Splitting a stout and adding chocolate, when?

[Bradmont]

My next brew is going to be O Flannagain's stout, and I'm thinking of splitting off about a gallon and adding some chocolate. So, I have a couple of questions:

1) Would this recipe be a good candidate to add chocolate?
2) When would be the best time to do the split? I feel the easiest would be at racking to secondary, but would that work well? Would it be better to split before/after the boil?

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

If you're adding actual chocolate, I would add it to the boil. Chocolate has a lot of head-killing oils in it which will be isomerized (isotroped...isomer..something) during the boil.

I haven't personally tried adding nibs, but if you were going that direction, you could "dry hop" them in the secondary.

 

[Bradmont]

Oh, I was thinking cocoa powder; would nibs be better?

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

Cocoa powder works fine...but I'd add it to the boil. I don't know if nibs are better or worse since I've never tried it, but I assume it would be somehow different. I'm just not in a position to qualify it.

 

[Bradmont]

Ok, boil it is. Any word on whether this recipe would be a good candidate for chocolate?

 

[HexKrak]

Head on beer just gets in the way of me drinking it, so I'm not too worried about that (also not planning on sacrificing any delicious bottles to competition ). My plan is to add some cocoa powder to the boil, and then age on nibs in secondary until "done".