Double Chocolate Stout?

I just bought a recipe for a Chocolate Stout.

I want to make it a DOUBLE chocolate stout, but don't want to ruin 50 bucks worth of ingredients.

My beer store guy recommended using semi sweet morsels, melting them down in a separate pot, and adding them to the wert right after boiling is done.

Anyone try something like this?

btw: i bought gevalia pure semisweet dark chocolate (very few additives unlike a Nestle or Hershey).

 

I made a Chocolate Coffee stout with 4 oz. of unsweetened chocolate with 10 minutes left in the boil, it came out pretty well, but if you're not doing the coffee, you can probably get away with more chocolate.

 

you want a dutch-processed cocoa powder - the processing removes most of the oils, which otherwise will kill head retention.

 

I melted 10oz chocolate in a small amount of water and added that to my boil. Boiled for 60 minutes. This helps negate the head-diminishing effect chocolate can have on beer. The chocolate was from Guatemala, hard as a brick and has a unique, coffee-like bitterness. I would say its like bittersweet/very dark chocolate w/ a little sugar added. But the flavor is vey unique. I sampled this Porter today, w/2 others and nobody thought it was very chocolatey(or in any way overly so). It was really great, very well integrated, not too many brews under my belt but I think its at the top right now. Very excited. Again, it is a porter not a stout, but in the same ballpark. It turned out higher in gravity than most porters: 1.069.

 

I did Jamil's chocolate hazelnut porter. 8oz unsweetened cocoa powder at the end of the boil. I would think most of the flavor would be gone if you boiled it the whole 60 mins. I would use 10-12oz next time. Good flavor, I just like it a little more dominant. Here is the recipe, for comparison. It is an awesome beer, not to mention HUGE!!!

8 lbs. english light lme
.5 lbs light dme

grains:
1 lb. munich
1 lb. crystal 40L
1 lb. crystal 75L
.5 lb. carapils
.75 lb. chocolate
.5 lb. black patent

hops:
1 oz. kent goldings 60 mins
1 oz. williamette 30 mins
2 oz. williamette 1 min

8 oz. unsweetened cocoa powder (last few mins of boil)

1 tab whirfloc (last 20 mins of boil)

1 pkg 25 ml hazelnut flavoring at bottling

4 oz corn sugar for priming

 

Why would the flavor go away? I don't think its evaporating out, where would it go? Maybe some of the aroma would.

 

I use 2 cups of Herseys Cocoa powder, 10 min at the end of the boil.

 

I use cocoa powder and put it in at the begging of the boil. You can scoop out the tiny bit of residual oil before you get to the main brewing.

 

I'm going to have to get into the stouts. I love chocolate and coffee...
What yeast did you use?

 

I've used White Labs WLP013 London Ale in my stouts and porters with great results. It works well with dark english ales, in my experience.

 

Does it have a dry finish?

 

Definitely. Dry, and it puts emphasis on the malty qualities. When I made my oatmeal stout with it, a few people said I should enter it in competition.

 

I'll have to give this a try when i get my additional carboys.

 

so, the consensus seems to be that powder is what to use, not semi sweet morsels melted down?

 

I preach the virtures of cocoa powder, yes. The oil in the morsels or baker's chocolate will cause nothing but grief.