Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Double Chocolate Oatmeal Snout

Sweet! Glad you like it so far.

Thanks for posting this, I think I'll make a few changes so its Gluten Free and make it right after Thanksgiving with my dad, should be ready mid-January...I'll let you guys know.

According to BeerSmith- I bumped up my IBU's to 40 with Chinook and Nugget as my hops, potential ABV is 6.2%, and color should be void of light (I hope)

Any thoughts on 2 week primary 2 week secondary or is 2 weeks too long on the vanilla bean?

lcasanova said:

According to BeerSmith- I bumped up my IBU's to 40 with Chinook and Nugget as my hops, potential ABV is 6.2%, and color should be void of light (I hope)

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Keep in mind that BeerSmith isn't taking the cocoa powder into account. It's giving you a big wallop of bitterness in there, so you might not want to up the IBU's too much. This baby is BITTER as it is!

lcasanova said:

Any thoughts on 2 week primary 2 week secondary or is 2 weeks too long on the vanilla bean?

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It's worth a shot! Taste it after a week and see if you want to go another. At one week the vanilla doesn't really come though... it just takes the bite off the bitter chocolate.

Do you have a BSM file for this? I would like to convert this to all grain and do scale it down to 3.5 gallons. It sounds delicious!

Brewed this past Tuesday, kind of politely bubbling away but no big krausen at all...I havent taken a reading yet but just curious how the fermentation was for other folks?

I always used foam control drops, so a thin krausen doesn't ever surprise me. What kind of cocoa did you use? That might have an effect on it.

thesanch: I can upload one when I get a chance. Might not be for a few days. Might be easier to just punch the ingredients in than to wait for my lazy ass.

I did not have a huge krausen on mine either. My visible fermentation on this was also short and active however...
I did just put mine into the secondary. I hit your original gravity dead on and i was only off .002 on the final. :rockin:

Mine didn't look quite as dark as yours but the taste even for being green is pretty yummy. Now to wait until Christmas.

Having trouble finding fat free cocoa powder...where did you get yours/what brand was it?

Not Wonderslim cocoa powder by any chance was it, comes in 6 oz. cans

I used regular Hershey's Cocoa Powder in mine. It's practically fat free anyway.

lcasanova said:

Having trouble finding fat free cocoa powder...where did you get yours/what brand was it?

Not Wonderslim cocoa powder by any chance was it, comes in 6 oz. cans

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That would be the stuff. I got it at the co-op I go to. Hippy store.

ChshreCat said:

That would be the stuff. I got it at the co-op I go to. Hippy store.

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I knew it! I had it in my hands this evening and I thought, this can't be it, there's probably another one somewhere! Guess I'll need to make another trip before Thanksgiving.

I took your advice on the IBU's, I lowered it a bit to account for the chocolate, I think I'm close to what yours came out to. Thanks for the help.

ChshreCat said:

thesanch: I can upload one when I get a chance. Might not be for a few days. Might be easier to just punch the ingredients in than to wait for my lazy ass.

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Take your time. I too am quite lazy.

Okay Change of plans. I bit the bullet and got a new chest freezer and the equipment I need to keg soooooo........ This gets to be the first batch kegged for me.

I'm planning on kegging this on Friday. I'm assuming I would just keg it, purge the air with co2 and then let in condition like I normally would in bottles for about 4-6 weeks and then carb it up and serve? That logic works right in my head in terms of conditioning in the keg.
I can barely wait to drink this stuff.

Should be about ready for Christmas and New Year's!

I tasted mine last Thursday and it was very good (even though it was flat, only in the bottles for a wek and a half). Looking forward to drinking this over the winter to keep me warm!

josiahcox said:

Okay Change of plans. I bit the bullet and got a new chest freezer and the equipment I need to keg soooooo........ This gets to be the first batch kegged for me.

I'm planning on kegging this on Friday. I'm assuming I would just keg it, purge the air with co2 and then let in condition like I normally would in bottles for about 4-6 weeks and then carb it up and serve? That logic works right in my head in terms of conditioning in the keg.
I can barely wait to drink this stuff.

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Yes, you keg and purge out air for CO2.

You want to let the keg age while it is connected to the CO2. Find out what kind of carb. you want, use the volumes chart and make sure its at the right temp. v. PSI. Usually around 12 psi at serving temp is good. You can start tasting in about a week and let it age however long you want to.

Cheers guys! Thanks for the feedback.
And Chshre I will totally bottle at least one and either send it to you or bring it down.

So i brewed this up today, im totally stoked to try it out!!!

i have a question though...
i had to make a few substitutions due to what i had at the time.

rather than 7lbs of amber, i used 2.1lbs of amber and 6lbs of pale malt extract... would it make a huge difference?

also i only used 1lb of quick oats. i microwaved them with some water before putting in the grain bag and realized i didnt have enough room to fit 1.5lbs of microwaved oats in the bag... is this ok?

and i used really old cocoa powder (like 10 years old...lol, but it tasted and smelled fine) and i realized that i had too much water to fit in my fermentor so with all the extract and cocoa powder i had to boil for an extra hour and a half to reduce some water. would this hurt it at all...?

my final gravity read 1.066

i cant wait until this is done, thanks for the recipe!!

Having less oats will probably reduce the body of the beer a smidge, but it should still be good.

Changing out the amber extract for pale malt might make it a bit lighter, but this is such a dark beer you might not even notice a difference. And the longer boil will tend to darken the wort so that could make up the color difference too.

You should be good to go!

sweet thanks, i cant wait to try it in the new year!

I just realized that the vanilla beans I have are probably 6 inches long. Were the two beans you split longer than that? If anything, I could split and use a few of them, there are 6 in the package.

The one I used was probably about that or a little longer.

I have been thinking about this brew since I first stumbled onto this recipe. I finally broke down and brewed it last night. Wow, it tastes great already.

Kegged mine over the weekend. I ended up woth about 4 2/3 gallons. I've purged the air and now I just have to have the patience to wait another month before I break that keg open. Good God this stuff smells great!

Should be good for christmas, Josiah.

KLB:Good luck! Have patience and give it a good long primary. You'll be happy you did!

So I figured I'd post some pics.
Mine turned out much lighter than yours but I may know why. I also am going to leave mine a little bit shorter on the vanilla next time.
As for now, I'm waiting for Christmas morning . Cheers.

Looks pretty dark to me! Should be tasty for the holidays.

Thanks man! Brewed this last night and I am really excited for this. I used white lab Irish ale yeast cause I had it around. I pitched the vial at 2 AM (I dont know why I started brewing at 10PM on a weeknight...seemed like a good idea at the time), woke up, and it was fermenting at 8 AM. Doesn't have much foam at the top-might be because I used regular cocoa?

togabear said:

Doesn't have much foam at the top-might be because I used regular cocoa?

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That'd be my guess. Did the same and had very minimal krausen on top. FG came out to 1.020 even about a month later though, so no worries.

Mathematics said:

That'd be my guess. Did the same and had very minimal krausen on top. FG came out to 1.020 even about a month later though, so no worries.

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Hmm...I was thinking about trying to skim off the top layer when kegging and adding to secondary...I think I can see a little bit of the oil on top. Still fermenting though so hard to tell.

I don't think I'd try that if it were me. There's hop oils floating on there too. No big deal if you don't get head retention on this. It's still tasty. Besides, I think the big dose of oatmeal will help counteract some of the fats from your cocoa.

I'll take your advice on that one-makes a lot of sense.

You can get good head out of this beer even if you use regular cocoa.
I took a little sample glass to find out how mine was coming and look what poured out.

:rockin::rockin::rockin::rockin::rockin:

That sure doesn't look any lighter than mine like you worried about! How did it taste?

Looks good! I will worry no longer about the head retention.

It tates great. It's really coming along quite nice as it ages. I'm thinking it will be solid black gold for Christmas. I left if for two weeks on the vanilla and I might only do one next time - although everyone who has tried it thinks it tastes great but I could do with a bit less vanilla
Thanks Chshre. I still want to compare brews some time.

Sounds like your vanilla bean was stronger than mine. Mine doesn't have any appreciable vanilla flavor.

CheshreCat,

I brewed this as my first AG on 11/28. Took a hydro sample last night, it's at 1.020. The sample tasted really good, a little "cocoa-ish" still, but I think that the vanilla in secondary will help that. I'm hoping to rack this weekend, probably bottle next weekend, and start drinking at the end of the year. :rockin:

cocoa-ish is good. This baby is a chocolate bomb.

The vanilla does help mellow it out but that strong chocolate flavor is going to have up front seats for the roller coaster ride down your throat, not that thats a bad thing.