Raspberry chocolate stout - too much raspberry or chocolate?

any critiques on this chocolate - raspberry stout? Not sure what yeast to use. Should I finish dry or slightly sweet?

Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5 gallons
Original Gravity: 1.066
Final Gravity: 1.017
ABV (standard): 6.43%
IBU (rager): 46.94
SRM (morey): 40


Fermentables
10 lb Pale 2-Row 75.5%
1 lb Choc Malt 7.5%
1 lb Rolled Oats 7.5%
0.75 lb Crystal 80L 5.7%
0.5 lb Carafa Special 3.8%

Hops

25 g Nugget 60 min 11
1 oz Fuggles 5 min 4.5

mash @ 154
Rack onto 2lbs of pureed raspberry and 6 oz of cocao nibs

I like to use wlp 007, but that's just my preference.

I'm curious to see what others have to say about how to do the raspberry. I just bought a house with a TON of established raspberry bushes. How much to use and what method.

That's a lot of nibs in the secondary IMO. I just did a 2.5G batch of choc stout with 4oz choc in secondary.

cbehr said:

That's a lot of nibs in the secondary IMO. I just did a 2.5G batch of choc stout with 4oz choc in secondary.

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Did you feel the 4oz was too much? Was the flavor too dominant. I'm using 6oz for 5 gallons, which is proportionally less than what you used.

BrotherBock said:

Did you feel the 4oz was too much? Was the flavor too dominant. I'm using 6oz for 5 gallons, which is proportionally less than what you used.

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I'm sorry...I read that wrong, I thought you had 60 oz!!! From what I've read most suggest 8 oz for a 5g batch. It will give you a nice aroma and mild choc taste. Mine is carbing now but I did like the taste at bottling time.

BrotherBock, how did this turn out? I'm thinking of trying something similar - was 2 lbs of raspberries enough?

It turned out well. I ended up doing a 2.5 gallon batch and used one can of Oregon brand raspberries and just racked on top of it. It was definitely noticeable but it wasn't overpowering. Next time I'll use a little bit more and use fresh puree instead.

I failed to collect cocao nibs and ended up using some dark chocolate (80% cocoa). So the chocolate flavor could have been more. All in all I think the base beer tasted better than it did with the choc and razz. But had I had a more prominent chocolate flavor it would have been tastier.

So if you do something like this I recommend fresh razz and cocoa nibs. Since the raspberry comes through pretty well, having a strong chocolate flavor would help balance it out.