Adding To The Fermentation Bucket

Hey there!

So here's my little dilemma. I'm currently brewing a stout homebrew kit. I've been really busy lately, so It's been in the fermenting bucket for more than two weeks. And because of busy stuff yet again, it's going to be at least a week before I'm able to bottle this sucker.

Now...just today when I was taking a sample, I decided to try something out. I got a tiny bit of cocoa powder and threw it in to the sample. Mixed well and waited a bit and tried it. Absolutely loved it.

So my question is...at this stage of brewing, would I get much out of just throwing in a couple of ounces of cocoa in to the fermenter? Will the yeasts continue to do their thing? Or will this be just a matter of adding a bit of flavour?

As a reference, it's a 5 gallon fermenter.

You should get flavor out of it for sure. Isn't that what you want? I haven't used cocoa, but I think most people add it after fermentation, prior to bottling, so now would be a perfect time to do it. Not 100% on that though.

I'm hoping the flavour will be awesome, I'm just also wondering if that extra week will allow for additional fermentation as well!

i'm sure the powder (if you're talkin like nestle quick) has fermentability to it (due to sugars) i'd add it and take hydro readings after a week and make sure it's settled.

Also, i did my stout with about 8oz of nestle quick at the 10 minute mark on my boil. smelled and tasting amazing (bottling isn't for about another week).

i'd take about 6-8oz, boil it with water, let it cool and toss'r on in!

does the cocoa powder have sugar in it? if not, I don't think you're going to get much in the way of additional fermentation as the yeast have likely eaten all the sugar and gone dormant for the most part by now.

The extra week will probably help the flavors meld a bit if that's what you mean but the yeast probably won't have much to do with it.

Also consider that, if the powder contains sugar, your end product will not taste exactly like the small test sample you made. The sugar will ferment out, so the beer will not be as sweet as your sample.

Hey folks, thanks for the awesome comments!

The powder isn't like Nestle Quick, it's essentially Baking Cocoa powder (only ingredients coca and sodium carbonate). So thinking on it, it probably won't be fermenting and will just be for taste, which is fine for me.