Mashing Chocolate (The food, not the malt)

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I've done a triple chocolate stout. I used dark cocoa powder at the end of the boil / knockout as well as chocolate extract at bottling along with the standard chocolate malts, etc. I also used vodka to extract more chocolate flavor and aroma from cocoa powder and added that to the bottling bucket, as well. Even accounting for the bitterness of cocoa powder and hops, it is massively sweet. Of course, my OG was over 1.1 and my FG was only around 1.03 or so.
 
Cacao nibs in secondary FTW. 6-8oz. in a five gal. batch. See here.

I considered using cacao nibs and may use them in a future chocolate beer. At this point though, I'm going to have way too much cost already invested in this beer. $10 for the chocolate bars, I forget what the cocoa powder was, probably $10-15, though I won't be using all of it, vanilla extract was probably $10-15 too, but again I won't be using all of it, and the chocolate extract I have yet to buy will be $20 shipped, but I won't be using all of it either. Maybe the nibs will be in my quadruple chocolate stout. :D

Oh also, having just bought a sixer of Fuller's London Porter for the first time in a long time, I can see it working very well with chocolate. That might be worth experimenting with at some point. There's a recipe for the Fuller's London Porter in Graham Wheeler's BYOBRA.
 
Finally going to brew this beer this coming weekend. I've been changing the recipe every day but I think it's going to be something very close to this:

Triple Chocolate Stout!
1.056 OG
30 IBU

77% Maris Otter
5% British Crystal 75
8% Crisp Chocolate Malt
10% invert sugar No. 2

NB hops to 30 IBU for 60 minutes

2 bars sharffen berger chocolate chopped and added to mash
4 oz. non-alkalized cocoa powder added to boil at 15 min
chocolate and vanilla extracts added to taste at bottling/kegging

fermenting with 2nd generation Wy1968
mashing at 150 for 90 minutes

I'm thinking about throwing in a couple oz. of torrified wheat for a little head retention. I'm going to be serving on nitro and it would be nice if the head hung around. The wheat may help counteract and lipids that get through the mash or that are extracted from the cocoa powder during the boil. Either way though, I think this beer will rock.:rockin:

What's the expected SRM on that recipe? Maybe it's just my typical efficiency but it doesn't seem all that dark. I'd throw in some hulless black malt (I used Briess Blackprinz), but that's just me... the recipe just looks more like a Porter to me.
 
So I picked up two bars of Sharffen Berger extra dark (82% cacao) chocolate today (at $5 each! ouch!).
Excellent choice. I was cruising through this thread just to see if I needed to make the recommendation and I see I do not. The only other bar chocolate I would even consider is from Olive and Sinclair out of Nashville. Yeah, the price is high but you are absolutely getting what you paid for. Sharffen Berger sells bulk 99% cocoa powder. They used to make a 99% bar but I no longer see it on their site. Olive and Sinclair top out at 75% (IIRC) on their retail bars but they can be contacted for nibs or higher percentage product if you can buy in bulk.
 
Even accounting for the bitterness of cocoa powder and hops, it is massively sweet. Of course, my OG was over 1.1 and my FG was only around 1.03 or so.
I just kegged a Chocolate Stout and it finished at...1.039. OG was 1.099. But I mashed really high (like 160* F or so) and used 10 oz lactose and used the Fullers yeast. I did an FFT and it finished at 1.038 so the yeast finished the job. I didn't quite want it that high but still well into the thirties.

But when I tasted mine, it wasn't sweet and had a pretty high bitterness. I used a decent amount of hops though.
 
What's the expected SRM on that recipe? Maybe it's just my typical efficiency but it doesn't seem all that dark. I'd throw in some hulless black malt (I used Briess Blackprinz), but that's just me... the recipe just looks more like a Porter to me.

SRM is looking like 33 or so right now. I'm not quite sure what the color is of the invert sugar I made, but it's pretty dark. And I would also usually advocate the use of roasted barley in something you're going to call a stout, but I've noticed a lot of the sweet stouts only use chocolate malt so I'm going to try that for this one. It seems like that is what Young's does for their double chocolate stout which I'm loosely basing this recipe on.
 
Interesting comment on the roast barley, I decided on my Chocolate Stout to not use roast barley either. 1 lb of UK chocolate malt (420 L) and 1/2 lb UK pale chocolate (210 L). It's very dark and opaque but still has a touch of deep/dark brown...so it even 'looks' more chocolatey. I have no idea how much color the actual chocolate added.
 
Tomorrow's the big day. I think I've finally settled on a malt bill. I'm going to take pictures of the process tomorrow and I'll be sure to post them to the thread. Here's the final grain bill.

OG 1.056
IBU 30
SRM 30.5

8 lbs Maris Otter
0.85 lbs Crisp Chocolate Malt
0.5 lbs Simpson's Dark Crystal (75L)
0.3 lbs Torrified Wheat
1 lb homemade invert syrup no. 2 (~35 SRM)

1 oz Northern Brewer @ 60 min

Mashing @ 151*F

Fermenting with wy1968 (I'll be using the fermentation schedule I describe in my British Yeast thread if you've seen that)

I may or may not add lactose to the keg, depending on how it tastes.

Chocolate additions will be unchanged from what I stated before: 2 bars scharffen berger in mash, 4 oz. cocoa in boil @ 15 min., and chocolate and vanilla extracts at kegging to taste.

I'll be using filtered Durham, NC water with CaCl2 added to get the Ca+ to 50-70 ppm.

It should be good!
 
Mash is underway!

Conditioned and Crushed Grain
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Close-up of crush
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Chocolate bars and cocoa
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Close-up of chocolate bar
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Chocolate bar info (38g fat per bar, hope the mash absorbs most of that!)
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Unwrapped
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Chopping Begun
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One bar down
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Both bars ready for mash
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CaCl2 and NaHCO3 (mash and boil additions)
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Mash In
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Salt additions
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Adding chocolate
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Chocolate in mash
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Stirring it in (It started melting immediately for which I was grateful!)
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Mash temp ended around 150 (maybe due to more stirring than usual and chocolate addition? I'm not sweating it)
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First Runnings. No amount of vorlaufing cleared it. I think the chocolate was causing some turbidity. It looked like turkish coffee.
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First runnings in the kettle.
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Hops
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Cocoa
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Yeast nutrient and half a whirlfloc tablet
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Spent grain after batch sparge was run off. You can see a thick layer of chocolatey stuff on top
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Here is how it looked when you scooped it off
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On the burner
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Cormorants and seagulls enjoying the warm day while we wait for the temp to rise
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And here is where a damn beaver chewed down one of my willows (by the lake) and my mullberry tree (far right)
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Getting close
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The chocolate in the mash caused the pre-boil foam to look pretty weird
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Reached boil
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Hops in
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Timer set
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Spent Grain for the ducks
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Cocoa in
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Invert sugar in
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Cocoa caused a weird looking sludge on top
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After that I was too busy running around trying to get everything wrapped up I didn't take any pictures. Gravity came in at 1.054 due to not boiling down enough. Wind was strong and the burner was having problems. The damn grommet popped out of the lid and into the wort when I tried to push the airlock in so that sucked. Whatever, I've been experimenting with open fermentation lately anyway, and the lack of a good seal around the airlock won't be a big deal. I'll keep updating as it progresses.
 
You should take some of those grains and use them to make some spent grain bread!

Spent grain Chocolate Cake....mmmmmmmmmmmm

Haha, I tasted the spent grain and it definitely had a little bit of a chocolate flavor but I dumped it all out for the ducks. They will usually eat the whole lot within a day or so. Hope they aren't chocolate intolerant like dogs! :D
 
The fat in the chocolate shouldn't be an issue at all at that point. I noticed when my melted (double-boiled) 85% chocolate was in the kettle for just 5 minutes, the fat seemed to separate and float to the top, and I wouldn't be surprised if none of it made it to the fermenter. We'll see what happens when I add 2 more bars to the fermenter... though I still haven't settled on whether to melt it or just chop it into pieces. Any sanitation issues with chocolate?

Nice thermapen by the way. I love mine. In fact, I love my thermapen so much, I wanna take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.
 
Just kegged the beer with 2 oz of chocolate extract and 1 oz of vanilla extract. Taste was awesome! Very reminiscent of Young's Double Chocolate Stout, but with even more chocolate flavor. The chocolateyness was very similar to Young's, just stronger. Color is a bit light. When I make it again I may add a touch of carafa malt just to darken it up a bit, but the flavor is really just what I wanted. Can't wait to get it carbed up.
 
By the way, to get as much of the cocoa powder out of suspension as possible, I crash cooled the primary after fermentation was done to 44 F. Then after 4 days at 44, I racked to secondary on top of some gelatin and chilled to 32 F. It stayed there for 2 days until I kegged it tonight. It resulted in a very clear beer.
 
I'm curious about cocoa powder vs other forms because cocoa powder is the solids removed from the oils and such, but IMO the oils carry a lot of the nuttier and fruitier flavors with it. Hopefully eventually I can do a cocoa powder vs mexican chocolate vs cacao shells vs nibs vs european style chocolate bar and note the differences and combinations.

In my experience so far, cocoa powder drops out and contributes way less than I wanted and shells contribute strongly to the dark chocolate/nutty/fruity aspects. I hope to do more within a few months.
 
That looks tasty as hell. I'm not a big fan of adding "stuff" to beer, but chocolate, hmmm...

I saw that you used 1968. Did you try harvesting the yeast, or was there too much solids and other assorted crap to do so ? I would use 1318 and I've noticed that on hoppier brews, my second skim wasn't as clean as it could be if I had been making something like a Scottish Export or a Mild.
 
That looks tasty as hell. I'm not a big fan of adding "stuff" to beer, but chocolate, hmmm...

I saw that you used 1968. Did you try harvesting the yeast, or was there too much solids and other assorted crap to do so ? I would use 1318 and I've noticed that on hoppier brews, my second skim wasn't as clean as it could be if I had been making something like a Scottish Export or a Mild.

I did not harvest the yeast because I knew there was a ton of cocoa in there. And when I racked to secondary I had to muck through the trub to find the grommet I accidentally popped through when trying to put the airlock on and the yeast was brown with the stuff all the way through.
 
That's what i thought, thanks. I have an Oatmeal Stout on deck with chocolate malt (pale and dark) plus some amber and crystal. Your post made me consider mashing a bit of chocolate too for good measure ! I'll throw some "last gen" 1318 so I won't feel guilty about not harvesting it.
 
Had a pint last night in celebration of St. Patrick's Day. It is sooo good. Smooth, creamy, chocolatey, roasty. A nitro pour through the stout tap results in about a 1 finger, off-white, creamy head. Retention is decent, but it does reduce somewhat as you work down the glass. I'm very happy with the recipe, but can't help but wonder, was the chocolate bars and cocoa really necessary? I definitely got flavor from them, at least at kegging time, because the beer was cocoa-chocolatey even before I added the extract. But after sitting at 50 F for a week or two, I can't tell if it's adding to the flavor, or if the extract is what is giving it the chocolate. I think I'll have to try the recipe again, with no bars or cocoa. :D
 
Any sanitation issues with chocolate?

Chocolate has an absurdly long shelf life and acts as a preservative. I'm not sure of the mechanism for it but I know that things that have chocolate, cream and butter in them all have very long lives.
 
so is as chocolatly as youngs and southern tier?

honey malt might be a nice addition
 
I highly recommend secondarying (or tertiary) if you use real chocolate in your beer, especially if you throw it in the primary, or secondary, respectively. Why?

Well, attached is a picture of a beer I bottled on Monday. It transferred with the appearance of chocolate milk, though it's cleared up quite a bit and looks more like an actual stout now. I use a single clear bottle at the end of every batch to monitor clarity, so this is drawn from the bottom which I agitated slightly with the racking cane, meaning the actual bottles meant for consumption are likely not as bad but still, that's over an inch! There was an extremely thin layer of yeast above it, lighter in color, but it's very loose since it's been bottled less than a week, and disappeared when I moved it upstairs to take the pic.

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Chocolateyer than Young's by about twice. I've never had Southern Tier so I can't compare.
Southern Tier's Choklat is about 10x more chocolate-y than Young's. I don't find Young's to be all that chocolate-y, ST's is kind of 'over-the-top'.

I do agree that it seems that much of the added chocolate and cocoa powder ends up in the bottom of our carboys.
 
SpanishCastleAle said:
Southern Tier's Choklat is about 10x more chocolate-y than Young's. I don't find Young's to be all that chocolate-y, ST's is kind of 'over-the-top'.

I do agree that it seems that much of the added chocolate and cocoa powder ends up in the bottom of our carboys.

I didn't find Young's to be all that chocolately at first, but I just had one yesterday and it's definitely there. I bet if they brewed it with a good amount of lactose, you'd probably be noticing it a lot more, but I think the lack of sweetness makes it difficult for many people to pick out.

Never had ST's though.
 
I didn't find Young's to be all that chocolately at first, but I just had one yesterday and it's definitely there. I bet if they brewed it with a good amount of lactose, you'd probably be noticing it a lot more, but I think the lack of sweetness makes it difficult for many people to pick out.

Never had ST's though.
Yeah, it's there but once you try a Choklat you'll see what I mean. If for no other reason than to see 'how chocolate-y a beer can possibly be'; try Choklat if you get a chance. It really is liquid choclate.
 
That looks yummy.

Too bad it's too late/early in the year for this one. I'll have to remember in September to try my own version out.
 
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