Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Andes Mint Chocolate Stout

[casesensative]

Bought the ingredients for this brew today. It sounds super delicious, I couldn't resist. Just setting up a 1Liter starter for some harvested WLP004 right now. Probably brew it on Friday. I'll let ya know how it turns out! Went with Fuggles hops instead of EKG.

 

[benchwrmr22]

Good news! I was able to fix my carbonation for the remainder of this batch. I had to carefully pop the caps off (so I could reuse them), add about 1/2 tsp of corn sugar and recapped. Then I carefully swirled and mixed up the beer to get the yeast moving in the solution. Waited about a week and BAM! Delicious beer is now carbonated. Here's a pic of the delicious brew:

 

[casesensative]

So I brewed this up yesterday and pitched the yeast around 9PM, woke up this morning and it was going like wildfire. Currently fermenting at a steady 63F in the ferm chamber. What i didn't account for was the cocoa poweder taking up so much extra space in the fermenter. ended up running out of a little space! Next time ill brew a 2.5G gallon batch for my 3G fermenter.

Hit all my numbers exactly and ended up with 1.060 OG. 86% effeciency. I shoot for 85%.

 

[scurry64]

I have no patience for bottle conditioning. This spent 13 days in my closet after 2 weeks fermenting.

It very green, but I think it will be brilliant in 2-3 months. There's no head retention, but great lacing.

The mint tingle makes a cameo appearance and the cocoa flavor is the star and slightly bitter. I am please with thus brew.

 

[501irishred]

Good news! I was able to fix my carbonation for the remainder of this batch. I had to carefully pop the caps off (so I could reuse them), add about 1/2 tsp of corn sugar and recapped. Then I carefully swirled and mixed up the beer to get the yeast moving in the solution. Waited about a week and BAM! Delicious beer is now carbonated. Here's a pic of the delicious brew:

Glad to see there is hope for bottle conditioning after all! :rockin:

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

Sorry, bottlers!

 

[sgraham602]

anyone put this on nitro??

 

[casesensative]

Gonna be bottling this in a few days and im thinking at bottling time i will either brew up some more mint tea bags to go with the sugar and give it more mint kick, OR im gonna make a vodka infusion and add it. Any suggestions? Which do you think would pull more flavor from the peppermint?

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

I think that the Vodka infusion might be the better bet. You'll probably be able to pull more peppermint flavor. If you're going to do an infusion, try to get some fresh peppermint leaves rather than the tea bags.

 

[casesensative]

Sounds good! Will let ya know how it turns out!

 

[aiptasia]

I've re-worked this stout recipe and it came out much better in version 2.0. I have a few more tweaks due to an upgrade in equipment and will brew version 3.0 in 2014. The second version sat in the primary much longer than my usual beers (Four months) but still had cocoa powder issues. It still leaves cocoa streaks in the bottom of a serving glass and has virtually no head whatsoever. What this thread has taught me:

Mint flavor fades fast: Using the natural mint found in mint tea bags fades fast. In the first batch, I used extract at bottling and that did well, but it tasted a little bit more like a mint candy than a natural mint flavor. This second batch used natural mint from mint tea and tasted fine on brew day, but the flavor faded very quickly as was barely discernible at bottling. I had to bump it up again, with a very careful extract addition.

Fats are the enemy of head retention: Using cocoa powder introduces a lot more to the beer than just chocolate flavoring. There's a lot of oil and fat in it as well, and it just murders the head. Version 3.0 will use cacao nibs or more chocolate malt instead of cocoa powder.

Cocoa powder is impossible to rack off: No matter how long it sits in the primary, you can't get rid of all of the cocoa powder residue without filtering this beer. I let version 2.0 sit in the primary for FOUR MONTHS and still had plenty of suspended cocoa in the beer.

 

[BPal75]

Great observations thanks. One thing to keep in mind is that chocolate malt doesn't really give a chocolate flavor, more coffee than chocolate. I think they just call it chocolate malt because if the color. I would go with cocoa nibs for chocolate flavor.

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

I've re-worked this stout recipe and it came out much better in version 2.0. I have a few more tweaks due to an upgrade in equipment and will brew version 3.0 in 2014. The second version sat in the primary much longer than my usual beers (Four months) but still had cocoa powder issues. It still leaves cocoa streaks in the bottom of a serving glass and has virtually no head whatsoever. What this thread has taught me:

Mint flavor fades fast: Using the natural mint found in mint tea bags fades fast. In the first batch, I used extract at bottling and that did well, but it tasted a little bit more like a mint candy than a natural mint flavor. This second batch used natural mint from mint tea and tasted fine on brew day, but the flavor faded very quickly as was barely discernible at bottling. I had to bump it up again, with a very careful extract addition.

Fats are the enemy of head retention: Using cocoa powder introduces a lot more to the beer than just chocolate flavoring. There's a lot of oil and fat in it as well, and it just murders the head. Version 3.0 will use cacao nibs or more chocolate malt instead of cocoa powder.

Cocoa powder is impossible to rack off: No matter how long it sits in the primary, you can't get rid of all of the cocoa powder residue without filtering this beer. I let version 2.0 sit in the primary for FOUR MONTHS and still had plenty of suspended cocoa in the beer.

A few things regarding your notes that I find curious - as for the mint flavor from tea, I can agree partially. However, I have not found the mint flavor to fade too much - a bit, yes, but not to the degree that you describe.

Head retention - my personal experience over multiple brews of this recipe disagrees with your experience - I have had zero problems with head retention in this brew.

Cocoa in suspension - I have seen a small amount of cocoa remain in suspension, but barely a noticeable amount, certainly not after a four month primary. Even with a month in primary, I barely had any cocoa left in suspension.

In short - I think your notes are valid, but I also don't think they speak to the recipe in general. My personal experience over many brews has not been the same as yours, so I don't think they are universal, although they are definitely things to keep in mind.

 

[02fx4dude]

question - when using the mint tea bags in the boil, do you drop the tea bags in intact or cut them open and dump the contents into the boiling wort?

Also, I'm looking at the celestial seasonings mint tea, do you use peppermint or spearmint?

TIA

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

question - when using the mint tea bags in the boil, do you drop the tea bags in intact or cut them open and dump the contents into the boiling wort?

Also, I'm looking at the celestial seasonings mint tea, do you use peppermint or spearmint?

TIA

I keep them whole, and I use peppermint.

 

[J_P]

Andy,
This thread is awesome your brew sounds and looks amazing. I've only brewed two beers so far an Irish red and a honey blonde both extracts. O am starting with extracts and one day move to all grain. I guess what I'm getting at is, is there a way to make this with extracts?
Thanks
Josh

 

[chawagi]

Never been a stout guy, but this one sounded interesting. Brewed it back at the beginning of August, bottled around labor day weekend, and just started drinking them this week.

This beer is amazing. No issues with head retention or carbing. Nice blend of the chocolate and mint. Good creamy mouth feel. My batch carb-test plastic bottle was tight after about 5 days, so carbonation was super fast.

 

[501irishred]

Never been a stout guy, but this one sounded interesting. Brewed it back at the beginning of August, bottled around labor day weekend, and just started drinking them this week.

This beer is amazing. No issues with head retention or carbing. Nice blend of the chocolate and mint. Good creamy mouth feel. My batch carb-test plastic bottle was tight after about 5 days, so carbonation was super fast.

What yeast did you end up using?

 

[chawagi]

What yeast did you end up using?

I didn't have any WLP004 Irish Ale at the time, and my supplier was a bit behind, so I ended up using a 2nd generation US-05 that I washed from an Oaked Honey Wheat Ale I made in July. I will be rebrewing this stout recipe this weekend, minus the mint, with lactose added to make it into a sweet milk chocolate stout.

I will be using the WLP004 for this weekend's batch so we'll see if that affects ferm times at all. My supplier gets direct from WL though based on order requirements (i.e. he doesn't keep a stock, just orders as requested) so our yeasts are usually superfresh. My Irish Ale has an Aug 13 date stamp, so it should be good and strong.

 

[501irishred]

Excellent. With multiple carb issues mentioned with the recipe, the more "what went right" stories the the better. Good ol US-05; the backup plan for all!

 

[chawagi]

Excellent. With multiple carb issues mentioned with the recipe, the more "what went right" stories the the better. Good ol US-05; the backup plan for all!

I hear that. IMO, for what it's worth, this recipe is solid. I think most of the issues mentioned here can be traced to individual technique and procedural faults rather than recipe faults. Beer usually lingers for a bit around my house, but this one is already over half gone.

The flavors seem to have stratified a bit and some bottles are more chocolate while others are more mint, but only very slightly so (again this is more likely a procedural fault on my part rather than recipe related). An unexperienced beer drinker would be very unlikely to notice.

Another plus is that this beer doesn't have that overwhelming Guinness bitterness that has kept me away from stouts for so many years.

If you're looking for something interesting, this is a very unique and tasty brew.

 

[FoggyMemoriesBeer]

I just brewes this to the original recipe but I added 11 peppermint bags and 5 oz of chocolate. I will be bottling this and was wondering the best way to reduce the trub at the sediment in the bottle?
Also for those who have bottled this how much priming sugar did you add for 5 gal batch?

Lastly what if I want slightly more pepermint aroma zhow many bags would u reccomend "dry hopping" and for how long?

Ps thanks for the recipe im excited to try it

 

[FoggyMemoriesBeer]

Ok issue here my beer looked good as of last night pic #1 and now it looks more like pic #2?

 

[FoggyMemoriesBeer]

Oh yeah im just on day 3 of fermentation

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

It will settle out. Day three is nothing! You can do a "dry hop" with peppermint bags for a day or so before bottling if you want for more aroma.

 

[chawagi]

Yeah. Day three is about when mine started doing that "surface of Venus" windstorm looking fermentation that had everything kicked up in the carboy.

 

[FoggyMemoriesBeer]

I shook it up a little and it started going a little bit faster, but next day it read back at its slow pace. I'm gonna let thus go for a week then when I add the last 4 peppermint bags im going to take another reading of the sg. Thanks for the help ill keep you posted.

 

[FoggyMemoriesBeer]

So this brew its coming to the last week, it has for the most part stopped bubbling but there is a thin but fairly solid top layer is this normal on a stout?

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

Pics would help!

 

[FoggyMemoriesBeer]

Ill get on that when I get home sorry