and chocolate. If I didn't know any better, I'd have guessed the grain bill as 8 lbs of 2-row and 1/2 to 3/4 lb of chocolate malt...and that's it! For a chocolate specialty ale, I'd like it to be a bit heavier in chocolate flavor, but for a sessionable English brown, I wouldn't change a thing! Another nice offering from Ryan_PA's homebrewery.
 
Sounds really good..

O'fallon Brewery ( Ofallon, Mo )

Has a cherry chocolate ale. i wonder how I could make somethign similiar using this recipe?

If I were to do it what would some of you guys recommend as far as process flow and recipe? Thanks

ST
 
stormtracker said:
Sounds really good..

O'fallon Brewery ( Ofallon, Mo )

Has a cherry chocolate ale. i wonder how I could make somethign similiar using this recipe?

If I were to do it what would some of you guys recommend as far as process flow and recipe? Thanks

ST

I looked at the site for O'Fallon, it looks like the Choc Cherry is a wheat beer. I would start with 4.5 lb 2 row, 3.5 choc wheat, .5 munich and ~ a pound of crystal 40 for the grain bill. Low AA hops and a basic wheat beer yeast with cherries added to the secondary and choc extrat at kegging/bottling. If you want to bump up the SRM to get darker I would play with carafa II addtion to the sparge.
 
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