Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Double Chocolate Oatmeal Snout

[ChshreCat]

Yep. Mashed at 150 for an hour. The only hops are the 2oz of Fuggles right at the start of the 60 min boil.

I used a dry yeast, so no starter is necessary. I just hydrated the yeast in a little warm bottled water and pitched. Starters are for liquid yeast only. If you're worried about cell count you can pitch two packs of dry yeast, but I don't with this recipe so it could change the ester profile of it if you do.

 

[josiahcox]

Awesome! Thanks again for the recipe. I'll stick with your original the first time around so I have a starting point for customizing it. Sounds yummy.

I'll post up some pics of my brew after the weekend.

 

[josiahcox]

Hell, you are close enough. I can send you a bottle when I'm done so you can try mine out. Only seems fair.

 

[CrazyJames]

I christened my home made MLT with this recipe and also got my feet wet with my first Partial mash.

Its been in the Primary for almost a week now, I cannot wait till mid December to try one of these.

I manged to get a OG of 1.086 though, so who knows where the FG will end up.

Thanks for the Inspiration! Now to begin the hunt for a Vanilla bean and go buy some vodka...

 

[ChshreCat]

Josiah: We need to start a north sound brew club so we can all get together and swap brews.

CrazyJames: Did you do a partial boil? You might have just not gotten things mixed up and pulled a heavy sample from the bottom of the fermenter. No worries either way. No real need for the vodka though. Just spray the bean with starsan, split and scrape it and toss it in the secondary.

 

[CrazyJames]

ChshreCat: Makes sense, i figured i'd just RDWHAHB and let the yeasties do their thing and see where i end up.

 

[josiahcox]

North sound brew club indeed! That would just about make my day.

I got all the ingredients for this brew last night and I'll be rocking it's socks off this weekend for sure. I'm also starting my first Apfelwein batch tonight. It's gonna be a good weekend.

I'm in the process of getting all the gear I need at my place so I can brew more often. Right now I am sharing gear with a good friend of mine and I am limited in production. I just got this bad boy.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=30717239&id=1400814600

Now I just need to get a brewing schedule down.

How often and where do you think we should meet? I'm sure we could get a decent amount of people interested.

 

[ChshreCat]

I thought somewhere around Mt Vernon/burlington would be good. Then we could get folks from around Arlingtion and up to the border involved. Hell, might even be a few folks from around Vancouver that might come down. Plus, it's easy for the Island folks to meet up there. Shame there's no LHBS there though.

 

[josiahcox]

All right, I was delayed in brewing this due to my buddies wedding and my fermentation cabinet build but it's finally going into the kettle tonight. I'll post pics this weekend.

 

[josiahcox]

Grrr, I forgot my download cord so no pics yet but.....
Brew day was a success. I did end up changing one thing but I hit the OG at 1.072. Great fermentation on Saturday and by Sunday evening airlock activity had stopped. :rockin:
The ferm was fast and steady on this batch. I thought it would have lasted longer but I'll be taking a reading at one week to find out where it is at. I did end up using liquid yeast on this, Wyeast British 1098.
3 weeks in primary - Dear Lord patience be with me.
How long did you Secondary this for?

 

[ChshreCat]

Secondary was a week to give it time to pick up a little bit from the vanilla bean. Tempers the bitter from the chocolate just a hair.

 

[CrazyJames]

I'm bottling this this weekend, cant wait till mid december when i try some!

 

[ChshreCat]

Meh, throw one in the fridge a couple days before Thanksgiving and crack it open after dinner.

 

[JMSetzler]

Mine has been in the bottles for 4 weeks now. Four more and I'll probably consider tasting one.

 

[CrazyJames]

Meh, throw one in the fridge a couple days before Thanksgiving and crack it open after dinner.

You mean I have to wait until October 2010 to drink it?

Screw that!

 

[ChshreCat]

You mean I have to wait until October 2010 to drink it?

Screw that!

No... you know what I mean... the RIGHT thanksgiving. Not the twisted Canadian one. Remember... USA = center of universe

 

[josiahcox]

So I'm hoping mine is conditioned enough by new years.
Brewed on 10/23
It will finish seconday on 11/20.
That will leave 1 moth for bottle conditioning. I'd like a little bit more time but I think that they might be drinkable by then.

 

[ChshreCat]

I cracked my first one at 3 weeks, IIRC. It was a little warm on the alcohol, but was very drinkable. After another 2 weeks, the hot alcohol flavor was gone.

 

[Beehemel]

I plan on bottling mine this weekend. Time has gotten away from me, and I've left it for a while in the carboy. I'll keep you posted!

 

[Beehemel]

Bottled last night, tasted great! Can't wait til this carbs up!:rockin:

 

[ChshreCat]

Sweet! Glad you like it so far.

 

[Lcasanova]

Thanks for posting this, I think I'll make a few changes so its Gluten Free and make it right after Thanksgiving with my dad, should be ready mid-January...I'll let you guys know.

According to BeerSmith- I bumped up my IBU's to 40 with Chinook and Nugget as my hops, potential ABV is 6.2%, and color should be void of light (I hope)

Any thoughts on 2 week primary 2 week secondary or is 2 weeks too long on the vanilla bean?

 

[ChshreCat]

According to BeerSmith- I bumped up my IBU's to 40 with Chinook and Nugget as my hops, potential ABV is 6.2%, and color should be void of light (I hope)

Keep in mind that BeerSmith isn't taking the cocoa powder into account. It's giving you a big wallop of bitterness in there, so you might not want to up the IBU's too much. This baby is BITTER as it is!

Any thoughts on 2 week primary 2 week secondary or is 2 weeks too long on the vanilla bean?

It's worth a shot! Taste it after a week and see if you want to go another. At one week the vanilla doesn't really come though... it just takes the bite off the bitter chocolate.

 

[thesanch]

Do you have a BSM file for this? I would like to convert this to all grain and do scale it down to 3.5 gallons. It sounds delicious!

 

[Mathematics]

Brewed this past Tuesday, kind of politely bubbling away but no big krausen at all...I havent taken a reading yet but just curious how the fermentation was for other folks?

 

[ChshreCat]

I always used foam control drops, so a thin krausen doesn't ever surprise me. What kind of cocoa did you use? That might have an effect on it.

thesanch: I can upload one when I get a chance. Might not be for a few days. Might be easier to just punch the ingredients in than to wait for my lazy ass.

 

[josiahcox]

I did not have a huge krausen on mine either. My visible fermentation on this was also short and active however...
I did just put mine into the secondary. I hit your original gravity dead on and i was only off .002 on the final. :rockin:

Mine didn't look quite as dark as yours but the taste even for being green is pretty yummy. Now to wait until Christmas.

 

[Lcasanova]

Having trouble finding fat free cocoa powder...where did you get yours/what brand was it?

Not Wonderslim cocoa powder by any chance was it, comes in 6 oz. cans

 

[JMSetzler]

I used regular Hershey's Cocoa Powder in mine. It's practically fat free anyway.

 

[ChshreCat]

Having trouble finding fat free cocoa powder...where did you get yours/what brand was it?

Not Wonderslim cocoa powder by any chance was it, comes in 6 oz. cans

That would be the stuff. I got it at the co-op I go to. Hippy store.