Chocolate Malt Stout Experiment

So for New Years, I decided to experiment with a chocolate malt stout recipe. Brewed a 2.5ish gallon batch, and transferred to two 1 gallon jugs for primary. After 1 week, fem had finished and I racked to secondary. 1 gallon I left as is, the other I racked onto 1oz of organic coco nibs that had been soaked in 2 oz of vodka for 5 days. (Poured both liquid and nibs into bottle.). Both sat in secondary for a week, and have been bottled for 3 weeks.

I've since tried both batches, and have a few friends doing bind taste tests of each. In my opinion, the straight batch is smooth, slight chocolate flavor, all around great. The nibbed batch has an awesome smooth chocolate finish, but has an up front aroma and taste of hard alcohol, that could be defined as astringent. So far feed back has only been on the nibbed batch, and the alcoholic characteristics are one of the first things mentioned.

Any suggestions of where the issue could be (my money's on the vodka). Recipe as follows:

BIAB Mini Batch
3 gallon boil kettle

1# 8 oz Marris Otter
3 oz Carafa I
3 oz Crystal 80
3 oz Crystal 120
1 oz Chocolate Malt (350)

7 oz Carnation Malted Milk Powder (Last 5 Minutes of Boil)

0.5 oz Glacier (60 minutes)

Whirlfloc (Last 15 minutes)

Some photos from start to end.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1455068215.348810.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1455068234.261474.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1455068247.072024.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1455068255.582262.jpg

Brew on my friends!!

 

An entire week with 0 feedback. I must smell like a noob!

*bump for relevance*

 

It will take longer than three weeks, but it will smooth out with time. Let these sit until next fall, and then see where it's at!

I have a winter warmer that I oaked w/bourbon-soaked chips, cacao nibs, and a vanilla bean. It all comes through, but right now, the bourbon is still the most prevalent flavour of those four, but it will smooth out with time. I am looking at next Thanksgiving, personally.

As Tom Petty says, "the waiting is the hardest part".

 

I'm interested since I have a 3-gallon batch of chocolate stout in primary right now that I plan to secondary on nibs and a vanilla bean.

 

Noob... I was going to ask what yeast you used and temp you were fermenting at, but if only one of the batches has a noticeable alcohol presence it sounds like your tincture addition may be the culprit. I've used cocoa nibs before and got a very dry astringency like you had mentioned. Also on another batch I've used a vanilla bean/vodka tincture and the alcohol was noticeable for about a week before fading.

What proof of vodka are you using? 80 proof is adequate, any more and you may notice the alcohol easier. 2oz of vodka in 1 gallon of beer means 1.125 Tsp of vodka per 12oz bottle of beer. I'm not a big fan of vodka so I might be able to pick up that alcohol flavor pretty easy as well.

 

Weast 1056, ferm at 68 degrees. Secondary at around 70.

Standard 80 proof Smirnoff that had been in my pantry for a while.

You have a point with the ratio, never even though of it from that point.

Any alternative ideas for bringing a little extra cocoa flavor to the game?

 

Chocolate extract.

Or, you could do what someone else did in another thread and add NesQuik powdered chocolate milk mix.

 

Thought about NesQuik, but there's a lot of junk in that stuff. Saw a thread somewhere of someone trying to ferment Ovaltine. Didn't come out well! Haha

 

I'm pretty tolerant, but I might GAG if someone offered me an Ovaltine laced beer. On the other hand, I think I want to try the malted milk powder. That sounds interesting

 

I thought the same thing. Fair warning....it looks like alien puke during ferm! (Reference photos 2 and 3)