Our Chocolate Mead Experiment

[brauhausjoe]

It probably would not hurt, I'll go ahead and purge with CO2

 

[Pat_13]

Any updates?

 

[dinich]

We're going to give it at least three months in the secondary, so will be taking a closer look sometime towards the end of June, and make a determination as to what to do at that time.

We may bottle, rack to tertiaries, or just leave it for a while longer.

Since the racking in March, all six have cleared nicely, some to complete clearness (abloe to read through), others still a little cloudy but able to see through ( you can see how many fingers I'm holding up

We will, however, be updating this thread as each step goes on.

D

 

[dinich]

After 4 months in the tertiaries we bottles these Chocolate meads last night
We know it was a little early but inquiring minds want to know

SG 1.120 FG 1.008 ABV 15.3%

Without further ado the results of our highly unscientific taste test:

031 – 24oz Hershey Chocolate syrup:
Light Chocolate smell and taste, high alcohol burn, Good dark Color, Overall : Not bad

032 – 1, 6.8 oz Plain Hershey Chocolate Bar
Buttery aroma, Bitter on the front end with a "Black Forest cake" aftertone Good color, almost Clear like white wine. Low Alcohol taste. Overall 1/2 like , 1/2 dislike (to bitter)

033 – 2, 6.8 oz Special Dark Hershey Chocolate Bars
Hint of chocolate smell, Higher Alcohol burn, and bitter
Color good Overall : thumbs down

034 – 6oz by weight, Hershey dark coco powder
Smells really good, Dark chocolate aromas, bitter at first with dark chocolate after taste, bitter was overpowering up front Overall : Not as bad as #33 but won't make again

035 – 6oz by weight Nesquick coco milk mix
Light chocolate aroma. Very good chocolate flavor. ice coco color. We have a winner. High alcohol taste but covered nicely by the chocolate. Very smooth. Plans are already underway for a 10 gallon batch of This

036 – 6oz by weight Hershey unsweetened coco powder
Smells great, Definite bitter cocoa flavor , Good dark chocolate color


Consensus vote #35 was the run away winner, as stated we are already talking about the next batch. We will probably cut back the ABV to 10-12% next time. We hope this will give us a more drinkable product.

#31 and #32 while not taking our top place both produced what good be a good mead.

Hope our little experiment has helped someone
We'll update when we open our next bottle at Christmas 2009

D

 

[bubbachunk]

Awesome, I think I may have to try a 1 gallon batch here soon.

 

[Matrix4b]

Sounds great. You may see how it is after another year of aging. On another site I heard of a guys recipie and he claimed it took 2 years to age properly. I was thinking on trying this but I noticed that most chocolate has a bit of vanillin in it, read as vanilla. SO I was thinking on doning my batch with coco powder, adding vanilla and back sweetneing it a bit. I thing that the bitter ones you mentioned would be great as a blended flavor. Take say 1/2 of your chocolate and mix 1/2 of a regular sweet mead and that should balance it all out, have a great flavor and it shouldn't water down the chocolate too much. Oh and aging it for a full year or even 2 years. Patients is very hard sometimes.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

I'll bet a few cherries & a vanilla bean would go well in #35. It's just a thought. Regards, GF.

 

[dinich]

First order of business is to make 5 gallons of this recipe

Our next plans inlude nut flavored honey, Your recommendation of cherries and vanilla, possibly strawberrys

We found a honey with caramels overtones, thought a batch of that might work nice

The possible combinations are almost endless

I wonder if I could work out a banana combo

We'll keep trying

D

 

[KCPyrate]

This sounds pretty amazing. I'm going to have to try a batch. Thanks for doing the experiment. Looking forward to hearing others experiences!

 

[ericd]

It looks like all the ones with emulsifiers (lechitin) did well. The buttery notes are probably from the cocoa butter (white chocolate) in the chocolate bars. Nesquick contains maltodextrin and plain table salt which are probably the secret ingredients that pushed it ahead.

How about combining raw cocoa powder for the strong chocolate flavor, white chocolate for the buttery roundness, maltodextrin and lechitin for the mouthfeel and a pinch of salt to bring out the chocolate flavors to get the best of all possible worlds?

 

[KCPyrate]

Has anyone tried this with Swiss Miss or some other hot cocoa mix? I have a bunch around so I just wondered. Ingredients are: Sugar, Modified Whey, Corn Syrup, Cocoa (Processed With Alkali), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Nonfat Dry Milk, less than 2% of Salt, Dipotassium Phosphate, Carrageenan, Artificial Flavor.

Compared to Nesquick ingredients: Sugar, Cocoa Processed With Alkali, Soy Lecithin, Carrageenan, Salt, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Spice. Vitamins and Minerals: Calcium Carbonate, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Zinc Oxide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Copper Gluconate, Manganese Sulfate, Biotin.

 

[jcobbs]

How about one with Carnation chocolate malted milk mix? You get chocolate and malt extract. Would that be considered a chocolate braggot?

 

[Clayton]

i just wonder how long before the fat in teh milk chocolate goes racid
because when it does it will be so so nasty, that why you normaly use coco powders and bakers coco , all the coco butter (fat) is removed so its a stable product that will not go bad.

 

[mrgoodcheese]

From my experiences adding chocolate in the secondary, when you add chocolate in whatever form (powder, chips, liquid) most of it settles to the bottom and is racked off. Taste and color change, but without haze and it tends to clear pretty much naturally within a few months. Based on taste after 8 months so far, I have to assume that any milk/fat settles out with the solids.

 

[brauhausjoe]

It has been 10 months, so far no issues. We are planing another tasting around new years, we will post our findings.

 

[Androshen]

When you say "6oz by weight" what are you referring to? Is it 6oz/gal?

 

[dinich]

We used 6oz of chocolate powder, weighed on a digital scale, in one gallon of mead

Hope that helps,

D

 

[Androshen]

Perfect! Now to do some shopping .....

 

[Androshen]

So then ... 15 lbs of honey, 5 tsp of acid blend, 5 tsp yeast nutrient and 30oz of Nesquick coco milk mix .... is that about right?

 

[dinich]

My cans of Chocolate mix were 16oz a piece so I added the contents of both
32 oz total in a five gallon batch

D

 

[cheezydemon3]

what was the question?

(to the OP)

 

[scinerd3000]

It has been 10 months, so far no issues. We are planing another tasting around new years, we will post our findings.

looking foreward to this.

 

[1Brotherbill]

The people I work with think that this has got to be really nasty. However, I think this thread is the reason why I'm going to start brewing. Experimentation is the way of life for me. Looking forward to the taste test around new years.

 

[brauhausjoe]

The people I work with think that this has got to be really nasty. However, I think this thread is the reason why I'm going to start brewing. Experimentation is the way of life for me. Looking forward to the taste test around new years.

We look forward to providing it You are really going to enjoy brewing. If you have any questions, please come back and ask!

 

[Androshen]

Just in case anyone has gluten allergies and is wondering ... I have just did some Googling and have found at least 3 separate sites that state clearly that Nesquick cocoa milk mix is indeed Gluten-Free.
Good news for people with celiac disease that may want to try this recipe ...

 

[brauhausjoe]

Just in case anyone has gluten allergies and is wondering ... I have just did some Googling and have found at least 3 separate sites that state clearly that Nesquick cocoa milk mix is indeed Gluten-Free.
Good news for people with celiac disease that may want to try this recipe ...

Outstanding! That is a nice extra bonus.

 

[1Brotherbill]

Well it's after New Year's. What you got for us for a taste test?

 

[dinich]

We tasted all of the "chocolates " as well as some of our other experiments.

For reference we did:

031 – 24oz Hershey Chocolate syrup

032 – 1, 6.8 oz Plain Hershey Chocolate Bar

033 – 2, 6.8 oz Special Dark Hershey Chocolate Bars

034 – 6oz by weight, Hershey dark coco powder

035 – 6oz by weight Nesquick coco milk mix

036 – 6oz by weight Hershey unsweetened coco powder

The results:

31 smell fantastic, cloudy amber color, has chocolate taste, biteer going down.

32 Color very clear, almost white wineish clear, Smell not chocolatey, Smells more buttery, taste is buttery, bitter hard to swallow

33 Color light amber clear, smell very sweet, taste is buttery, bitter hard to swallow like #32 above

34 dark amber clear, smell sweet and chocolate, taste is buttery, bitter hard to swallow like #32 and #33 above

35 Clear golden color, smell chocolate sweet, taste chocolatey and sweet, drinkable

36 Color cloudy medium amber, smell sweet, taste bitter
Comment included "Dump it NOW!" "Please throw it away"

At 15.3 ABV there were comments on all the meads about the "Alcohol" burn at tasting, I think we also added a touch to much Acid blend and caused some problems.

Number 35 is still the clear winner.

We have two more batches of this working, one with the original recipe minus some honey to give an ABV of 11-12%
the other with a varietal honey.

Both of these are about 6 months into processing

Doug

 

[jaxn]

Number 35 is still the clear winner.

Sweet! I just got 2 lbs of Nesquick at the store yesterday.

 

[mrgoodcheese]

Other than #36, I'll bet that you have much better tasting concoctions for all with 11-12% ABV.

So far I've had very good results with adding chocolate shavings into the secondary of 12% semi-sweet mead.