Hello HBT.
I brewed 15gal of a robust porter recipe on saturday that I've been working on and it is currently sat 5gal each bubbling away in three fermenters in my modified chest freezer. My intention is to leave one stock and make additions to the other two.
I've been drinkings lots of crazy craft beers recently from some of the scene darlings and struggling to figure out how they get such a powerful flavour across without using artificial additives which I'm 99% sure they do not. To me, the intensity of some chocolate, toffee, peanut butter, biscuit, vanilla, coffee, tiramisu, turkish delight, milkshake flavours etc are greater than anything I've ever been able to replicate.
I've brewed with cacao nib before I found that even large additions in secondary did not do it alone. Unfortunately the base beer at the time was not particularly forgiving, far too much roast barley and quite a thin stout. I got the aromatic quality of chocolate on the nose, I imagine this worlds especially well if you avoid muddying it with too much roast barley and you get the bitterness of chocolate on the tongue which I imagine works best if you scale back your hops, but it doesn't taste like thick rich chocolate without the presence of sweetness and the thickness that usually comes with chocolate.
I've used less bittering hops to leave space for the cocao, practically dropped the roasted barley with just a few grams for colour, mashed high, added dextrine malt, oats, crystal and greater quantities of chocolate malt to the recipe. I've substituted part of the base malt for munich all in the hope of bringing up the sweetness from start to finish and the thickness to better emulate chocolate. I've tried lactose in the past for sweetness and found it to leave a beer tasting slightly hollow, sweet at the start and towards the end, but absent in the middle and on the finish. While I'm likely to use lactose in one of these beers, I've also a bag of maltodextrine.
I've roasted 300g of cacao nib and these are currently sat under half a litre of vodka in the fridge. I've got several different decent coffee beans which I can mill or brew however. I've got around 30 madagascan whole vanilla pods.
I was thinking leave one as it is so I can critique the malt balance. Hit another with a normal amount of lactose, cacao and vanilla in the aim of making an ok chocolate milkshake porter and hit the other with a larger amount of lactose, cacao, vanilla and maltodextrine to test the thickening/fat emulating ability of the maltodextrine. I'm also considering adding a small amount of french press coffee because the aroma and flavour is so complimentary to some or all and I need something to dissolve the lactose and maltodextrine in though I wonder if it is even necessary?
Ideally I want to make nice beer, but also I want to learn something. Also I'm not a fan of transferring to secondary or overtly long fermentations. This beer will get 2 days at 68F, 5 at 71F at which point I'll most likely make my additions and chill on day 12 with the aim of packaging on day 14.
I brewed 15gal of a robust porter recipe on saturday that I've been working on and it is currently sat 5gal each bubbling away in three fermenters in my modified chest freezer. My intention is to leave one stock and make additions to the other two.
I've been drinkings lots of crazy craft beers recently from some of the scene darlings and struggling to figure out how they get such a powerful flavour across without using artificial additives which I'm 99% sure they do not. To me, the intensity of some chocolate, toffee, peanut butter, biscuit, vanilla, coffee, tiramisu, turkish delight, milkshake flavours etc are greater than anything I've ever been able to replicate.
I've brewed with cacao nib before I found that even large additions in secondary did not do it alone. Unfortunately the base beer at the time was not particularly forgiving, far too much roast barley and quite a thin stout. I got the aromatic quality of chocolate on the nose, I imagine this worlds especially well if you avoid muddying it with too much roast barley and you get the bitterness of chocolate on the tongue which I imagine works best if you scale back your hops, but it doesn't taste like thick rich chocolate without the presence of sweetness and the thickness that usually comes with chocolate.
I've used less bittering hops to leave space for the cocao, practically dropped the roasted barley with just a few grams for colour, mashed high, added dextrine malt, oats, crystal and greater quantities of chocolate malt to the recipe. I've substituted part of the base malt for munich all in the hope of bringing up the sweetness from start to finish and the thickness to better emulate chocolate. I've tried lactose in the past for sweetness and found it to leave a beer tasting slightly hollow, sweet at the start and towards the end, but absent in the middle and on the finish. While I'm likely to use lactose in one of these beers, I've also a bag of maltodextrine.
I've roasted 300g of cacao nib and these are currently sat under half a litre of vodka in the fridge. I've got several different decent coffee beans which I can mill or brew however. I've got around 30 madagascan whole vanilla pods.
I was thinking leave one as it is so I can critique the malt balance. Hit another with a normal amount of lactose, cacao and vanilla in the aim of making an ok chocolate milkshake porter and hit the other with a larger amount of lactose, cacao, vanilla and maltodextrine to test the thickening/fat emulating ability of the maltodextrine. I'm also considering adding a small amount of french press coffee because the aroma and flavour is so complimentary to some or all and I need something to dissolve the lactose and maltodextrine in though I wonder if it is even necessary?
Ideally I want to make nice beer, but also I want to learn something. Also I'm not a fan of transferring to secondary or overtly long fermentations. This beer will get 2 days at 68F, 5 at 71F at which point I'll most likely make my additions and chill on day 12 with the aim of packaging on day 14.