Double Chocolate Stout Question?

[Beer4U]

I'm plannin on brewing my first double chocolate stout tonight, and I'm getting pretty excited for it. My questions is, what do I do with all this chocolate? I'll list what I have, what I plan to do with it, but please feel free to offer advice. Thanks!

12 oz. 70% cocoa bars: Thrown in at beginning of boil
Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder: 2 tbsp last 10 mins of boil
Liquid chocolate extract: Added to priming sugar right before bottling (how much?)

Thanks for helpin me out gents!

 

[Grinder12000]

Only time I have used chocolate I added everything at flame out. Didn't want to boil it

 

[ChshreCat]

I used fat free cocoa powder in the last 15 minutes of the boil and it came out fantastic. dunno about using chocolate bars. They usually have lots of other stuff in them to keep them in bar form that you might not want in your beer. Especially fats that can kill head retention. Dunno about the extract amount either other than to add it to taste. If you use enough cocoa powder, you won't need the extract.

 

[Beer4U]

Yeah, I plan on using real chocolate for some of it, but I don't really know when to add it. It also seems like a lot of chocolate. I'm slightly worried about the oil from the chocolate killing the head retention. Will the cold crash and irish moss settle some of that out? Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[michael.berta]

My Chocolate Stout comes out very close to Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

 

[Beer4U]

Thanks for the feedback. I had been planning to transfer this one to secondary, but after reading mike's stout recipe, it seems unnecessary. Does anyone else have any experience with this? And if I'm hell bent on using both real chocolate and powder, when is the best time to add the chocolate and how should I go about doing this?

 

[Beer4U]

What if I were to use real chocolate, then rack from the bottom up in order to avoid the oil?

 

[michael.berta]

The key with the Chocolate is that you don't want to be adding fats, oils, sugars, etc with the chocolate. To get the Chocolate flavor you should use unsweetened bakers chocolate and lots of it. I'm not sure if you can rack off of it or not if you use chocolate that has all this other stuff in there.

The other thing you want is some chocolate essence. When you rack to your keg. Just a few drops is all you need.That will give Chocolate aroma. if you use this you will be able smell the chocolate as you are brining the glass to your mouth.

 

[Handle]

My Chocolate Stout comes out very close to Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

I may come back to this recipe (once I actually start brewing, that is). I'm a big fan of Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

 

[ChshreCat]

Cocoa powder IS real chocolate. More so than chocolate in bar form is.

My recipe in my drop down is very chocolaty, but more of a bitter, dark chocolate taste than Young's.

 

[Benjibbad]

I've never used chocolate in bar form. I have always used coco powder primarily because of the fats/oils. The last sweet stout I made had 8oz of bitter bakers chocolate powder in it. So far so good!! I just bottled this and the chocolate flavor is nice and balanced. 1lb of Lactose to sweeten it up a bit and it is pretty close to youngs.

 

[Runyanka]

My Chocolate Stout comes out very close to Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

Thats exactly what my recipe was, and it was a definate crowd pleaser! 5 gallon batch only lasted about a month