Cocoa Tea Extract Brew Advice

[badducky]

Howdy,

Apologies for a long post.

I've only got six beers under my belt, now, two of them original recipes, and I face my greatest challenge, as a homebrewer, to date. My wife has not really liked anything I've made! Other people have, and I have, but she has not! She's not really a beer drinker, strictly-speaking, and this whole hobby to date, from her perspective looks like this:

1) I clean and sanitize the kitchen (Yay for your new hobby!)
2) I make our guest bedroom smell funny for three weeks (Boo for your new hobby!).

As it is, she seems quietly undecided about it, and I sense she really hates that smell.

Ergo, I need to make her something she will *love* and I will be able to pull it out any time she gets frustrated by the smell of yeast brewing, to remind her how awesome a sanitized kitchen is.

I'm trying to come up with something that's close enough to a non-alcoholic beverage she adores to win her over to my new hobby (and to beer, in general!)

Anyone familiar with the Caribbean beverage, Cocoa Tea? It's not really hot chocolate, but that's the closest thing to it, for the uninitiated. It uses unprocessed cocoa (preferably from Grenada), condensed milk, various spices, and has a distinctive texture and flavor that you either love instantly or hate forever.

I'm trying to come up with an extract brew that emulates Cocoa Tea.

As I am a beginner, I have no experience making chocolate beer.

I'm also interested in that creamy mouthfeel one gets from condensed milk. I understand Lactose adds pure sweetness, but does not actually create that thick, milky texture. I've read about Dextrine, but I wonder if Cocoa and oily Cocoa Nibs will do, instead.

Advice on Hops and Yeast are very welcome!

Here's what I've come up with, so far, for a five gallon batch:

3 lbs of Briess Pilsner Dry Malt Extract
3 lbs of Briess Dark Dry Malt Extract
8 oz of Milk Sugar
8 oz of Cocoa Powder
some sort of hops @60 for bittering.
some sort of yeast.
whole nutmeg and cinnamon added @30 to the boil, and left in through the primary.
In the primary, 12 ounces of cocoa nibs, and a bay leaf

I'm not really sure if this will net the result I'm aiming for. I'm aiming for a sweet, spicy chocolate flavor, with a creamy mouthfeel, as if this drink were half cocoa tea and half sweet, brown ale.

Anyone have any advice?

I've heard Molasses can add a buttery toffee flavor to beers. Do you think replacing some of the cocoa or milk sugar with molasses might work?

 

[jester5120]

check out the ingredients list for northern brewers milk chocolate stout Chocolate Milk Stout Extract Kit w/ Specialty Grains : Northern Brewer
apparently it's a wife pleaser [ame="http://vimeo.com/14456133"]http://vimeo.com/14456133[/ame]

your recipe looks good but i'd do a full pound of lactose. 4 oz of cocoa nibs should be plenty and i'd do them in the secondary or atleast after fermentation is over.

lactose and oats will give you that creamy mouthfeel. cocoa nibs will add a lot of aroma but little flavor and cocoa powder will give you lots of flavor but little aroma, so use both.

 

[badducky]

Awesome! Thanks!

I thought of doing a chocolate stout, but it looked too complex for a beginner to do a partial grain recipe. I'm still not confident in my process enough to add anything like that.

 

[daksin]

You can do a chocolate stout with extract. I'm sure anybody here can help you convert any recipe you want to extract or partial mash. Are you used to doing extract only, or extract+steeping grains?

Partial mash is no big deal at all- definitely not too complicated for you.
Heat up some water, keep the grains in a bag in the water at that temperature (don't add heat, insulate!) for an hour, then dunk them in some more water to wash off all the sugars that stuck to them, and then combine the two liquids and boil as usual.

I have confidence in you, and think a chocolate stout would be a great idea- try and find a big malty one that's really big on chocolate flavor.

In a totally different direction, do a search in recipes for the "SWMBO slayer-" it was designed for exactly the reason you describe.

 

[badducky]

I'll be brewing soonish, as work and holidays and deadlines allow. If anyone has any advice on the brew, it would be appreciated. I kind of need this one to work. I'll be brewing this one sometime next week, I think.

3 lbs of Briess Pilsen Light DME
3 lbs of Briess Traditional Dark DME
1 lb of Milk sugar (Lactose)
8 oz of Unsweetened Cocoa (Dutch Process, if I can find it)
1 oz of Northern Brewer @60 mins
1 Nutmeg @30 mins
1 Cinnamon Stick @30
1 Bay Leaf Dry Hopped in the Primary
1 Rum-soaked Vanilla Bean Dry-Hopped in the Primary
4 oz of Cocoa Nibs in the Secondary

Wyeast Irish Ale looks like a good match for it, too, I think, and I love the ease-of-use of smack packs.

 

[sfrisby]

FYI, I respectfully disagree with cocoa nibs. In my experience, it adds great aroma and flavor.

 

[jester5120]

FYI, I respectfully disagree with cocoa nibs. In my experience, it adds great aroma and flavor.

any time i've used them i've thrown them in the whole batch and the beers usually have quite a bit of chocolate malt in them. I guess i'll have to split a batch and dry hop one to see the real difference. I've just been going with what i was told.

 

[badducky]

There are many threads about cocoa and chocolate, and none of them seem to have a consistent answer when you step away from partial grain chocolate stouts.

It's all part of the fun, I guess.

 

[jester5120]

I'm curious why you're adding a bay leaf in your recipe. I haven't heard of that before. sounds interesting

 

[badducky]

Re: Bay Leaf

The recipe for real Cocoa Tea involves raw, unprocessed cocoa ground into a powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, a bay leaf, and tonka bean or vanilla bean brought to slow, low boil. Then, it is filtered through a strainer into a mug with sweetened condensed milk.

If you're uninitiated, I would advise locating a West Indian restaurant. Trinidad, Grenada, and Jamaica all make slightly different versions of this warm, wintry drink.

i'm trying to recreate it in beer form... At least, I will be once I get through this work project deadline.

Get Grenada cocoa if you can. It is the best.

Here's a page with traditional recipes of Grenada. Scroll down for authentic Cocoa Tea:

http://grenadanet.com/html/tastes.html

 

[jester5120]

that's pretty awesome. I like the creativity and i'm definately gonna try to make the tea

 

[badducky]

I just brewed this tonight.

Almost anything that could have gone wrong, did. I was trying out a new, larger boilpot, which was much harder to regulate on our kitchen stove, had a few boilovers, burned some cocoa to the bottom of my brand new pot, and WAY misread the thermometer when I went to pitch my yeast (celsius vs fahrenheit!)

Well, it's done, then. If I don't see any yeast action in a couple days, i'll repitch it with something else, but only time will tell.

It didn't smell spicy enough. If it doesn't have enough spice aroma and flavor by the time I get to the secondary, I'll do a fast boil of some spices to sanitize them and pitch them into the secondary. Cocoa Tea, the way her grandma makes it, is rich with spice.

Edit to Add: Yeah, I killed me some yeast when I misread the new thermometer. I re-pitched it with a second round of Irish Ale tonight. Until I get better at plain extract brewing, I really hesitate to add any steps like a partial grain mash!

 

[sfrisby]

any time i've used them i've thrown them in the whole batch and the beers usually have quite a bit of chocolate malt in them. I guess i'll have to split a batch and dry hop one to see the real difference. I've just been going with what i was told.

One thing I have found to make a difference is using cocoa in the secondary. In primary is tends to settle to the bottom. In a secondary, the post fermented alcoholic environment seems to aid the the cocoa staying in suspension, and thus more flavor.

 

[badducky]

Into secondary after primary fermentation completed. (I ran it pretty warm, close to the upper range of the yeast, in hopes of fruitiness and funkiness to complement the natural funkiness of homemade cocoa tea.)

After a few hours with Cocoa Nibs, I can say this with certainty: There is definitely a strong cocoa aroma to this one, and it is an aroma that my wife likes better than other aromas we've had around the house, of late. She says it smells like a chocolatey cream soda. This is a good thing.

This stuff smells so good... Can't wait to bottle it!

One thing about the Cocoa Nibs: I didn't want to risk an infection dry hopping anything, so I boiled them on the stove for about five-ten minutes, and added the nibs with the cooled water. The water was chocolate brown, and rich with chocolate-ness.

I am concerned about the level of spice. It just doesn't smell spicy enough. But, it's not something I'm going to worry about with the first attempt at the brew. Once it's in the bottle, I'll pass judgment.

 

[badducky]

I'm drinking it, right now. It's really sweet and complex at room temperature. The colder it is, the more bitter it gets.

My wife says she likes it best when used for an ice cream float.

I think, were I to do this again, I'd focus on the spices and minimize the cocoa flavor, so it isn't prominent. I think I would also kill the lactose and replace that with something else, probably more grain extract. Still, it isn't bad that it's sweet. I'll have to think about it.

I think this spice blend (Bay Leaf, Cinnamon, Nutmeg) is very tasty, and would be great in stouts.

I'm going to keep tinkering with this recipe.

It is a middling success, though. My wife likes it with ice cream. She doesn't *love* it.

 

[jester5120]

Great! glad to hear your experiment turned out well. make sure you hold on to a few bottles for 6 months or so to see how it changes and if some of the stronger flavors mellow out more and blend. I might have to try this out sometime.

 

[badducky]

Another week, or so, has passed, and I thought I would update because with just a little bit more age in the bottle, the quirkiness has settled out in the bottle.

This is sweet beer, reminiscent of a spicy cream soda. The chocolate and spice help to counter that sweetness. It's not a "beer-drinker's beer" but it is an excellent brew for folks who want to make something for the person who doesn't like beer and doesn't understand your hobby.

It's very much a dessert beer, for ice cream eaters.

 

[Taypo]

Did you go with this recipe? The milk stout we've got bottled didnt get quite sweet enough, so I may give it a try, minus the bay leaf. When did you add the 8oz of cocoa?

3 lbs of Briess Pilsen Light DME
3 lbs of Briess Traditional Dark DME
1 lb of Milk sugar (Lactose)
8 oz of Unsweetened Cocoa (Dutch Process, if I can find it)
1 oz of Northern Brewer @60 mins
1 Nutmeg @30 mins
1 Cinnamon Stick @30
1 Bay Leaf Dry Hopped in the Primary
1 Rum-soaked Vanilla Bean Dry-Hopped in the Primary
4 oz of Cocoa Nibs in the Secondary

 

[badducky]

I added the 8 oz of cocoa to the boil @5 mins.

Before you decide to skip the Bay Leaf, make some hot cocoa with bay leaf, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Seriously. There's a reason my wife's Caribbean grandmother makes it that way.

I took some of this beer to a party, and it was very popular. Gone very fast. I've got the rest of it locked up in the basement. I'll try it again in April, and see what happens when the spice (which is very strong) mellows out.

 

[badducky]

I cracked one of these open this afternoon at about 3 months later. Now that the spices are settling down, this beer has really started to shine, I think. The lactose is a little off, though. Next time, I'll do this as a sweet stout with some roasted malts to accompany the lactose, or I will replace it with crystal malts.

I can't taste any chocolate though. From here, there's two directions I think we can go - towards brown ale without chocolate or lactose or towards sweet stout with more chocolate and roastiness.

Still, a tasty brew. Definitely drinkable, and the powerful spice blend actually totally rocks, in flavor. I recommend anyone giving nutmeg+cinnamon+bay leaf+Vanilla a shot for a great spicy flavor in medium dark to stout/porter ales.

 

[badducky]

So, I cracked a couple open yesterday, out of curiosity, and I am completely wrong in any criticism I ever had about this brew. After 4 months in the bottle, this is an unbelievable beer, dead-on to Cocoa Tea, with a wonderful, creamy, spicy, cocoa flavor.

Serve very cold.

I have sixteen left. I am hoarding.

I also expect this will become a regular beer in my rotation in October, considering especially how simple it was to brew now that I have a few more beers under my belt.