Chocolate in mead

I made a batch of mead with chocolate as one ingredient. I am debating weather or no to make 2 more batches trying two different methods.

Method i used was to take bakers chocolate and melt it in hot water, then added the honey.

Optional methods are:

1st: Take bakers chocolate and NOT melt it in the water, just put it in the fermenter and add the must.

2nd: Use cocoa powder and have it in the fermenter when I add the must

any advice or thoughts would be appreciated

I will put up the recipe if it turns out, but i just made it last night and want to wait until i see if it is a drinkable product.

I am not sure what the best method is. From what I hear the best method is to put it in the secondary and use Cacao Nibs or Chocolate Powder. Most recipies that I have seen use 1 pound or 16 oz. I plan on making a double batch, Chocolate and a Chocolate Mint using 2 pounds of Cacao Nibs each. I have seen recipies of up to 4 pounds but that was hugely overdoing it. This is all of course for a 5 gal batch. I also plan on putting 1-2 Vanilla Beans in it. Something that I have noticed on every candybar or chocolate bar or chocolate product that I have seen that they put in vanillian, that is basically vanilla. So a good chocolate flavor will need a little vanilla too.

I personally recomend that you go with the Coco Powder, unsweetened in the secondary. For a light Chocolate flavor I have seen 1 pound for 5 gal. For very heavy or strong chocolate flavor use 3 pounds for 5 gal. Now what I have seen on the internet is that you will need to extra-age this. I recomend that you let it age, preferabbly Bulk age for at least a year after it has cleared.

Hope it turns out well. I plan on starting my primaries in Mid June. Carboys need to be emptied first.

There is essentially no difference between using melted baker's chocolate and cocoa powder in terms of flavor and the messy aspects of a chocolate mead. Once melted and in the mead, the baker's chocolate behaves just like cocoa powder. Cacao nibs may give you a much less messy alternative, and probably can provide you with a better cocoa flavor than your standard cocoa powder will provide given that the powders generally use bulk cacoa from Ivory Coast, and not the more "gourmet" criollo varieties from South America.

Medsen

Medsen - What about the milk products and fats in the bakers chocolate? I wouldn't want that ANYWHERE near my mead. I have used cocao powder, but it takes a long time for it to mellow out.

oldmate said:

Medsen - What about the milk products and fats in the bakers chocolate? I wouldn't want that ANYWHERE near my mead. I have used cocao powder, but it takes a long time for it to mellow out.

Click to expand...

Looking at the ingredients list on the bakers chocolate box there is no milk products in it.

kingmoltar said:

Looking at the ingredients list on the bakers chocolate box there is no milk products in it.

Click to expand...

I was unsure about the milk products (some do, some don't), but it would have a fat or an emulsifier to hold it together.

The amount of fat left in baker's chocolate isn't enough to have any impact.

Personally, I've sworn off cocoa powder and bakers chocolate. From now on I'm using nibs or making something else. However, I will say that reading the thread here comparing the different chocolate batches showed Nesquick to be the best tasting. I have some questions about that, but you may want to check that thread out.

I read that thread too, I was intrigued, I thought the amount of preservatives and artificial flavours would end up tasting terrible!

Hi Ya'll! I posted a short bit on chocolate in mead 5 years ago on brew-monkey and thought I'd repost it here for consideration....

As far as chocolate goes...Cook's Illustrated Magazine had an article called Chocolate 101. It was in the Nov 2005 issue, so you might still be able to find it. To summarize part of the article:

Chocolate liquor, a dark pasty liquid made by grinding the nibs extracted from dried, fermented, roasted cacao beans, is pure, unsweetened chocolate, the base ingredient for all other processed chocolates. About 55% of chocolate liquor is cocoa butter. Suspended in the cocoa butter are particles of ground cocoa solids, which carry the chocolate flavor. Unsweetened chocolate is pure chocolate liquor that has been cooled and formed into bars.

Cocoa Powder is chocolate liquor fed through a press to remove all but 10-24% of the cocoa butter. To counter the harsh, acidic flavor of natural cocoa, the powder is sometimes treated with an alkaline solution, or 'Dutched'. Cocoa powder contributes a lot of chocolate flavor with little additional fat. You can 'bloom' cocoa powder in a hot liquid such as water or coffee. This dissolves the remaining cocoa butter and disperses water-soluble flavor compounds for a deeper, stronger chocolate flavor.

Since all other chocolates have sugar, vanilla, soy lecithin, palm oil or other ingredients added I'd stick with the cocoa powder and add my own vanilla. I'd also stay away from 'dutch' chocolate. Chocolate and vanilla always play well together! You might try adding the cocoa powder to the honey and water when heating and then add the vanilla as a bean after the mead is in a secondary so you don't lose the aroma. You can always add more cocoa if needed, when you rack your mead.

On a side note, you can always try Chocolate Extracts. Good luck playing with chocolate in your recipes.

It has been since April and i haven't touched it yet. Had a flood in the basement, and all of the stuff down there is in our mead room. can't really get to it right now, but from what i read is I need to bulk age it anyway. I hope it turns out, i have already had an experiment go bad and had to throw it out. we'll see.

I'm attempting a Mint Chocolate mead, and have used Cocoa powder straight into the fermentation process [Primary]. I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't do ANYTHING but settle, and leave behind a Mint mead. But, I will keep an eye on it and see how it goes.... [2cups of cocoa powder aught to do SOMETHING, but who knows]

Next time, I think I'm just gonna use extract.

MedsenFey said:

The amount of fat left in baker's chocolate isn't enough to have any impact.

Personally, I've sworn off cocoa powder and bakers chocolate. From now on I'm using nibs or making something else. However, I will say that reading the thread here comparing the different chocolate batches showed Nesquick to be the best tasting. I have some questions about that, but you may want to check that thread out.

Click to expand...

I was one of the OP's in the chocolate mead experiments.
Since our first experiments I've made two additional 5 gallon batches using the Nesquick. Same recipe used for both batches but different techniques have cause slightly different outcomes.

Using the powder and mixing well you'll notice the chocolate settles out very quickly.

For my first 5 gallon batch I heated 3 gallons of water to about 180 and then mixed in the chocolate, using wine wine whip. the idea was that hot water would bind better with the chocolate. All 28 of 30 of these bottles have consumed. It's better than our test batch

For the 2nd 5 gallon batch I followed the same steps as above, but also gave the must a good stir with the wine whip every day for the first five days of fermentation. Transferred from secondary to corny in February. haven't thought about ut til today.

Should probably check it.

What about brewing a pot of coco like you would coffee then using that pot in addition to your must? Thoughts?

If the local farmers market has honey (which I hope they should) I may try this, this weekend and compare it to say just stiring in the same amount of coco powder.

Edit: I could also go into coco additions in primary vs secondary. Who wants to fund and help me drink all of my mead experimentation?

I heated up a cups worth of cocoa powder, and added it to my primary... It has mixed well and the color hasn't separated yet, so I think I may be in luck. I'm going to add more when I rack to secondary, should I not like the potency.

VGMeads said:

I heated up a cups worth of cocoa powder, and added it to my primary... It has mixed well and the color hasn't separated yet, so I think I may be in luck. I'm going to add more when I rack to secondary, should I not like the potency.

Click to expand...

I found that the cocoa powder wouldn't mix until it absorbed some of the liquid. So I let it sit on top of what ever I was making for a couple of days, and then the wine whip mixed it right in.

How long do you plan on waiting for the potency to appear? I have read on other threads that the chocolate flavor tastes bitter for up to a year before it starts tasting good. Are you saying that in a year, you will decide what to do? And then wait for another year for it to mellow out again?

Have you thought about adding cocoa nibs to the secondary to create a more potent aroma without really impacting the flavor as much? This is what I have though about, personally. The reason I think this would be useful is because as far as I have heard - most of our perception of flavor comes from smell not the actual taste (think how bland everything is with a cold).

I just Racked it. It's actually clearing up nicely. Most of the solids have settled, I think maybe another month or two and it might be ready to taste. bottling a month or two after that.

Just racked it the other day... it's just about ready. it tastes good, the chocolate and the strawberry are very subtle. maybe need to add more? IDK.

I've been in contact with Jade of HopTech HomeBrew supplies. There is a new product that she can order for brewing called Cholaca. It is liquid cacao and comes unsweetened or semi-sweet or sweetened with coconut sugar. Several breweries have been using it. Here is the website... https://cholaca.com/ Check it out!

Has anyone ever used those bottles of coffee flavorings?

https://www.coffeeam.com/flavorings-mixes/coffee-syrup.html?limit=all&mode=list