Chocolate Stout Recipe Help

Hey gang!

Gotten a request from my sister-in-law for a Choc Stout. I'm more of a Pale ale and IPA man myself but have made at least one Irish Stout before. I started doing some research on these inter-webs and found very diverse approaches to making this style.

He is what I have so far:

8.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)
2.00 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (10 min)
0.75 lb Lactose (Boil 0.0 min)
1.00 oz Vanilla Extract (Boil 0.0 min)
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)
1.50 oz Chocolate Extract (Secondary 5.0 days)
1 Pkgs Irish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1084)


Any thoughts on getting the choc flavor in during boil and/or secondary? I hear about Choc nibs, melted candy bars, cocoa powder, sweet and/or unsweet choc, etc...and it's overwhelming!

As always, any help is appreciated.

Chris

For a five gallon batch of imperial chocolate stout, I usually add 8 ounces of low fat/unsweetened powdered cocoa at the end of the boil, then in secondary I dump in 8 ounces of cocoa nibs that were soaked for 3-4 days in enough unflavored vodka to cover and shaken occasionally (dump the whole slurry into the carboy). When I eventually keg the result, if it needs a bit more tuning I'll mix in some good chocolate, vanilla, and/or coffee extract to taste.

It's clearly a concoction, and purists may look down on it, but a pint sure tastes good an hour before bed time and guarantees a sound sleep

Cheers!

Thanks for the tips. I'm still in research mode. I found this old article from BYO:

http://***********/component/resource/article/Indices/38-Ingredients/316-brewing-with-chocolate

Still haven't quite decided my approach but will figure something out.

Thanks again.

Chris

I am about to bottle my fist chcolate stout and there is a fantastic balance of choc and coffee.
It was only a 15ltr batch: 1.3kg pils malt, 1kg Munich malt,300gr roasted barley and 200gr chocolate malt with 80gr of cocoa powder in the boil at 15.
I am surprised by how much the cocoa has come to the front of this stouts profile.

Cocoa is pretty strong if its good cocoa, did a choco stout a while back with cocoa and obv roasted barley. Went a little far on the choco flavor. Gotta be carefull with cocoa. Id recommend people to taste it first, check its consistency and how pure it is. gotta try it with lactose and vanilla tho. Ill prob brew it again sometime.

Good luck

This is what I brewed for an 11 gallon batch
turned out great
18 lbs Maris Otter
3 lbs Caramel 20
3 lbs Wheat
3 lbs Roasted Barley
1 lb Chocolate Malt
6 oz US Goldings @ 60

Plenty of chocolate from the malt.

Hebby,

I always get plenty of praise on my Double Chocolate Stout and I'll be making it for the 3rd year soon. My suggestions for your recipe: use 8oz of cocoa powder at 10 min left in the boil along with 12oz lactose powder, cut out your flaked oats (theres enough mouthfeel in the lactose), add 2 lbs Munich 20 for maltiness, and switch to WY1728-Scottish Ale to bring full malt flavor to the forefront. Adjust grains to hit 7-10abv and don't use extract.... It has a tootsie roll flavor that just doesn't fit right in beer. Trust me you'll love this brew