user 40839
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Okay, here's the dilemma. We're brewing up a chocolate imperial stout (partial extract) which has an OG of 1.076 and a predicted FG of around 1.020. So based on that, I'm looking at an ABV of around 7.5%. Bubbling away nicely in primary since Sunday.
To get the chocolate flavour, the recipe called for using cocoa powder in the last few minutes of the boil. My buddy and brew partner was tasked with scooping up the ingredients, but the folks at the HBS referred to our recipe as crap, that it would taste like burned charcoal, and that we didn't know what we were doing. (This is true, we are complete noobs to brewing, and we readily admit that we know nothing, but were following what appeared to be a trusted recipe we snagged: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/imperial-choc-stout-116844/) They chopped the grain bill down, and told him that cocoa would make the brew extremely bitter, given the length of time in fermentation and bottling (7 days primary, 28 secondary, minimum of 4-5 months in the bottle) so told him to add a half to three quarters of a bottle of creme de cacao in the secondary when racking.
I'm assuming that the alcohol in the liqueur will raise the overall ABV - not by much, since if we assume that 20oz of booze with a 20% ABV is being added to over 5 gallons of stout, it's going to be diluted heavily - but will the syrupy nature of the cdc cause additional fermentation and the flavour to go awry? Or should we ignore this and just go with nibs in the secondary? (Something I'm more concerned with adding bitterness?)
To get the chocolate flavour, the recipe called for using cocoa powder in the last few minutes of the boil. My buddy and brew partner was tasked with scooping up the ingredients, but the folks at the HBS referred to our recipe as crap, that it would taste like burned charcoal, and that we didn't know what we were doing. (This is true, we are complete noobs to brewing, and we readily admit that we know nothing, but were following what appeared to be a trusted recipe we snagged: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/imperial-choc-stout-116844/) They chopped the grain bill down, and told him that cocoa would make the brew extremely bitter, given the length of time in fermentation and bottling (7 days primary, 28 secondary, minimum of 4-5 months in the bottle) so told him to add a half to three quarters of a bottle of creme de cacao in the secondary when racking.
I'm assuming that the alcohol in the liqueur will raise the overall ABV - not by much, since if we assume that 20oz of booze with a 20% ABV is being added to over 5 gallons of stout, it's going to be diluted heavily - but will the syrupy nature of the cdc cause additional fermentation and the flavour to go awry? Or should we ignore this and just go with nibs in the secondary? (Something I'm more concerned with adding bitterness?)