Incorporating cocoa powder

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jiffybrew

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I want to make a chocolate porter. I helped my friend brew a chocolate porter and he added cocoa powder during his boil. As fermentation settled he started getting a layer of fat (probably from the cocoa powder). He scooped it out. Porter turned out really good. Even more chocolatey then Young's Double Chocolate.
Any tips on how to boost that chocolate flavor?
Any way to avoid that layer of fat?
 
You want even more chocolate than Young's! I think that beer is good but right on the edge of "beer", a little too sweet for me. You should use defatted bakers cacao powder to avoid excess fat and oil. If you want to boost the flavor you could buy a good quality chocolate extract, one that's fat free and add it to the secondary or during bottling.
 
Iordz said:
You want even more chocolate than Young's! I think that beer is good but right on the edge of "beer", a little too sweet for me. You should use defatted bakers cacao powder to avoid excess fat and oil. If you want to boost the flavor you could buy a good quality chocolate extract, one that's fat free and add it to the secondary or during bottling.


How do you de-fat cocoa powder?
 
You just but cocoa powder at the store that's used for baking, it should have a very low percent of fat, it should say low fat or fat free. Any good quality bakers cocoa powder will do. Or you can go for good quality syrup made from cocoa that is fat free. De-fat means it's very low in fat and oil, I don't know if it can be all natural and completely fat free, the lowest percentage of fat will have to do.
 
Here is the recipe for the Chocolate Porter I just transferred in to the secondary:

3 Gallon Boil

6lb Extra Light DME
1lb Light DME
1lb Crystal 60L
.5lb Chocolate Malt 300L
.5lb Chocolate Malt 450L
.25lb Carapils
3oz Fuggles Pellets (60 Minutes)
1tsp Irish Moss (15 Minutes)
.5lb Cocoa Powder (Flameout)
Nottingham Dry Yeast


It should come out to around 28 IBUS.

I added 8oz (1 can) of Hershey's Cocoa Natural at flameout. The powder clumps a bit but with some stirring it will all get incorporated. Then just proceed as you would with any other batch.

One thing I found out is that the chocolate creates a lot of trub. Check this out. I got around .75 gallons of trub in there even after filtering everything out before fermentation. Shooting for a 5.5 gallon or maybe even a 5.75 gallon batch size may not be such a bad idea with this type of recipe.
 
The reason cocoa forms a lot of trub is simple. Cocoa powder is ground cocoa beans that have had the fat removed, so the grounds soak up water and add to the trub.
 
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