Adding Chocolate and Coffee to the boil

I'm going to be brewing a Founder's Breakfast Stout Clone (Extract) and was wondering how some people would add chocolate and coffee to their boil.
The set up I have is 7 gallon kettle with a 6" boil screen attached to a ball valve on the bottom of the kettle with a 1/2" barb with 1/2" tubing running to a my carboy funnel that has a second screen in it.
Now I'm going to try to use hop bags for the first time to try to help from the pellets clogging the boil screen.
I also plan on whirlpooling the wort after I use my immersion chiller to help keep the trub in the middle of the kettle.

The recipe calls for 2oz of coffee at the end of the boil, which I was going to put in a hop bag and dunk which I believe would work just like a tea bag would and it would keep the coffee out of my screen.
But, the recipe also calls for a bar of dark bittersweet baker's chocolate and unsweetened chocolate baking nibs. Should I just let the chocolate melt in the wort during the last 10mins of the boil or should I try putting them in a hop bag as well.
I've never used chocolate in a brew before and I'm not sure how much it melts into the wort or will it clog up the screen?

You are correct with the coffee. Be sure the wort is not still boiling because boiled coffee isn't very good. I'm not sure you need a bag, because the grounds will settle to the bottom.

It is difficult to incorporate chocolate into your wort. My suggestion is to melt it separately in a double boiler if you have one, then add it directly to the wort for several minutes of boiling. No need to use a bag.

Why not rack it to a secondary with cacao nibs? That should give it a nice flavor. For the coffee you could add some cold steep coffee to your bottlling bucket or keg. Boil some water. Let it cool in your French press and then add some coarse grounds. Let them soak for a good day or so. Put the coffee in your bottling bucket with your priming sugar.

Just drank my first bottle from by Breakfast Stout clone 10 minutes ago I decided to brew the coffee with a french press. I then melted the chocolate and cocoa nibs in a double boiler. I first added the coffee to the melted chocolate, then added to the cooling wort. -so that no chocolate got left behind.

The second addition of coffee was also prepared with a french press and added directly to the secondary.

I did 2 weeks in primary, and 4 weeks in secondary, and the beer is very clear.

I am happy with the results! -I feel that by not adding actual grounds to the wort/beer I avoided that off flavor of wet cardboard.

PM me if you have any specific questions

flabyboy said:

Why not rack it to a secondary with cacao nibs? That should give it a nice flavor. For the coffee you could add some cold steep coffee to your bottlling bucket or keg. Boil some water. Let it cool in your French press and then add some coarse grounds. Let them soak for a good day or so. Put the coffee in your bottling bucket with your priming sugar.

Click to expand...

+1

I did the exact process with great results. Be careful with coffee. I found a little goes a long way. It can easily be overdone.

Thanks for the help guys!
I think I'm going to go with the double boiler for the chocolate and press the coffee.
Talking to other people who have made this clone and done this or a similar process have come out with great tasting beers.

In you guys' opinion, who else thinks I should bump up these bittering hops?
Founder's give their beer an IBU of 60, but the recipe I have only comes out to 36.5 in my Beersmith software.
I figure if I bump it up to 1.6 oz instead of 1.1 oz of Nugget hops it will give it a better hop signature and an IBU of 50.
Here is the recipe I'm using:

6.6 lbs. (3.0 kg) Briess light, unhopped, malt extract
1.7 lbs. (0.77 kg) light dry extract
22 oz. (0.62 kg) flaked oats
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) chocolate malt (350 °L)
12 oz. (0.34 kg) roast barley malt (450 °L)
9.0 oz. (0.25 kg) debittered, black malt (530 °L)
7.0 oz. (0.19 kg) crystal malt (120 °L)
2.0 oz. (57 g) ground Sumatran coffee
2.0 oz. (57 g) ground Kona coffee
2.5 oz. (71 g) dark, bittersweet baker’s chocolate
1.5 oz. (43 g) unsweetened chocolate baking nibs
14.3 AAU Nugget pellet hops (60 min.) (1.1 oz./ 31 g of 13% alpha acid)
2.5 AAU Willamette pellet hops (30 min.) (0.5 oz./ 14 g of 5 % alpha acid)
2.5 AAU Willamette pellet hops (0 min.) (0.5 oz./ 14 g of 5 % alpha acid)

The discrepancy between final IBUs is discussed in the thread for that recipe. If I recall correctly, at least one person determined which of the numbers is more like the commercial recipe, but I can't remember which it was. Check it out.

thedartedash said:

Just drank my first bottle from by Breakfast Stout clone 10 minutes ago I decided to brew the coffee with a french press. I then melted the chocolate and cocoa nibs in a double boiler. I first added the coffee to the melted chocolate, then added to the cooling wort. -so that no chocolate got left behind.

The second addition of coffee was also prepared with a french press and added directly to the secondary.

I did 2 weeks in primary, and 4 weeks in secondary, and the beer is very clear.

I am happy with the results! -I feel that by not adding actual grounds to the wort/beer I avoided that off flavor of wet cardboard.

PM me if you have any specific questions

Click to expand...

So the the first and second coffee additions using the French press, were they hot or cold?

You don't recommend adding grounds to the wort?

I brewed Double Dach's AG recipe Sunday, and I believe the general consensus in the thread is to just chop up the chocolate into little pieces, and dump it with the coffee grinds directly into the wort at flameout. Then throw it all in into your fermenter. When you rack it to secondary (almost required for this beer) you will leave a lot behind. Then, the second coffee addition (Kona) is added at bottling. I think most used cold pressed coffee.

I took my first gravity reading last night and it tastes amazing already. Albeit, a strong alcohol flavor.

MoronBrothersBrewery said:

So the the first and second coffee additions using the French press, were they hot or cold?

You don't recommend adding grounds to the wort?

Click to expand...

When I brewed my breakfast stout clone I followed the same procedure.

The first addition of coffee to the boil kettle is a hot addition. Just prepare the hot coffee in a french press just as you would if you were making coffee in the morning.

The second addition needs to be cold since it is being added to your secondary which should be at fermentation temps. You want to do a cold brew.
I boiled some water, so it was sanitized, and make sure to sanitize your french press as well. Cool the water down and then add the coffee grounds and water to the french press. I then sealed the top in plastic wrap to keep anything out and then put it in the fridge for at least 24 hours.

Adding straight coffee grounds to the boil kettle would be messy and from what I've read you don't really want to straight up boil coffee grounds anyway. You steep them if anything.
And definitely don't add them straight to the secondary. You won't get the full flavor from the beans as you won't extract a lot of the oils that you would get from either hot brewing or cold brewing the coffee.

JordanThomas said:

I brewed Double Dach's AG recipe Sunday, and I believe the general consensus in the thread is to just chop up the chocolate into little pieces, and dump it with the coffee grinds directly into the wort at flameout. Then throw it all in into your fermenter. When you rack it to secondary (almost required for this beer) you will leave a lot behind. Then, the second coffee addition (Kona) is added at bottling. I think most used cold pressed coffee.

I took my first gravity reading last night and it tastes amazing already. Albeit, a strong alcohol flavor.

Click to expand...

I found that if you melt the chocolate in a double boiler it is much easier to get the chocolate to mix into the wort at the end of the boil.
Chopping up the chocolate would let it fully melt and mix into suspension and you would probably be missing out on a lot of flavor.

The nutella stout i used just standard Hersheys unsweetended bakers chocolate cocoa powder...nothing special..just put in 3/4ths of a cup with 15 minutes in like any other addition.

Im sure if you looked you could find a dark chocolate baking chocolate powder...im sure Hersheys has some i just didnt notice it.

*edit*

Your equivilent would be this


I dont know why you would ever use a bar of chocolate, you dont want all the additives and extra fat that comes from the chocolate that ive heard can really screw up your beer and make it go funky, you just want the cacao flavoring....which is what the powders are. And what your nibs will give you in secondary.