Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Chocolate Oatmeal Porter

[BroStefan]

I brewed this on Sunday, it's bubbling away right now, but seems a little odd. Very little krausen on top, maybe half inch, with rather small bubbles. Vigorous fermentation going on below though. Almost seems like the cocoa is sitting on top in the krausen. This is my first all grain, everything seemed to go fine. I was nervous about the cocoa though. Has an odd layer on the bottom of the ferment or too. Does this all look normal?View attachment 264357View attachment 264358

It looks perfectly normal for a fermentation with cocoa. The is enough fat to disrupt the surface tension. It will take a while to clear. Your patience will be rewarded.

 

[shortyz]

did 2 weeks in primary (1oz cocoa nibs at end of boil), 2 in primary (1oz nibs soaked in spiced rhum). didnt have vanilla bean so i added it when i kegged it (vodka soak method). Carbing it up now and i had to try it before its fully carbed, and holy **** billy thats a nice brew.

Brewed using extract and its dam fine, only thing i might change is the partial mash and opting out with a cereal mash. The oats made the partial mash a pain the ass, SPARGE.

hopefull this helps any partial-extract guys in the future.

 

[ethanhostetler]

The cocoa should sit on top of the krausen it's very powdery and light. Once fermentation settles down it should settle out. It looks good!!!! I bet it smells fantastic!!

 

[Herman558]

After a week and three days in the fermenter I am still getting a bubble out of the airlock about once a minute. Still deciding whether I should drop the vanilla bean (soaked in vodka) in the primary, or rack it into a secondary on top of the vanilla beans at two weeks. I've heard the secondary is unnecessary and just another opportunity for oxygen to get in the beer and infection to set in. Any thoughts?

 

[BumpyAZ]

Anyone have trouble bottle conditioning this recipe? I upped the cocoa a touch and added PB2 in the secondary. After a month in the bottle, it's essentially still flat. There's a few rising bubbles after pouring into the glass but it only lasts for a few seconds. Not sure if this is an effect from the cocoa or possibly PB2? Could the fats in either prevent proper carbonation? Or maybe the PB2 in secondary caused the yeast to drop out?

 

[shortyz]

Anyone have trouble bottle conditioning this recipe? I upped the cocoa a touch and added PB2 in the secondary. After a month in the bottle, it's essentially still flat. There's a few rising bubbles after pouring into the glass but it only lasts for a few seconds. Not sure if this is an effect from the cocoa or possibly PB2? Could the fats in either prevent proper carbonation? Or maybe the PB2 in secondary caused the yeast to drop out?

oils shouldnt effect carbonation, just head retention. are the bottles 70f+?

on another note, if anyone is extract brewing this, make sure u mash your oatmeal with like 2 pounds of 2 row to get it to convert. do not put it in your steeping grains!

 

[phoney]

..

 

[paguy]

Just read the whole thread and it sounds delicious! Going to brew ASAP.

 

[shortyz]

brewed it again and the head disapears quite quickly... hmmm.

 

[Herman558]

Some of mine hold head well, and others fizz like a soda, seems odd, from the same batch too.

 

[COEBRA]

Some of mine hold head well, and others fizz like a soda, seems odd, from the same batch too.

The soda issue has been observed in this thread before. All of mine came out way over carbed when I bottled them. It's the weirdest thing...

 

[OkanaganMike]

brewed it again and the head disapears quite quickly... hmmm.

Me too. Did half as per recipe, halfway through bottling, I added some strong cold brewed coffee. (I really like it with the coffee!) I have great carbonation, but the head foams like a soda then quickly disappears. I used Cocoa powder, could this have anything to do with it? Both coffee and regular version act the same and none of my other beer does this. Cocoa powder seems to be the main factor and I'm suspecting it as the culprit.

Any ideas?

 

[shortyz]

I used nibs...

 

[OkanaganMike]

I'll try harder to find them and try them next time. One of them fruity organic free range hippy health places probably have them

 

[Herman558]

I believe the cocoa powder is to blame, I observed a lot of things as my beer was progressing. This was my first all grain effort as well. I wish I had made just a normal porter rather than dealing with the cocoa powder and vanilla, but it is all part of the learning curve I suppose. I wonder how this recipe would be as is, just without the vanilla and cocoa powder.

 

[OkanaganMike]

I never used vanilla, I'm sure it would still be good without the cocoa Especially if you add some strong cold brewed coffee at bottling time.

 

[daggers_nz]

I believe the cocoa powder is to blame, I observed a lot of things as my beer was progressing. This was my first all grain effort as well. I wish I had made just a normal porter rather than dealing with the cocoa powder and vanilla, but it is all part of the learning curve I suppose. I wonder how this recipe would be as is, just without the vanilla and cocoa powder.

a good lesson in keeping this simple when you're first starting out

 

[BlackIce]

Brewing this right now. Changed the ingredients some. LHBS didn't have the right yeast
10 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
2 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)
1 lbs 12.8 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM)
1 lbs Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM)
1 lbs Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
0.75 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min
1.00 Items Yeast Nutrient (Boil 15.0 mins)
1.0 pkg Danstar Windsor Ale Dry Yeast (Danstar #
2.00 Items Vanilla Bean (Secondary 10.0 days)

Just finished up

 

[BumpyAZ]

oils shouldnt effect carbonation, just head retention. are the bottles 70f+?

on another note, if anyone is extract brewing this, make sure u mash your oatmeal with like 2 pounds of 2 row to get it to convert. do not put it in your steeping grains!

After a few more weeks, it carbed up nicely. Guess it just needed more time,I thought 4 weeks would have been plenty but it wasn't. Retention was still pretty poor though.

Gonna be brewing this again in a few days but without the PB2 this time. However I stopped by my LHBS today to pick up grain and when I got home I noticed the receipt had double the amount of chocolate malt that I asked for (which I had already increased to nearly 16 ounces for 5.5 gallons based on the OP's updated recipe on another forum). Anyone think this will have a real negative effect on the final product if the amount was actually doubled?

 

[BumpyAZ]

I'm a little confused on what the krausen looks like on this, I've seen reference to the shiny dark brown/black surface with good size bubbles in the thread but I kind of get the feeling that that is referring to when the vanilla is added. Is that right? Both of my attempts at this have ended up with a similar appearance during primary fermentation without the vanilla bean, never showing any signs of a traditional krausen (the second batch has been fermenting for 4 days now). I was thinking it might be due to the cocoa which I increased to 3 oz/5gal. Wondering if anyone else has had similar experience? The first batch was actually a split batch with half getting PB2; that half formed a thick, fluffy, beige krausen. The other half actually became infected with a slight sour tang (think it was due to an issue during transfer) so I'm worrying that the appearance is due to infection again.

 

[shortyz]

I'm a little confused on what the krausen looks like on this, I've seen reference to the shiny dark brown/black surface with good size bubbles in the thread but I kind of get the feeling that that is referring to when the vanilla is added. Is that right? Both of my attempts at this have ended up with a similar appearance during primary fermentation without the vanilla bean, never showing any signs of a traditional krausen (the second batch has been fermenting for 4 days now). I was thinking it might be due to the cocoa which I increased to 3 oz/5gal. Wondering if anyone else has had similar experience? The first batch was actually a split batch with half getting PB2; that half formed a thick, fluffy, beige krausen. The other half actually became infected with a slight sour tang (think it was due to an issue during transfer) so I'm worrying that the appearance is due to infection again.

if shes bubbling i dont peek. throw it into a secondary after primary and let it ride, if its infected you will know pretty quick.

 

[Jeremy_35]

Wow, this sounds like a great beer. I bought the grains today, going to do a brew with family this Friday. I'm definitely looking forward to this one!

 

[xpops]

I brewed a 10 gal batch of this 2 weeks ago. I aaded an extra LB of MO to make up for my 70% efficiency....and actually hit 1.072 rather than 1.064...go figure.

After a week, I noticed activity ceased, so I took a reading. Only 58% attenuation hitting 1.029 instead of 1.021. I started rousing the yeast everyday, brought it up to about 70deg, and another week later...still at 1.029....

This is my first time after 20 batches, I've never hit my attenuation and FG. It's also the first time I've used stubborn 1968...

So - I guess my question is - I'm fine not hitting my FG...the beer tastes great...but am I at risk bottling at this point? Do I keep rousing and try to being it up a couple more degrees or do I just keep going, add my vanilla beans and bottle as is??

Thanks!!

 

[MrSpaz]

Mine got stuck too, like a couple others where I think I ended up finding the problem. Anyways, I bottled look mine anyways and didn't have any issues. However I've had multiple people still remind me it was their favorite of beer I've made.

 

[xpops]

@mrspaz - that's a nice reminder!! but where did you think you found your problem?

 

[MrSpaz]

My problem was not enough aeration. I don't have a pump or stone, so I pour wort back and forth between fermenter and kettle 8 times. Since then, no stuck fermentation.

 

[davesfirstbrew]

after moving this to the secondary I lost power and the temp dropped to 54 degrees for 4 days, will this kill the yeast and cause it not to carb up in the bottle.

 

[bolus14]

No 54 degrees is far from what will kill yeast, you can freeze yeast if you mix some glycerol with it to keep the ice crystals from puncturing the cell walls.

Warm the bottles up and give them a couple weeks, maybe swirl them to kick the yeast up a little.

 

[Chief449]

I see you have made a few modifications to the recipe in the thread(?) I am looking for a back friday chocolate oatmeal all grain recipe - is the posted recipe your 'updated' recipe?

 

[emr25]

Has anyone used FermCap drops with this to help prevent boilovers and reduce krausen formation in the carboy?

We brewed our first all grain BIAB batch using this recipe on Saturday (12/12) and since we only have an 8 gallon brew kettle, we use FermCap drops to allow for 7.5 gallons of liquid and less chance of boilovers. We use a blowoff tube setup in a 6.5 gallon carboy for fermentation and there seems to be good activity, but we have no krausen whatsoever and I am assuming that is from the FermCap drops? From reading through the thread several people mention an active fermentation with a thick krausen forming.

Planning on 10 days for primary fermentation, then add the vanilla beans directly into the primary carboy (3 vanilla beans, split / scraped and soaked in 1 ounce of bourbon) for 7 days, then cold crash and keg around day 20. We are hoping to tap it for the CFP National Championship on 1/6/16, which would be 7 days after kegging!