Going to try actual chocolate

I have decided to try actual chocolate. I am making a winter warmer (5gal), and my plan right now is to add 5 tablespoons of cocoa powder at flame-out, and 1 tablespoon of vanilla at secondary.

What am I doing wrong? What have you seen or done different?

Depends on how much chocolate you're going for. Not sure how much you'll get from 5 tablespoons. I used a 9oz can of cocoa in my chocolate stout. Granted, that was meant to have chocolate as the main feature. If you're wanting just a slight hint of chocolate, then you might be right on.

ChshreCat said:

Depends on how much chocolate you're going for. Not sure how much you'll get from 5 tablespoons. I used a 9oz can of cocoa in my chocolate stout. Granted, that was meant to have chocolate as the main feature. If you're wanting just a slight hint of chocolate, then you might be right on.

Click to expand...

Did the chocolate come through in the final beer? I've heard the cocoa powder settles out along with any flavor it contributes. I'm not sure I buy it though, as it should have extractable flavor compounds that will remain in the beer.

ChshreCat said:

Depends on how much chocolate you're going for. Not sure how much you'll get from 5 tablespoons. I used a 9oz can of cocoa in my chocolate stout. Granted, that was meant to have chocolate as the main feature. If you're wanting just a slight hint of chocolate, then you might be right on.

Click to expand...

Correct. I am looking for a taste to go along with the beer, not have it be a chocolate beer.

Did the chocolate come through in the final beer? I've heard the cocoa powder settles out along with any flavor it contributes.

Click to expand...

That is why I am asking. I have come up with the idea from net searches and my few brewing books. If you have heard different please let me know.

The chocolate definitely came though. This was a chocolate-forward beer and that's what I wanted. Still don't know how much chocolate you'll get with 5 tablespoons, though. You could start with that and then if it's not enough, you could rack onto some cocoa nibs in secondary to give it a boost. Or even just add a little chocolate extract at bottling time.

The cocoa does settle out, but that's what you want. You don't want black powder floating around in the finished product. But, it does impart it's flavor on the beer quite well so no worries about that if you ask me.

I did a chocolate stout with a coopers kit and some LME, I added 50g of cocoa nibs in primary and 200g of nibs in secondary.
It was delicious, not too much cocoa but it came through nicely in the aftertaste.
My brother was so impressed he wants me to set him up to brew himself.
I have another one on at the moment using a Youngs kit with the same LME and it's still in primary. Gonna transfer it to secondary during the week sometime and add another 200g nibs.

Okay, I put in the powder at flame out and stirred until it stopped clumping.

After wort chilling I drank my gravity sample. It was very chocolate and had a light touch of grit. Hopefully with fermenting and secondary a bunch will fall out and the malt and hops taste will come racing back.

With 9oz, my wort looked like sludge when I transferred it to the primary. By bottling time all the cocoa solids had dropped out into a thick chocolaty yeast cake leaving nothing but flavor behind.

Okay, I racked to secondary today.

At primary, I was at 1.060 (after adding the powder at flame out and wort chilling).

The airlock stopped any bubbles after 8 days, so I racked over. At racking, before adding the vanilla, I had 1.018.

Did I go too soon?

Bottled today (Oct 21).

The Chocolate taste is down to a hint. Vanilla is down to nothing. Given that this beer is flat, it tastes like a great winter warmer with a light chocolate note.

My ABV calc shows 6.1.... Light? I did add 1 TBS vanilla extract at secondary.

This recipe sounds interesting to me can you please post?
I really don't like vanilla but I do realize that it is one of the main components in chocolate so it makes sense in this recipe.
I made a vanilla amber cream ale awhile ago using a whole fresh vanilla bean at knockout. I thought it was almost undrinkable. Like I said I don't like the taste/smell of vanilla. One of my friends tried it and he said it was so good he could drink it every day.
Go figure.

Don't know about the OP's recipe, but mine is in my drop down








<----------------------------------------------over there

Where did you get your cocoa nibs from chshre? Can you get them at a grocery store... or would I have to make a trip to my New Frontiers maybe

Actually, in my recipe I used 9oz of fat free cocoa powder.

Yes I was referring to your post about adding them to the secondary... just curious where one might obtain them.

I've seen them at the co-op I go to. same place I got the cocoa powder, actually. Specialty food stores might have them. Maybe whole foods. Check in the baking section of stores.

After aging this went down well.

As for the chocolate, there is the very faintest taste of it. The vanilla is none at all.

I am considering doing this again, with double the amounts of coco and vanilla.

One of the beer/brewing magazines (not Zymurgy; maybe BYO?) has an article this month on brewing with chocolate. Among other options the author suggests ordinary Hershey's syrup. He says it is fat free, so you don't have to worry about oils, etc. IIRC the article suggested 12oz for a 5 gallon batch. The other day at the grocery I was verifying for myself that Hershey's is indeed fat free (it is), and I noticed that they also have a chocolate malt syrup, also fat free. I'm thinking a chocolate malt syrup would be a natural for a beer?

jcobbs said:

One of the beer/brewing magazines (not Zymurgy; maybe BYO?) has an article this month on brewing with chocolate. Among other options the author suggests ordinary Hershey's syrup. He says it is fat free, so you don't have to worry about oils, etc. IIRC the article suggested 12oz for a 5 gallon batch. The other day at the grocery I was verifying for myself that Hershey's is indeed fat free (it is), and I noticed that they also have a chocolate malt syrup, also fat free. I'm thinking a chocolate malt syrup would be a natural for a beer?

Click to expand...

I read the same article. Its interesting because I never read of anybody using the syrup on here, just the powder.
Im going to be making an Oatmeal stout soon, and I think I am going to try adding some Hersheys syrup to it.

But does Hershey's syrup have any preservatives in it that will affect the yeast?

The article said that it didnt and that it comes already sterilized, so you can just dump/squeeze it into secondary.

That's good to know. Be aware you're getting more than chocolate in there. Sugar (high fructose corn syrup) among other things. Not sayin' that's a bad thing necessarily, just that you'll want to account for it. Checking the label is has 20g of sugar per 2 Tbsp. That's not a lot, but if you're putting a bunch in there it's going to bump your gravity a little bit.

ChshreCat said:

That's good to know. Be aware you're getting more than chocolate in there. Sugar (high fructose corn syrup) among other things. Not sayin' that's a bad thing necessarily, just that you'll want to account for it. Checking the label is has 20g of sugar per 2 Tbsp. That's not a lot, but if you're putting a bunch in there it's going to bump your gravity a little bit.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I really enjoy adding cocoa powder to my porters/stouts at certain times of the year. I have found that it takes a long time for an entire can of cocoa to mellow though. I don't really like it until about 3 months, but that's with a 7% porter or so which naturally needs some time to mellow out. I don't really know about the chocolate syrup, I think that would be interesting. If I added it, I'd ad it at flame out and just eff whatever extra gravity it will add. I just wouldn't know how much to add. If anyone tests this out, let me know.

J