Cocoa nibs infusion temperature

[royger]

Hello,

I'm brewing a Chocolate Porter and I wonder if there's an ideal or recommended temperature when adding cocoa nibs after fermentation is done. So far I've done a soft crash to 15C after D-rest, dumped yeast and added the nibs soaked in non flavored drinking alcohol at 50% ABV. After adding the nibs I switched off temp control and now temperature is slowly rising to ambient which is 24C.

Is there an ideal temperature for infusing cocoa nibs?

Thanks, Roger.

EDIT: fixed a typo.

 

[VikeMan]

I don't know if there's an "ideal" temperature, but the warmer the beer is, the faster it should pull the flavors from the nibs. OTOH, it sounds like you already did that with some sort of alcohol.

But regarding the beer temperature, keep in mind that the warmer the beer, the faster the staling reactions. So I wouldn't warm it up too much.

 

[Jag75]

As Vikeman said you've made a tincture so you pretty much extracted the flavor, depending on how long you've soaked them.

I add the tincture before I keg and the beer is about 68-70f. I think your fine .

 

[royger]

Thanks for the replies. I've attempted to be very careful when adding the nibs and flushed the container used to add them thoroughly with CO2 like I do with dry hops.

I did soak them with 40ml of alcohol, but after a day or so the nibs absorbed all the liquid and where moist.

I think I will set the fermenter to 20C (68F) and leave them for a week and a bit. I also plan to rouse the nibs with CO2 a couple of times, since they seem to sink to the bottom of the fermenter.

 

[mikecshultz]

I have soaked them in rum (vanilla rum I picked up in Mauritius) for 24 hours and then added at room temperature. Gave a real nice chocolate flavor. Don’t think you need to rouse them.