Getting BIG Coconut Flavor

[mwsenoj]

I just got smacked in the nose and tongue by one of the most delicious beers I have ever had. It was from The Bruery, in S. California. I immediately came to HBT to see how to brew a beer like this but found only mild success stories of guys soaking in vodka or getting a moldy hop bag of coconut out of their keg a week or two later. Does anyone have any clue how they might be getting such a strong aroma and taste of roasted coconut into their imperial stout? I left so dissatisfied since they don't bottle it and won't let anyone get a growler of it, so I've got to figure out how to replicate it. Help!

 

[mwsenoj]

Here is the link to the BeerAdvocate page...

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16866/137926/

 

[smdjoachim]

sorachi ace always gives me coconut

 

[Flakk]

Have you asked the brewers yet?

 

[mwsenoj]

.

 

[mwsenoj]

Have you asked the brewers yet?

Actually, I did email them after starting the post. Just got an email back with a happy-to-help response! 1.25lb of shredded, unsweetened coconut per gallon in the bright tank for only a weekend, then keg. My only problem is that the 2 stores I visited only had sweetened coconut. :\

 

[Flakk]

That's excellent, I love it when a brewery is willing to help out a homebrewer. Did they say anything about toasting the coconut?

I have had some trouble finding unsweetened coconut in stores in my area as well, but Amazon has quite a bit for fairly cheap (96 oz for $26). I have been planning a coconut beer since I tried Dad and Dude's Salted Coconut Porter last year.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[kingogames]

Actually, I did email them after starting the post. Just got an email back with a happy-to-help response! 1.25lb of shredded, unsweetened coconut per gallon in the bright tank for only a weekend, then keg. My only problem is that the 2 stores I visited only had sweetened coconut.

Look in the Bulk section rather than the baking section. That's where it is here.

 

[TallDan]

Actually, I did email them after starting the post. Just got an email back with a happy-to-help response! 1.25lb of shredded, unsweetened coconut per gallon in the bright tank for only a weekend, then keg. My only problem is that the 2 stores I visited only had sweetened coconut. :\

So, if it's in the bright tank, that would be around serving temperatures (in the 30's F), right? So, this would be something to do while cold crashing?

 

[Bigbeavk]

I did the coconut porter listed in the recipe section and it came out real good. I used 2lbs for a 6 gallon batch. Toasted it in the oven just like it said. With that said next time it will go in a big mesh bag with something to weigh it down. All of the coconut was floating on top after I left it in there for a week. It still came out pretty tastey tho.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f126/coconut-porter-245701/

 

[drumuglyknuckles]

This sounds friggin delicious. Could I do this in secondary ferm?

 

[WDT]

I scored a 38 with a coconut beer in our fair. I brewed my favorite porter recipe (robust), added about a 1lb of coconut - toasted with a frying pan until golden brown - to a stainless brewing dry hopper in the keg and let it sit on that for 1 week. Huge coconut flavor and aroma.


One of these:
http://www.stainlessbrewing.com/Dry-Hopper-with-twist-cap_p_155.html

 

[mwsenoj]

Did they say anything about toasting the coconut?

I double checked and they say that all of the coconut goodness comes from UNroasted coconut. All of the toasty comes from the malt.

 

[Natdavis777]

Im planning on doing to Coconut Coffee Stout this weekend. Ive yet to find the coconut, but everything I have read was to use unsweetend. I was planning on toasting the coconut to get rid of as much fat as possible to save some head. Also was going to throw it in some sanitized nylon so I can pull it straight from the keg before serving. Hoping it turns out as well as the one I had this past summer...I am not a fan of coconut, but this stout I had at a brewer's festival blew me away. Im suspect that they might have added some cocaine as well...:rockin:

 

[Bigbeavk]

I never bother with secondary unless it's a high gravity beer. I just stuck the racking cane in a hop bag and secured the string up high on it with scotch tape and racked right to the bottling bucket. The coconut does absorb some beer so plan accordingly.

I toasted it in the oven on parchment paper and there really wasn't much oily residue left on the paper at all.

 

[Andy_P]

I had an Almond Joy Stout at the Charlotte Oktoberfest last weekend that was amazing. Glad I found this thread, was wondering about brewing with coconut.

 

[biertourist]

Actually, I did email them after starting the post. Just got an email back with a happy-to-help response! 1.25lb of shredded, unsweetened coconut per gallon in the bright tank for only a weekend, then keg. My only problem is that the 2 stores I visited only had sweetened coconut. :\

Listen to their advice! You want not only unsweetened coconut, but unsulfured coconut.

You don't need anything remotely resembling that much coconut, though.
Surface area is important so you want shredded coconut.
The flavor of the coconut IS from it's essential oils so you also want to toast the coconut in your oven- convection is best for getting even heat. Read some articles on how to toast coconut and watch it like a hawk! It goes from almost no browning to super burnt VERY, VERY quickly.


I've got a Gold for my Coconut Porter -made it to the BoS round. I've only entered it in one competition but it'll probably make it to more and I expect it to do very well despite being in the "Catch all" BJCP category.


The only physical brick and mortar store I could find unsweetened, unsulfured shredded coconut at was Whole Foods. It's for sale by-the-pound, too.

You want to add it as late in the process as possible to get as many oils in solution as possible. It will start off tasting weird after 24-48 hours but from day 4-7 it just tastes AMAZING; the coconut will start fading after you remove it from the keg.


Adam

 

[mwsenoj]

Listen to their advice! You want not only unsweetened coconut, but unsulfured coconut.

You don't need anything remotely resembling that much coconut, though.
Surface area is important so you want shredded coconut.

I am going to stick with their advice all the way through. I am sure that they didn't just randomly pick 1.25 lb/gallon. It is an expensive, beer soaking addition that I am thinking they tinkered with in small batches.

 

[ClunkClunk]

I did a coconut porter as well.

I took 16oz of unsweetened coconut flakes, toasted them in a 300° oven for a few minutes until they just started to brown on the edges. Stirred them up a few times while they were toasting so they didn't burn and I got even toasting.

Put them in a mesh bag weighted down with some sanitized spoons (easiest, blunt item I had available). Popped it in a sanitized bucket along with 4oz of cacao nibs and 3oz of decaf coffee beans that were lightly crushed and 1 vanilla bean, and racked my ~6.7% coconut porter, which was fully fermented, on to it.

Let it sit for a week at room temp, them removed the bags and kegged and force carbonated. Good after a few days once fully carbed. Divine after about 1.5 weeks. Great coconut nose, good coconut flavor. It's like drinking a lovely alcoholic Mounds bar.

I think next time the only thing I'll change is reducing the cacao nibs to 2oz, and increasing the coffee to 6oz.

 

[biertourist]

I am going to stick with their advice all the way through. I am sure that they didn't just randomly pick 1.25 lb/gallon. It is an expensive, beer soaking addition that I am thinking they tinkered with in small batches.

Totally understand. If you're going to stick with their advice, then stick with it all the way. (1.25 lbs / gallon for the weekend.) -Less coconut with longer contact time should extract more oil; it looks like they're going with a higher quantity of coconut and lower contact time. Toasting is a cheap way to extract more oils faster, too but again if you're going to follow their method, follow it all the way if you expect the same results.

Sounds amazingly delicious!

The coconut will soak up a LOT of wort so plan for that. If you put coconut in bags in a keg be prepared for it to swell by 50%, too or you might not get it back out of the opening in the keg.


Good luck!
Adam

 

[biertourist]

I double checked and they say that all of the coconut goodness comes from UNroasted coconut. All of the toasty comes from the malt.

Probably one of the reasons they have to use so much coconut. Toasting brings the oils to the surface; oils == flavor.

Adam

 

[biertourist]

Im planning on doing to Coconut Coffee Stout this weekend. Ive yet to find the coconut, but everything I have read was to use unsweetend. I was planning on toasting the coconut to get rid of as much fat as possible to save some head. Also was going to throw it in some sanitized nylon so I can pull it straight from the keg before serving. Hoping it turns out as well as the one I had this past summer...I am not a fan of coconut, but this stout I had at a brewer's festival blew me away. Im suspect that they might have added some cocaine as well...:rockin:

I don't understand the commend on toasting the coconut to get rid of as much fat / oils as possible. One of the BENEFITS of toasting is that it brings out the oils to the surface and they go into the beer more readily; more oils == more coconut flavor.

That the oils will impact head retention in a significant way just doesn't pan out in practice. If you're planning on toasting and sopping up the extra oils with a paper towel or something you're just wasting that coconut flavor that you want.

-With any expensive flavor additions, you want to add them as late as possible to get as many of those flavor oils into the beer; adding the coconut in the keg is a great way to go, but plan for your bag of coconut to swell; if you can barely fit the bag in the corney keg opening when dry, after a few days in the keg you will NOT get it back out again. -Better off to go with two smaller bags.

After 4 or 5 days the bag will sink to the bottom so have a plan for getting it back out, too. (I use my sanitized siphon to pull the bag up to the top of the keg where I can grab it and pull it back out again.)


Adam

 

[nutty_gnome]

You can find frozen shredded coconut at any Indo/Pak grocery store. It isn't dried, so you won't loose as much wort to absorption. This stuff is fresh, unsweetened coconut shreds suitable for use in cooking. It makes an excellent base for coconut chutney if you like to make dosas. Here is one example: http://www.metrospicemart.com/en/deep-shredded-coconut-12oz

I would also consider using a dram or 2 of Lorann coconut flavoring if I found that working with shreds wasn't fun/useful.

 

[mwsenoj]

Update: Massive coconut flavor and aroma as promised! My brew buddy thinks it is borderline too much coconut! It was not a true test yet tho because of a problem with my CO2 regulator, we were only able to taste flat beer that was squeezed out of the muslin bags full of coconut. Still, the keg smelled uber coconutty and I anticipate that it will be close to as coconut forward in the taste as the squeezed out sample was. One more interesting note, there was a massive oil slick on the beer. There was so much oil that the beer stuck to the sides of the glass much more aggressively. I'm happy with how it came out. Huge thanks to The Bruery for sharing the knowledge with us lowly homebrewers!

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

I appreciate you sharing this. I'm going to do a coconut vanilla porter this weekend and I've been following this thread for a couple weeks since I started making my recipe. I'm going to follow the 1.25lb/gallon as recommended. I'm just going to let it float freely in the secondary.

Shredded Coconut is stupidly expensive, even for as cheap as I found it. Whole Foods or similar type stores wanted ~$8 a pound.

 

[mwsenoj]

I appreciate you sharing this. I'm going to do a coconut vanilla porter this weekend and I've been following this thread for a couple weeks since I started making my recipe. I'm going to follow the 1.25lb/gallon as recommended. I'm just going to let it float freely in the secondary.



Shredded Coconut is stupidly expensive, even for as cheap as I found it. Whole Foods or similar type stores wanted ~$8 a pound.

Hey man, I'm glad to finally add some knowledge to the forum rather than leech

Coconut can be had for much cheaper than $8/lb. it is a bit more than $6/lb on amazon right now, but last week when I bought mine, it was about $10 cheaper for the box of 96 oz! It came out to about $4.15/lb shipped when I grabbed it.

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

Yea I ordered 7lbs and got it for $3.87/lb. Still comes out to ~30$ for a flavor additive. I'm going to follow the recommendation straight through this weekend, but in the future I might try toasting it to see if I can cut back the amount I need. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to cleaning 6lbs of shredded coconut out of my secondary. :cross:

 

[mwsenoj]

Also, to update once more, we tried the beer again last night and it was better than what I had squeezed from the bags of coconut. Not very surprising I guess, but it makes this a technique that I will likely use again, probably on a split batch into my 2.5 gal kegs.

 

[mwsenoj]

And one more thing! Take the advice of whoever said to put less coconut in each bag. The stuff does swell.

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

I'm not going to put mine in any bags. I'll let you know if this was a terrible idea or not. I'm going to do it in a 10 gal batch, split it at fermentation, and do one with the coconut and one with out. Both will then sit for at least 5 weeks, with the regular porter probably tapped second.

 

[mwsenoj]

I'm not going to put mine in any bags. I'll let you know if this was a terrible idea or not. I'm going to do it in a 10 gal batch, split it at fermentation, and do one with the coconut and one with out. Both will then sit for at least 5 weeks, with the regular porter probably tapped second.

Yikes! How will you get it off the coconut? It swells mucho.

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

I'm going to follow the timeline from the response you received. The coconut will only be in there for the weekend. I'll leave it in there for the weekend, cold crash it, and siphon it into a keg to sit and mature for 5 weeks. If the coconut doesn't sink to the bottom I'll just siphon below it, if it does I'll just put the siphon right into it and use it as a sort of filter. Washing it out will be the biggest challenge I think.

 

[sputnam]

How do you think this sounds for a 3 gallon batch? It's the malt bill from a black IPA with minor variations and severe reduction in hops. I used .5# chocolate last time I made it and it was very noticeable, I'm thinking the extra 1/2# should be quite chocolatey.

38 IBU
7% ABV
42 SRM

2 row - 7#
cara 3 - .5#
chocolate - 1#

magnum - .5oz@ 60min

4.25# coconut in secondary for few days
.5#coconut in muslin bag to stay in keg
almond extract - absolutely no idea how much to add????

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

Yikes! How will you get it off the coconut? It swells mucho.

Just to clarify. You didn't toast yours at all right? I didn't see any mention of it from the brewery's response. If you didn't how did you sanitize it?

 

[drowland]

I have had a lot of success using fresh coconut, chopping it all up/shredding it in a food processor or blender and toasting it in the oven. It takes a lot and it is A LOT of work getting that much coconut, but man is it delicious. (typically done in a coconut porter, but next week I'm adding some to a Berliner Weisse that will be coconut/lime/cilantro/habanero)

 

[biertourist]

And one more thing! Take the advice of whoever said to put less coconut in each bag. The stuff does swell.

I won't even say "told you so".

Adam

 

[biertourist]

typically done in a coconut porter, but next week I'm adding some to a Berliner Weisse that will be coconut/lime/cilantro/habanero)

OMG, this sounds flipping AMAZING! I would pay you/ trade you for some of this if you're willing to ship a bottle or two to Seattle...


Adam

 

[biertourist]

Shredded Coconut is stupidly expensive, even for as cheap as I found it. Whole Foods or similar type stores wanted ~$8 a pound.

Yep, that's why you can just buy 2 lbs for a 5 gallon batch and toast it and leave it in for a week. -Same great coconut flavor, but way less money because you're getting much higher "utilization" out of your coconut.

Adam

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

I ordered 7 lbs, I'm going to follow the brewery recommendation up front, and see how it comes out. I'm also going to bottle a handful of 22 oz bottles of it once it's been carb'd and keg conditioned to hold onto. I'm going to make another coconut porter down the road by toasting it and letting it sit for a week to see the difference with a smaller amount. Then compare it to the left over bottles.

I still need to know if it was sanitized in any way.

 

[drowland]

OMG, this sounds flipping AMAZING! I would pay you/ trade you for some of this if you're willing to ship a bottle or two to Seattle...


Adam

Well, let's see how it turns out first, ey?! This will be tapped at our club "Learn to Homebrew Day," though, so probably not much to spare!