Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Dark Chocolate Stout

Williams 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
BarleyWater

BarleyWater

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,199
Reaction score
29
Location
Elmhurst
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
Nottingham
Yeast Starter
no
Batch Size (Gallons)
6
Original Gravity
1.053
Final Gravity
1.013
Boiling Time (Minutes)
90
IBU
24.7
Color
39 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
14 @ 66F
Tasting Notes
Like liquid dark chocolate.
2009 Alamo City Cerveza Fest Gold Medal Winner

Ingredients
Brewhouse Efficiency: 82.00%

7 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 69.77 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 9.30 %
1 lbs Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 9.30 %
8.0 oz Roasted Barley (500.0 SRM) Grain 4.65 %

2.00 oz Crystal [3.10 %] (90 min) Hops 20.9 IBU
0.50 oz Crystal [3.10 %] (30 min) Hops 3.8 IBU

0.60 oz Chocolate Extract (Bottling 0.0 min) Misc
8.00 oz Cocoa Powder (Boil 0.0 min) Misc
12.0 oz Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 6.98 %

1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale

Mash Profile

Single Infusion
60 min Mash In Add 16.00 qt of water at 163.3 F 154.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 8.00 qt of water at 199.2 F 168.0 F


This beer is for dark chocolate lovers. It has a distinct bitter dark chocolate flavor, full body and amazing chocolate aroma. The addition of the lactose is a must, without it the body will be lacking and the beer will be too bitter to enjoy, and the extract at bottling is what really make the aroma pop. Back off on the IBUs by about 8 and bump the lactose up to a full pound, and you will have a great clone of Youngs Double chocolate.
 
This...looks...GREAT! I love the chocolate malt/roasted barley combo in stouts. I think the chocolate extract at bottling is what i've been missing. Hows the body? I might wanna mash at 156-158F.
 
The large amount of dark grains adds a slight bitter note that really helps the dark chocolate flavor come through. Any noble hop variety could be used, I had Crystal laying around this time and it's close enough, you just don't want a whole lot of hop profile coming through in the final beer. Also, more than the hop used, I think the BU:GU ratio is the most important thing here, keep it around 0.46 - 0.48.

The lactose adds a significant amount of body to the final beer. That said, I realized my thermometer was a couple degrees off last time I made this beer, so my mash temp was probably more like 156 anyway, and it was the best batch yet.
 
I brewed up a batch pretty close to your recipe, and I intended to take your advise and go with a full pound of lactose and bit lower IBUs for a Youngs Chocolate Stout clone (My wife fell in love with Youngs a couple months ago at the Yard House). As I mention in this post, my yeast kinda petered out for an FG of only 1.023. I just racked it from primary into a keg last night and it still hasn't lowered any more.

Questions:

Should I still use a full pound of lactose, back it down a bit, or not even use it since there seems to be other left over sugars already there? I planned to add it and a half an oz. of chocolate flavoring when I racked it to the keg, but I haven't yet.

Should I rack it to another keg in a week or so? I usually don't use a secondary, but I thought maybe I should just to reduce chocolate sludge.

Also, I've read that these chocolate stouts need some age to mellow out. How long does it usually take you from grain to glass?

I'm anxious to try and impress the wife with this so hopefully it'll turn out.

Thanks in advance! :mug:
 
Does this really make six gallons of beer? You're only using six gallons of water between the mash and sparge water, so I would expect the actual yield to be significantly less - how much do you generally get from this recipe?
 
carrotmalt, how did it turn out? Sorry I didn't respond sooner, I imagine you have already decided what to do at this point. The first pint or two after kegging is gonna have some chocolate sludge in it but after that it will be fine. Grain to glass is usually two weeks, 10 days in the fermenter then a couple to crash and then carb in the keg.

Any chocolate extract from the store should be fine. I either get mine from Whole Foods or order it online from http://www.adamsextract.com/.

Putz, sparge water isn't listed in the recipe, just mash water and then a little to bring up the temp to mash out (which I actually don't use now that I'm using a HERMS). Sparge until you hit you necessary pre-boil volume, for me about 7.5 gallons to get 6 after the boil, leave .5 behind with the trub to get 5.5 into the fermenter, then leave another .5 behind with the yeast to get 5 gallons of finished beer into the keg.
 
BarleyWater said:
carrotmalt, how did it turn out?
Click to expand...
Well, I wish I could report back better results, but my first sweet stout didn't turn out like I'd hoped. I decided to add the full pound of lactose even though my attenuation sucked. I added it along with a half oz of chocolate flavoring extract when I transferred it to the keg. The lactose really didn't mix well at all. I added it to maybe 12 oz of the beer and heated it to 180ish degrees for 15 minutes, then cooled and racked on top of it. The first few pints were ridiculously sweet and had quite a bit of lactose in the bottom of the glass. Now, it's still a bit too sweet for my liking, but not nearly like it was early on.

My biggest complaint is the carbonation and head, or lack there of. I'm force carbing this and a pale ale I made with the same tank and guage. I've got it set to 10 psi with one line breaking into two with a "T" connector. The pale ale is perfectly carbed, but the stout just doesn't seem to have hardly any carbonation to it (over 3 weeks later). It has literally no head on it whatsoever, while the pale ale has a nice lacy foam to it.

Has anybody experienced this? I don't know if the gravity is just too high or what, but it really tastes like flat beer. If I had another keg available I might rack it off of the lactose sediment that I'm sure is sitting on the bottom, but no dice. As it is, the only way it's really even drinkable is to mix it with the pale ale at about 20% of the pale. This adds a little bitterness and makes it seem more carbonated with a little bit of head.

The flavor is fine I suppose, but if I do it again, I'll use 1/2 the lactose and not back off the IBUs. Any one have some advise for how to mow through 5 gallons of really sweet flat beer so I can free up that keg for something more drinkable? :(
 
I followed this recipe and made some really good beer. Used the full pound of lactose and backed the IBU's off a tad. Natural conditioned and served on cask good carbonation and good head. Used a 1/3 of a cup of dry light extract for carbing. Thank You! :rockin:
 
Sorry, but noob question here that is just not that clear to me:

First, I am assuming you add the milk sugar at bottleing. It was not specified, and that is what carrotmalt did. Is that the correct procedure?

Second, if you are bottling this and not kegging it, wouldn't that amount of sugar lead to potential overcarbonation? Or does that type of sugar not get transformed similar to other types? Or am I missing something here?

Thanks!
 
Hey Cig,
I added the lactose and chocolate at the end of the boil after I turned the flame off. Lactose is a non fermentable in beer which leads to a sweetness and a thicker mouth feel of the beer. Quote from wikipedia
Lactose is little fermented by baker's yeast and during brewing, which may be used to advantage.[1] Lactose is used in stout beers rarely to sweeten the beer and is non-fermentable in beer.
Click to expand...

Take Care
 
I've read of people adding it at various times and that it doesn't make much difference. That being said, I really wish I had just added it toward the end of the boil. It would have been much easier, and I'm sure it would have mixed in better.
 
I brewed this recipe, and added a full pound of lactose at 15min remaining in boil and backed off on the IBUs in an attempt to duplicate Young's. My mash temps were a bit high and I ended up with a FG of 1.032 after 3 weeks in primary. Tasted pretty good at bottling - hope to report back in a few weeks to see how it turned out. On the bright side, I've got an apfelwein in the primary and I think the combination of the 2 will make for a rippin good black velvet!

Happy to report that after only a week in the bottle this is already pretty darn good tasting brew. Served some to a friend that got me into homebrewing and he gave a strong approval. Thanks for a great recipe!!
 
Curious there BarleyWater,
What category did you enter this puppy for your BJCP competition ? 13 A,B,or E
Your sheet does not say.
Congrats BTW
 
I always add my lactose to the boil, as it helps to dissolve better. If you add it to the secondary, boil it in a little water to dissolve so you wont be stuck with Carrotmalt's problem. I'm considering doing a batch of this and adding this really good chai powder to half and see what happens. I'm kinda excited.
 
carrotmalt said:
My biggest complaint is the carbonation and head, or lack there of.
Click to expand...

I just re-read my earlier post, and for what it's worth, the head did finally come around after just over a month on CO2. Don't know why it took so long, but it did have a nice creamy head in the end.
 
Hey All

I just brewed this on Saturday and while I know it can take up to 72 hours and that I should take a hydrometer reading to be sure things are happening, I'm still worried.

I pitched my yeast @ about 75F. But after about 60 hours, I am finally seeing some bubbling in my airlock (about one bubble every 45 seconds or so) and almost no krausen. It took about 48 hours before any of this activity started, and only after I moved it to a warmer room - it was initially in a closet with ambient temp around 65F.

I know that some packets of Nottingham were bad - is this probably the case with mine? This beer smells amazing and I'd really hate to let it go bad - I've mixed up a starter with some leftover wyeast 1056 that I had and a bit of this stout and it's started slowly bubbling as well - should I pitch into my main vessel or just wait it out? Can the high amount of lactose (I used a full one pound) and cocoa (I used 8oz just a bit before flameout) contribute to this slow start?

Any tips are appreciated.

Thanks.
 
mmmmmmmm 72 hours thats getting a bit long but give it another 24 then I would pitch more yeast.

I have not had problems with Nottingham or any dry yeast for that matter.
 
Just as a wild update -
The yeast finally picked up on its own and was bubbling away very nicely this morning before I went to work.
When I came back from work - I was shocked to see that the carboy had blown the stopper (with airlock) out of it and sent somewhere in the vicinity of 2 gallons of my batch all over my fermenting closet.
Uh - I have NEVER seen anything like this.
I'm sure this will end up being my best brew to date and I'll never be able to recreate it.
 
Live and learn I suppose. So sad to have lost that much of the batch though. I guess I'll just have to brew it again...
 
Also forgot to ask: will the fact that almost half my batch was wasted affect the flavor of the beer much? I'm going to brew it again this week because I'm a worrier, but want to know what to expect from this first batch.

M
 
Hey Guys

Brewed up a second batch of this last week and, somehow, my OG was higher than anticipated. I am not quite sure how, but I hit 1.060. It fermented very nicely over the past week and has shown little activity lately, so I took a sample yesterday and the gravity was at 1.020. Is that a little high? Can I expect it to drop any more?

I tasted it and it was very, very, *very* good, though...so even if it doesn't drop anymore, I'm still happy.

-M
 
Not 100% sure but you mashed in at a high temp and that can give you unfermentable sugars. IE your yeast cant eat as much and thus a higher gravity. you beer will be very good ...maybe on the sweet side but that should be ok
 
Hm - I'll work on hitting my mash temp better next time. My notes say that I mashed at 153 but when I went to mash out, I only raised it up to 164 instead of 168.

As mentioned, though, I guess I got lucky because it fits the style of this beer. Tastes great, too.

Thanks.
 
Hey again - just for this thread's sake, I wanted to mention that we have sampled a few of the first batch that I made and it was a big hit. Great chocolate flavor, heavy mouthfeel, and sweet/tasty with a burnt coffee sort of an aftertaste, in a good way if that makes sense. Beautiful tan creamy head, too. Great to sip.

I'd mention that I had a bit of a hard time with attenuation - I started at 1.053 and ended at 1.026. Not sure what was up, but my yeast was acting strangely throughout this whole process (see earlier message re: this first batch)... I found the beer a bit too sweet to drink more than one of in a sitting, so maybe next time I'd cut the lactose down to 3/4 lb or so.

All in all though, I wanted to say thanks for the great recipe, I'll be brewing it again in the future I'm sure.

-m
 
BW, I have a question about the cocoa powder you used. I've been researching chocolate beer recipes, and have read some conflicting information, or at least it's unclear to me. I've read that the fat content of the chocolate will lead to problems with head retention. nthe other hand, I've read recipes that use regular (not fat free) cocoa powder, and the beer was fine. I've been looking for cocoa powder in the supermarket, and can't find a fat free powder. I've found that 1/2 gram per serving of fat seems to be the norm. Is there an amount of fat that's dangerous to head retention, or is the amount in any cocoa powder not of any danger? I'm planning on brewing something very similar to your recipe, and would rather not screw it up. Thanks for any help you can offer.
 
If it helps - I used plain Hershey's cocoa powder that only had cocoa in the ingredients list. Turned out great.
 
I just want to throw in my comments with this beer. I brewed it up to the specs of the original recipe with the following small modifications. I added in the Hershey's cocoa powder with about 20 min left in the boil (just to help it dissolve), and the lactose with about 40 min left in the boil (same reason as before). Also with the lactose this was before I had a scale so I guesstimated 12 oz. based on a 16 oz package.

I bottled a six pack, kegged the rest, and ended up submitting this to a brewing competition. The two scores were a 36 and a 38 (my first competition), with a final of 36. This was the best beer out of the 11 that was in this flight (the stouts were broken into two flights). One of the tasters told me personally that he really enjoyed this beer. The main points taken off were that both judges thought that it wasn't sweet enough for a sweet stout, again this may be due to me guessing the 12 oz. There were more comments that it had a coffee flavor with a slight chocolate tone coming out second especially after warming a bit. Adding the cocoa powder in earlier may have boiled off some aroma.

If you have your all grain brewing techniques down, I highly recommend this recipe.
 
I did something close to the base recipe. The only mistake I made is, in a drunken stupor one night, I upped my base grain to 13 pounds, and forgot to make the appropriate changes to the other grains. I think I'll actually wind up with more of a porter than a stout, although the wort was super dark. The color was one point shy of a stout in beersmith. The only other change I made was to use chocolate wheat.

As for the chocolate, I'm annoyed at what happened with it. i forgot to add it to the boil, so I just boiled up a can in some water and added it to the fermenting bucket. I'm going to give it two weeks in primary, then transfer to secondary, and add another can of chocolate and two cans of Oregon cherry puree. If this turns out good I'll post my exact recipe and schedule. Thanks to the OP for the recipe
 
Did anybody that brewed this recipe get any krausen during fermentation? I did 8.5 gallons, split over two buckets, and neither has any krausen at all. I'm guessing this is because of the chocolate, but I read that some people were getting violent ferments, and blowing the lids off their buckets. I used 04, and I've got action, just no krausen.
 
Just brewed this yesterday for my first AG batch, the Young's clone version. This morning the airlock was happily bubbling along, but I didn't have any krausen. I did have a slightly alarming film/membrane on top of the beer, but I think that might be the oil from the chocolate. I think that is what is preventing krausen from forming, as the CO2 seems to have trouble penetrating that membrane.

I can't get enough of the color of this beer though, it looks like a liquefied Hershey bar. I couldn't even see the base of my hydrometer through the beer when I was taking my OG, which puts the color at around SRM 7 million I think.
 
I have a question.

I haven't ever added chocolate, fruit or anything else to my beer before. It calls for 0.60 oz Chocolate Extract (Bottling 0.0 min). If I keg, does this go into the keg with the finished beer? Doesn't seem like it would mix evenly to me. However, the 0.0min makes me think it should go in at flame out.

Which is it? Thanks.
 
TRainH2o said:
I have a question.

I haven't ever added chocolate, fruit or anything else to my beer before. It calls for 0.60 oz Chocolate Extract (Bottling 0.0 min). If I keg, does this go into the keg with the finished beer? Doesn't seem like it would mix evenly to me. However, the 0.0min makes me think it should go in at flame out.

Which is it? Thanks.
Click to expand...

You would put the 0.6 oz. in your bottling bucket or in the keg right before kegging. When racking the beer on top of it, it should mix pretty well. My guess the 0.0 min is just what the bottoling program says. Because it says "bottling" you would not put it at flameout.
 

Similar threads

Architect-Dave
Upgrade Milk Stout Kit to Imperial Stout
Replies
9
Views
339
Bobby_M
Bobby_M
FranklinsBeerTower
Franklin's Winter IPA (Recipe Check)
Replies
4
Views
269
tracer bullet
tracer bullet
Jbrewing
1st brew, need someone to double check me.
Replies
28
Views
1K
HM-2
HM-2
Jbrewing
Any thoughts? High abv Donkles bock
Replies
5
Views
325
rmr9
rmr9
Lenny555
IPA Beer Body
Replies
21
Views
1K
Willy
Willy
Yakima 300

Latest posts

Back
Top