Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Dark Chocolate Stout

[benzy4010]

How many ounces of Nibs should be used for 5 gallons and regular Hershey's cocoa powder ?

 

[yewtah-brewha]

8 oz on the hersheys, I didn't use nibs. I used chocolate extract. It called for .60 oz I accidentally used 1.5 oz I tasted it prior to bottleing and didnt seem too much.

 

[orangemen5]

Well I checked this one week later and it's down to 1.020. Was kind of hoping it stayed at 1.026. Was surprised it dropped 6 gravity pts from week 3 to week 4. After 3 weeks in primary I thought it was done. Good thing I waited before bottling. Not on purpose though. Just lazy!! Lol.

 

[orangemen5]

Bottled this today. Taste was bitter chocolate was hoping for a smoother dark chocolate. Used a full lb of lactose to so I'm surprised. Hopefully it smooths out in the bottle.

 

[MindenMan]

I didn't see it mentioned, so forgive me if I missed it. Take your nibs and roast them, then crush them, and put into a glass jar and cover with vodka, and shake once or twice a day. When ready to use them, the night before put them into a narrow "tall" glass, and insert a straw. When the cocoa butter solidifies, the extract can be removed through the straw preventing the adding of fats to the beer.

 

[brewski09]

Bottled this today. Taste was bitter chocolate was hoping for a smoother dark chocolate. Used a full lb of lactose to so I'm surprised. Hopefully it smooths out in the bottle.

I've done similar beers and it will level out in a few weeks. The highly kilned malts take some time to come together harmoniously. RDWHAHB

 

[Gingerpower12]

Has anyone done a extract version of this yet if not how do I convert it thanks for the help
Gingerpower

 

[brewski09]

Has anyone done a extract version of this yet if not how do I convert it thanks for the help Gingerpower

No extract version tht I can see yet. I would plug this recipe into a recipe program first. If you pay for beersmith, I hear it will convert it for you. If not, use the muntons marris otter liquid extract to replace the base malt and half of the 80L to start. Pay attention to your starting gravity and color before you remove the base malt and half the 80L so you know if you have the right amount of extract or if you need to add/remove more crystal malts. The remaining 80L, chocolate malt and roasted barley can be steeped near mash temps for 30 minutes after crushing like normal and lightly sparged (I just pour through a fine mesh strainer into another pot and let the fine sediment drop out, then pour off the sediment into my boil kettle). Also see the Brew Your Own article about converting recipes online sometime from the last 2 years. I found it to be insightful and have some math if that suits you. Feel free to post the recipe and ask more questions before you brew.

 

[Gingerpower12]

Extract version

Steep grains about 45min @156'

1/2 pound of crystal malt 80L
1/2 pound of roasted barley
.75 pound of chocolate malt
1 pound of lactose

7 pounds of Amber LME

Chocolate syrup at bottleing

This week coming up I will post my result about the og

 

[mtnagel]

Recipe design noob here - can someone explain the 90 minute boil time on this?

In researching, I'm seeing a few advantages of a longer boil and none seem to apply to this beer except maybe the last one below.

• Higher gravity
• Hop utilization
• DMS boil off (for pilsners)
• Maillard reactions (i.e. melanoidin formation)

I'm planning on brewing this next week. I plan to brew 3.5 gal and add orange zest to 1 gallon. I hope it has some where close to the same chocolate level as Southern Tier's Choklat.

 

[mtnagel]

Well I checked this one week later and it's down to 1.020. Was kind of hoping it stayed at 1.026. Was surprised it dropped 6 gravity pts from week 3 to week 4. After 3 weeks in primary I thought it was done. Good thing I waited before bottling. Not on purpose though. Just lazy!! Lol.

Uh oh. I brewed this about 3 weeks ago. I had higher efficiency than I planned, so it was 1.060. It bubbled for 1 or 2 days and I just let it sit in primary for 3 weeks. I didn't check gravity at all and I was ready to bottle and got everything set up including adding the priming sugar and the chocolate extract in the bottling bucket (to ensure thorough mixing). Then I cracked the lid and checked the gravity and it was only down to 1.020. I did use dry yeast and no starter, but in general, I'm usually getting down in the low 1.010's. I was thinking the lactose made the FG higher, so I bottled it. According to Beer Smith, the lactose only adds about 0.001 point, so that might not be the reason for the high FG and I see the OP has the FG a lot lower, but I see people are getting higher FG's. I was actually hoping for a higher FG for a sweeter beer. I sure hope it was done. The bottles are now sitting in a sealed plastic Rubbermaid tub. Hopefully I'll have no issues.

I also noticed a couple spots on the surface that looked like mold. I ended up just skimming them off the surface. Never had that happen before. The only thing I can think is I never topped off the air lock and when I picked up the bucket the morning of bottling, the water level was low and it actually sucked some of the 3 week old water into the bucket (I like to move it to the table where I bottle before bottling so it can gets a chance to settle after moving it). And who know how long the water level was low, so it could have been sitting there for a week or more with no barrier to air getting in.

Hopefully everything turns out okay. It was only a 3.5 gal batch, so no big deal if it doesn't (would be first bad batch I've ever had though). But I've learned a few things on this one - always check gravity at least a few days before bottling to make sure it's really done so you don't get all set up to bottle when it may not be done. And to check the air lock to make sure it's topped off at all times. I really had high hopes for this one. Crossing fingers that it turns out okay.

 

[brewski09]

Uh oh. I brewed this about 3 weeks ago. I had higher efficiency than I planned, so it was 1.060. It bubbled for 1 or 2 days and I just let it sit in primary for 3 weeks. I didn't check gravity at all and I was ready to bottle and got everything set up including adding the priming sugar and the chocolate extract in the bottling bucket (to ensure thorough mixing). Then I cracked the lid and checked the gravity and it was only down to 1.020. I did use dry yeast and no starter, but in general, I'm usually getting down in the low 1.010's. I was thinking the lactose made the FG higher, so I bottled it. According to Beer Smith, the lactose only adds about 0.001 point, so that might not be the reason for the high FG and I see the OP has the FG a lot lower, but I see people are getting higher FG's. I was actually hoping for a higher FG for a sweeter beer. I sure hope it was done. The bottles are now sitting in a sealed plastic Rubbermaid tub. Hopefully I'll have no issues.

I also noticed a couple spots on the surface that looked like mold. I ended up just skimming them off the surface. Never had that happen before. The only thing I can think is I never topped off the air lock and when I picked up the bucket the morning of bottling, the water level was low and it actually sucked some of the 3 week old water into the bucket (I like to move it to the table where I bottle before bottling so it can gets a chance to settle after moving it). And who know how long the water level was low, so it could have been sitting there for a week or more with no barrier to air getting in.

Hopefully everything turns out okay. It was only a 3.5 gal batch, so no big deal if it doesn't (would be first bad batch I've ever had though). But I've learned a few things on this one - always check gravity at least a few days before bottling to make sure it's really done so you don't get all set up to bottle when it may not be done. And to check the air lock to make sure it's topped off at all times. I really had high hopes for this one. Crossing fingers that it turns out okay.

The lactose will add more than that. I would look to make sure BeerSmith isn't considering it a fermentable sugar. As for the airlock, that's why I use starman and a lot of people also use vodka.

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[mtnagel]

The lactose will add more than that. I would look to make sure BeerSmith isn't considering it a fermentable sugar. As for the airlock, that's why I use starman and a lot of people also use vodka.

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BeerSmith says it's not fully fermentable. It's not in front of me right now, so I'm not sure what I did to get that number. Hopefully the batch fully fermented out, but I will keep the bottles in the plastic container just to make sure.

I do have cheap vodka now (I took a portion of this and made it an orange chocolate stout by taking some orange zest in vodka and adding some of the resulting orange extract). So now I have a whole bottle left over that I can use in the airlock.

 

[mtnagel]

So I'm about 1 month after bottling and I've tried a couple bottles. Neither have any off taste that I detect, so hopefully I didn't have the beginnings of an infection.

Anyway, do these need to age at all to get better? Because the couple bottles I've had, didn't have as strong of a chocolate character as I was expecting. Maybe my expectations were off, but with all the chocolate in this recipe, I was hoping for somewhere around the chocolate level of Southern Tier's Chokolat. Maybe I needed more chocolate flavor at bottling.

 

[brewski09]

The southern tier chokolat has a ton of chocolate in it. Likely way more than you added. It's probably the most chocolate flavor I've had in a beer except for the epic big bad Baptist, but that's a different chocolate flavor from the nibs.

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[mtnagel]

2 of my favorite beers. Guess I need go bigger next time!

 

[mtnagel]

I think the chocolate is starting to become stronger. Still not the over the top chocolate taste of a Chokolat, but a really nice chocolate flavor. Great recipe.

Anyway, hadn't had a beer float in awhile so I decided to have one with this recipe. Turned out very good.

 

[DeMerchant]

I'm planning on brewing a variation this coming weekend with the primary change being adding about 10% quick oats to the grain bill. Generally when I do a brew I like to split the batch and try something interesting with my second half. I'm thinking either for 3 gal:

• Spice - 1oz allspice, 2 cinnamon sticks, and 2oz dried spicy peppers
• Peanut Butter - 6.5oz powered PB to secondary

Thoughts?

 

[DeMerchant]

I'm planning on brewing a variation this coming weekend with the primary change being adding about 10% quick oats to the grain bill. Generally when I do a brew I like to split the batch and try something interesting with my second half. I'm thinking either for 3 gal:

• Spice - 1oz allspice, 2 cinnamon sticks, and 2oz dried spicy peppers
• Peanut Butter - 6.5oz powered PB to secondary

Thoughts?

I brewed my batch this weekend and it went well but it is THICK. There is a 1cm layer of krausen on top that is so dense it looks like you could walk on it. The wort itself looks like its in suspended animation. CO2 generation has slowed down a fair bit already, which is a little troubling, but given the thickness I would expect it might take a little longer - I guess RAHAHB is about all you can do about that.

I decided to do the spicy option above, so that's also sitting in a mason jar with some cocoa nibs, a vanilla bean, and vodka.

 

[MindenMan]

I didn't see it mentioned, so forgive me if I missed it. Take your nibs and roast them, then crush them, and put into a glass jar and cover with vodka, and shake once or twice a day. When ready to use them, the night before put them into a narrow "tall" glass, and insert a straw. When the cocoa butter solidifies, the extract can be removed through the straw preventing the adding of fats to the beer.

EDIT: After putting straw in glass, place glass in freezer. When the fats solidify, simply pour the liquid out through the hole the straw made.
Sorry for the confusion.

 

[user 197168]

So I too was pretty excited by this recipe! Even more so after recently trying a Young's Double Chocolate Stout for the first time. I brewed it up pretty much by the numbers and siphoned it into the fermenter. By the look of the wort I was thinking that I may have spoon it in. It was THICK. It looked and tasted like melted chocolate.

Three weeks later I bottled it, complete with chocolate extract, then let it sit for three weeks. I cracked a bottle the other night, expecting to be knocked out by chocolate. For me, this was certainly not the case. Don't get me wrong, it is a very nice stout, but I really didn't get the chocolate. Well, no more than a normal stout.

I read somewhere (possibly even in this thread) that when the cocoa falls out of suspension, the chocolate flavour goes with it. Seemingly this is the case.

Did anyone else get this? As mentioned, maybe a bit more time in the bottle will help, although in my experience aging makes individual flavours fade rather than become more pronounced.

 

[brewski09]

As the roasty and hoppy flavors fade chocolates and dark fruits can come through. I'd give it a bit of time to see how it progresses.


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[user 197168]

Thanks Brewski. I had a mid week sample (purely for scientific reasons) and that is already happening. Just a hint of chocolate coming through. I'll be interested to see how and if this continues to improve. I say "if", cause chocolate aside, it is already very tasty!

 

[EtchyLives]

I just siphoned this into my fermenter and hit it with O2. I am very excited by the idea of this beer but I'm contemplating changing it up a bit. After 3-4 weeks in the primary I'm thinking about doing 7 days in a secondary along with about 2 lbs of cranberries that were boiled until they burst. My thought is to reduce the cranberries down to almost a mushy syrup and siphon the beer over them. 7 days in the secondary and then bottle as prescribed in the recipe. Any thoughts?

 

[Bradthoc]

I just siphoned this into my fermenter and hit it with O2. I am very excited by the idea of this beer but I'm contemplating changing it up a bit. After 3-4 weeks in the primary I'm thinking about doing 7 days in a secondary along with about 2 lbs of cranberries that were boiled until they burst. My thought is to reduce the cranberries down to almost a mushy syrup and siphon the beer over them. 7 days in the secondary and then bottle as prescribed in the recipe. Any thoughts?

I wonder if 2lbs. will be enough cranberry to stand out much against the massive chocolate notes. I like the idea though!


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[MASHturbator]

sorry this is my first time brewing without the use of beersmith. At what temp should I pitch the yeast?

 

[user 197168]

I just wanted to follow up on my previous post. As everyone has stated, the chocolate flavour will develop over time. I'm here to say this is indeed the case!

I tasted mine after a couple of weeks - no real chocolate. A couple of weeks later - a bit of chocolate. A couple of days ago (two months after bottling) - loads of chocolate!!

I did a taste test with a bottle of Young's Chocolate Stout and the results were very similar. Very happy with the result!

 

[MASHturbator]

I just brewed my first attempt at this recipe. I love the color and can tell this is going to be a winner. After 48 hours the fermenting was bubbling away nicely and when I got home from work it looks as if the process as slowed or maybe even stopped completely, im not sure. I was looking for advise as to whether or not I should add more yeast or if I am fine and just worrying. Please help

 

[DaNewf]

I did a partial mash chocolate stout recipe lately that used a Cooper's Original Series Stout kit as the extract addition. This kit usually throws the most impressive krausen but this time around the krausen was very small and seemed to die off very quickly (couple days tops). I think the chocolate powder really restricts the krausen and makes the primary fermentation look very "still". My SG is dropping even though it doesn't look like much is going on in the fermenter.

 

[Bradthoc]

I just brewed my first attempt at this recipe. I love the color and can tell this is going to be a winner. After 48 hours the fermenting was bubbling away nicely and when I got home from work it looks as if the process as slowed or maybe even stopped completely, im not sure. I was looking for advise as to whether or not I should add more yeast or if I am fine and just worrying. Please help

Just because there's no airlock activity, does not necessarily mean the yeast is not hard at work. Do you have a krausen? Maybe give it 3-4 more days - since you did have activity off the bat. After 3-4 days take a gravity sample and see where you're at. Just my two cents, maybe some of the others will have better suggestions. Seems like a prime example of "relax and have a homebrew..."

How much, and of what kind, of yeast did you pitch?


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