Chocolate Wheat Beer

[helgibelgi]

Hi everyone

I wanted to get your thoughts on this idea I have for a wheat beer.

The idea is to make a chocolate wheat beer. It will be a German wheat beer, making use of the Wyeast 3068 yeast. As many of you know, this yeast can give two main characteristics; clove & banana. There are methods for focusing the yeast on either one of these flavor components. I was thinking that chocolate would pair better with banana than with clove, so I'll probably try to influence the yeast toward banana flavors and aroma.

The main question I have and want your feedback on is: how to get the chocolate flavor?

1. From using darker grains such as Carafa Special or Chocolate malts.
2. From actually using chocolate/cocoa at some point:

2a. In the mash​

2b. In the boil​

2c. In Primary/Secondary or at bottling​

3. Some combination of 1 and 2.
4. ??? Some other better idea

What do you think?

 

[BlackGoat]

This sounds quite a bit like it would have a similar profile to dunkelweizen. Research recipes for dunkelweizen and I think you will start to get some ideas, they typically use carafa special. I'm sure there are some folks that use chocolate malts, but not sure I've heard of people using actual chocolate.

 

[JonM]

There's also a grain called chocolate wheat. If I understand right, it's wheat that's produced just like chocolate malt and produces a dark chocolate flavor. I recently made a dunkelweizen and when I was reading up on recipes, I saw plenty that used chocolate wheat.

 

[helgibelgi]

I guess I'll go the "easy" route and just use chocolate malts. I have some Carafa Special and british Chocolate malts laying around waiting for me to use them.

 

[drainbamage]

I'd find a base recipe for a schwarzbier and sub out half of the Pilsner malt for wheat malt, then use a hefeweizen yeast strain.

 

[HexKrak]

In my chocolate porter I used:
a) Chocolate malt in the mash
b) Cocoa powder last 5 min of boil
c) Cocoa nibs in secondary tasting daily until achieved flavor profile.

"c)" has the biggest impact in my experience but you can go from pleasant to overwhelming in a short period of time.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

Sounds like a great opportunity to use midnight wheat!! I just brewed a porter with midnight wheat. Thought it could be fun. Just finishing up fermentation so I can't comment yet. Will get kegged this next weekend.

 

[70ls1nova]

In my chocolate porter I used:
a) Chocolate malt in the mash
b) Cocoa powder last 5 min of boil
c) Cocoa nibs in secondary tasting daily until achieved flavor profile.

"c)" has the biggest impact in my experience but you can go from pleasant to overwhelming in a short period of time.

This.. I would do this. Great idea. I think with the banana esters and the chocolate, it's gonna be delicious. Exactly what he said.

 

[helgibelgi]

In my chocolate porter I used:
a) Chocolate malt in the mash
b) Cocoa powder last 5 min of boil
c) Cocoa nibs in secondary tasting daily until achieved flavor profile.

"c)" has the biggest impact in my experience but you can go from pleasant to overwhelming in a short period of time.

This also sounds like a good idea to me (method c). I could even bottle half the beer when finished fermenting without any cocoa nibs and then add cocoa nibs to the rest until satisfied with the taste.

The grain bill could be a Schwarzbier (with wheat). Why not?

Would you also do a) and b)?

 

[HexKrak]

Looked up my recipe yesterday. I used 2 tbsp of cocoa powder @ 10 min, and racked on top of 4 oz of cocoa nibs after 2 weeks of primary. By day 5 in the secondary my beer had a nice full chocolate flavor.

 

[Natdavis777]

Another way to impart the chocolate flavor without a color change would be a chocolate tincture. I'm actually doing my first tincture right now for my stouts with cacao nibs and vodka. Been soaking for just a few hours and it already has a strong chocolate aroma. If you aren't concerned with color, the tincture could help accentuate the midnight wheat is you went that route. I know it won't add sweetness, so you could utilize some vanilla bean for perceived sweetness.

I recently did a hefe and fermented low and it was a banana bomb. I loved it. I'm interested in how choc would pair with the style.


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[helgibelgi]

Looked up my recipe yesterday. I used 2 tbsp of cocoa powder @ 10 min, and racked on top of 4 oz of cocoa nibs after 2 weeks of primary. By day 5 in the secondary my beer had a nice full chocolate flavor.

Thanks! 4 ounces sounds like an appropriate amount. I'll try this.

The beer is already in the fermentor. Only one fermentor because I royally screwed this whole brew day (but will still make decent beer). The plan was to split the batch into four 5-liter carboys. Somehow I managed to lose all my bungs for those carboys so I had no way to make airlocks. Also, I forgot to get the right yeast (3068) but had some dry Munich Wheat yeast packet that I decided to use for the whole batch in one fermentor. Maybe next time I'll do a split match experiment.

I'll let you know how it turned out.