Kona Brewing Koko Brown Ale

[Coldies]

I just tried a sample of mine last night after about 3 weeks in the primary. Its a damn good beer. Here is the recipe I used. I dont have my OG or FG but here it is

8.5 lb 2 Row
1.5 lb Victory
1 lb Munich
12 oz american chocolate
8 oz Carapils

.25 oz Warrior 60 min
.25 oz Millenium 45 min
.5 oz Cascade 10 min
.5 oz Willamette 5 min

I toasted a total of 1.5 lbs of coconut and used .5 lb in the mash and 1 lb. in the last 15 of the boil.

Wyeast 1056 American ale or Whitelabs WLP001 CA ale yeast

The nose is spot on and I can def taste the coconut. When I brew it again i'm going to toast the coconut a little longer so I can hopefully pick up that smokey/toasty flavor in the original. I toasted the coconut till it was a khaki light brown color but I'm gonna do it next time till its dark brown. Great brew and can't wait to get it kegged.

 

[jEld]

Thanks for the help with the recipe. I'm taking a stab at my first AG brew next weekend using the recipe and advice from this thread (and others)...wish me luck!

 

[mitchelldesimone]

did you strain out the coconut before primary/secondary or did you leave it in throughout fermentation? this looks awesome, i've been wanting to brew this for a while, can't wait to give it a try. thanks

 

[Coldies]

did you strain out the coconut before primary/secondary or did you leave it in throughout fermentation? this looks awesome, i've been wanting to brew this for a while, can't wait to give it a try. thanks

I'm not sure if your asking me, but when I added it to the boil I put it in my hop bag. So yes it was strained before going into the primary.

 

[CarlsbadBrewDog]

Planning (and very excited) to use rwfishbu's recipe for this Koko Brown but need to convert to Extract. Thinking of using 7 lbs. Pale LME - any thoughts? Thx in advance

 

[Ceetar]

Planning (and very excited) to use rwfishbu's recipe for this Koko Brown but need to convert to Extract. Thinking of using 7 lbs. Pale LME - any thoughts? Thx in advance

I used 6lbs of light DME. I'm sure 7 would be fine. (Was going for a lighter ABV) (http://hopville.com/recipe/956532/american-brown-ale-recipes/mad-coco-nutz)

I really enjoyed my recipe but I used too much of the chocolate malt and maybe too much of the others as well. Came out a little more 'stout'y than I was aiming for, and masked the coconut a little. When I make it again I'm going to drop the Chocolate to 8oz and go up to 20oz of coconut and probably toast it a little more than I did.

 

[Ceetar]

I'm not sure if your asking me, but when I added it to the boil I put it in my hop bag. So yes it was strained before going into the primary.

I should've done that. I used a strainer and grabbed most of it out of the top of the kettle. Probably 2-3 oz went into the primary for a month.

 

[CarlsbadBrewDog]

Thx for the feedback Ceetar I'll let you guys know how it turns out. Need to find some time to brew!

 

[jEld]

Finally tasted this after a week in the bottle(this guy isn't patient) and compared it next to a koko brown my MIL brought me from Florida. Not too far off, other than clarity of course. I went with 1/2 pound of coconut in the mash and a pound at 15 mins left in the boil and it has just the right amount of coconut for the wife and I. Now we've got our celebratory beer for our first born that should finish "belly conditioning" in a couple weeks! Thanks for the recipe!

 

[kitkass]

Just want to say thanks for everyone's replies to the clone issue. Just got back from Maui--loved it and love the beer. I was trying to google the recipe when this site came up--shoulda looked at it first. At any rate I'm stoked to try some of these recipes.

 

[CarlsbadBrewDog]

Bottling this tomorrow - tasted great when we racked to secondary so pretty excited to try it after a few weeks in the bottle.

 

[CarlsbadBrewDog]

Hmmm. 2 weeks in the bottle, still minimally carbed. Tasted one last night. Smells wonderful, tastes great initially but then has this lingering bitterness that just stays with you, very strange. We were careful on sanitation as always and I cant think of any one thing that would have caused an issue in that arena, but I guess you never know. Any thoughts on this bitter aftertaste (BTW I'm a total hophead and this is not THAT kinda bitter...almost a medicinal bitterness)

Before we bottled this beer (2 weeks ago) tasted amazing, I drank a warm pint and loved it Pretty bummed and hoping it mellows out in the bottle as it carbs up the rest of the way.

 

[Slmauran]

Hmmm. 2 weeks in the bottle, still minimally carbed. Tasted one last night. Smells wonderful, tastes great initially but then has this lingering bitterness that just stays with you, very strange. We were careful on sanitation as always and I cant think of any one thing that would have caused an issue in that arena, but I guess you never know. Any thoughts on this bitter aftertaste (BTW I'm a total hophead and this is not THAT kinda bitter...almost a medicinal bitterness)

Before we bottled this beer (2 weeks ago) tasted amazing, I drank a warm pint and loved it Pretty bummed and hoping it mellows out in the bottle as it carbs up the rest of the way.

My experience with bottling is let it go for at least 8 weeks. I have tried rushing my brews and the results were varied but overall I find carbonation and flavors don't stablize untill then, especially when doing fruit beers or in this case the coconut.

I have been following this forum for some time and I am going to brew it soon. I will most likely take a little from each of you who have tried it and a few ideas of my own. I will post my plan of action and my progress when I get the chance to start.

 

[CarlsbadBrewDog]

After months and months... It finally tastes great

 

[Trash_can_man]

So, I made this ( the recipe on the first page) for the first time on sat. The only changes I made were I only used warrior for the 60 and 45 min bittering and cascade for the 10 and 5 min. I also used 1lb of toasted coconut at 15 min (I plan on dry hopping with more coconut when I rack into secondary if there is not enough flavor) my adjusted og was 1.058. This is my first brew ever so I'm really hoping this turns out good. I'll keep u posted how its going.

 

[Trash_can_man]

Correction from my previous post, I used the recipe from the top of page 3 posted by Rossi43. I racked it into secondary last weekend and will be bottling this weekend priming to 2.5 volumes of co2. My corrected OG was 1.058 and I'll take a FG when I bottle.

 

[Trash_can_man]

Well, bottled today. It looked good with a nice dark amber color. A little higher on the FG than I would have liked (1.018). But good flavor, a nice dark roasted coffee flavor with a hint of sweetness. Can't wait to taste what it's like when it's carbed up.

 

[Ceetar]

sounds good to me! The version I made (a while back now) had that creamy coconut undertone, but I think i overdid it with the roasty/coffee type malts so it got obscured a bit. keep meaning to make it again though.

 

[USMCBrewer]

Can't wait to brew this!!! Had some of this over the past few weeks and loved it!! Was thinking man, I need to find a recipe for this and WHAM! here it is!!! Thanks!!

 

[bcboyz86]

Awesome thread! I LOVE koko brown, but hate its a spring-winter seasonal beer :'( this is ganna be my first brew, but ill have some help from my brother who's done this a bunch... I like to coconut flavor a lot and less bitterness, so I might adjust the recipe a tiny bit, or maybe just add coconut and subtract hops later on when I know what I'm actually doing... But REALLY excited to do this... Hopefully its ready to drink by my birthday in September!

 

[bcboyz86]

I bottled my first nut brown coconut ale.... F'N delicious. I used a nutbrown kit from Ice Harbor and made about 5.5 gallons of the stuff, then added two 2oz bottles of coconut extract(didn't have any toasted flakes available) right before bottling. It came out to a case of 22's, a case of 12's, and some extras of both. There was a half bottle left that I chilled and drank flat just cuz I wanted to taste it. I'm really happy with how good it turned out! There's a good amount of coconut at first, then the ale flavor and a good coconut aftertaste. The only part I would change is it seems a little weak on the beer flavor. Might use less water next time to get the flavor up! But otherwise awesome! AND no oil to clean up after either!

 

[cybercoaster]

I am going to brew one from a nut brown kit as well. Also going to use the toasted coconut from Whole Foods. Probably .5 in boil then 1lb in 2nd like some of the other posts...will report back

 

[Ceetar]

re-brewing this like, right now. Coconut smells amazing.

I'm also making chocolate munchkins at the same time. those smell good as well.

 

[USMCBrewer]

Brewing this today!!! Can't wait! Going to do 12oz of coconut with 15 min left in the boil and 12oz in primary. Can't wait!!!

 

[bcboyz86]

Update on the koko brown beer. I cut the coconut extract back to 1.5 (1 1/2 bottles of extract) using 2 bottles the coconut extract came across as tasting like suntan lotion to some people, but 1.5 oz was the sweet spot. 1oz wasn't good enough either. But I'm hopefully brewing some up tomorrow night! And in 3 weeks my kegorator should be empty and it will be my first batch of beer going through it! Pretty excited!

 

[drgoodbrew]

made a version of this for a friend's going away party, as his favorite beer of all time is kona's koko brown. he said that it tasted just like the real thing and was absolutely thrilled!

the version brewed was based on info and feedback in this thread--thank you all for contributing! here's what i ended up making:

2-row (70%)
victory (13%)
chocolate (9%)
aromatic (4%)
carapils (4%)

mashed @ 150-152 for 60 min, mashout @ 170 for 15 min

cascade (5.5% AA) @ 60 min for 22 IBU
cascade (5.5% AA ) @ 15 min for 5 IBU
willamette (5.5% AA) @ 2 min for 2 IBU

safale-05

sweetened toasted coconut thrown in with 12 minutes left in the boil.

i use beer smith and the above was for a 1 gallon batch (test batch). will be making this again as a 5 gallon batch and following the advice of using .5lb toasted coconut in the mash and 1 lb in the boil.

great job all...thanks!!!!

 

[rwfishbu]

That's awesome! Thank you for sharing this!
Bill

 

[McElvis]

I'm wanting a little taste of the Islands in preparation for a long cold Ozark winter. I have been all through this thread and I'm trying to come up with a recipe. I use the BIAB method and want to toast my coconut instead of using an extract to try to keep away from that "suntan oil" flavor. I'm planning to use the original recipe posted by rwfishbu and drop the chocolate malt and raise the Victory, the nutty flavor appeals to me.
Not really sure how I want to add the Coconut, I saw where the idea of adding it in 1/3 here and there was suggested. Has anyone tried this out?
I don't have any empty carboys right now and my kegs are full, so I'm not in a huge hurry to get this going, but I want to get a game plan down here soon.
Any insight would be much appreciated.

 

[rwfishbu]

I tried the additions in thirds, and that seemed to provide best flavor and aroma results. The boil pot gets pretty greasy, but it's worth it. A coconut "tea" in secondary makes the least mess for that stage.

 

[McElvis]

The beer is on day 4 in the primary. I took a reading @1.030 (OG 1.058) and had a quick taste. It tastes like macaroons. I like it.
I put 9oz of well toasted coconut in the mash and another 9 oz in the boil with 15 min left. Not sure if I want to add any more to secondary. I'm trying to get away from racking my beers to secondary and the coconut flavor was already there. There is already quite a bit of coconut that transferred from the boil.