Chocolate Blackberry Stout?

[crisis]

I wanted to see what people thought about such a creation. I'm fairly new, and will be doing a grain/extract method. This will be my 4th brew, so I welcome any advice/ feedback!

I've pulled this together from various Choc Stout online recipes, then added the blackberry. What do you think?

Malt:
3.3 lb. Dark malt extract
3 lb. Light dry malt extract

Grain:
1 lb. British crystal 50-60L
1 lb. British chocolate
4 oz. British black patent

Chocolate:
Either cocoa powder or bakers choc, pros/cons?

Misc
8 oz. Lactose Sugar

Hops:
So many choices, not sure. I have some left over Cascade, any opinions?

Yeast:
Not sure?

Blackberry:
I was thinking about 2 pounds added to the secondary, and then move it to a tertiary after 2 weeks. I would probably bring them up to 160 to kill anything off beforehand.

Can anyone offer any advice/tuning on this idea? Thanks!

 

[david_42]

Lots of discussion, cocoa is the way to go.
I wouldn't use cascades in a stout & it isn't a very good bittering hop anyway. Chinook, nugget, Willamette, lots of good choices.
2 pounds would be about right.

 

[Torchiest]

I used Target for bittering and Willamette for finishing in my blackberry oatmeal stout, and I think it's a good fit.

 

[Jim Karr]

My best stout yet contained Williamette.....

 

[crisis]

maybe I'll go with Target for bittering and Willamette for finishing then.

Any recommendations on a yeast to use for this project?

 

[the_bird]

You have so much else going on in the recipe where I don't think it makes a lot of sense to do anything too fancy with the yeast - any of the subtleties that the yeast might bring will likely be overwhelmed by the other flavors. So, I'd go with a simple, clean, dry yeast like a Nottingham or a Safale-56. I'm a bit biased towards dry yeast, but I'm not sure what spending extra money on liquid would get you in this case.

 

[crisis]

Cool, how does the 2lbs of blackberry sound? (I'll probably use frozen)

 

[Torchiest]

Definitely agree. I wish I'd used Nottingham on my stout. Can't say on the blackberries as I have yet to make my fruit beer.

 

[jager]

the frozen blackberries typically found in supermarkets don't really have alot of flavor to them and can be somewhat bitter due to them being picked before the peak of ripeness.



I would take the frozen blackberries and put them in a pot with a little bit of water, sugar and blackberry extract, cook them just enough to break them down and put pour it into a blender. Blend them very well then work it through a chinois ( a very, very fine metal sieve) with a spatula. The seeds and the larger stuff wont make it through the chinois and you'll just be left with a slightly sweet blackberry puree that has a solid blackberry taste due to the addition of the extract.

I'd then add that to your secondary, any solid matter that made it through the chinois should settle down at the bottom of the fermenter so you shouldn't have to worry about it making it through to the tertiary or bottle.

I haven't tried this, so I would take my advice with a grain of salt.



Dave

 

[Torchiest]

Chocolate:
Either cocoa powder or bakers choc, pros/cons?

Can anyone offer any advice/tuning on this idea? Thanks!

I forgot to mention: absolutely go with cocoa powder. The oil in the baker's chocolate will cause it seperate out and make a big mess. I used cocoa powder on my porter a couple months ago, and even then a lot of it ended up settling out. The baker's chocolate is unusable though.

 

[crisis]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[crisis]

Updated, here's my proposed recipe, I just made the yeast starter. Any comments:

3.5 lbs Dark Malt Extract
3.5 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract

1lb British crystal 50-60L
1lb British Chocolate
4oz British black patent

10 oz cocoa powder @ 60 mins
8 oz lactose sugar @ 10 mins

Hops:
1 oz Northern Brewer @ 60 mins
.5oz Willamette @ 30 mins
.5 oz Willamette @ 2 mins

 

[Torchiest]

Looks good to me. Hope it turns out great; be sure and update us.

 

[IPAdrinker]

i know this is old, but im curious how this turned out....thinking about doing something along these lines...thanks