Using toasted coconut?

olotti · Dec 24, 2016

lilbova3 said:
BYO recently had a write up about adding coconut to beer. There were two ways they recommended adding coconut, at flameout and in secondary. They recommend roasting the coconut at (I forget the temp) until it's lightly browned. Sanitize in vodka if adding to secondary. The couple of clone recipes they had using anywhere from 2.5 oz to 2 lbs for a five gallon batch, I believe.

I'm interested in doing a beer with coconut and think I'll use closer to the 2 lbs. Death By Coconut by Oskar Blues and Bolo by Burial are very coconutty and fantastic brews and would guess they add a lot per gallon.

I just grabbed 2 12oz bags of unsweetened coconut that I plan on toasting and using. The store I went to actually had bags of toasted shredded coconut but I figured I'd rather do it myself.

lilbova3 · Dec 24, 2016

olotti said:
I just grabbed 2 12oz bags of unsweetened coconut that I plan on toasting and using. The store I went to actually had bags of toasted shredded coconut but I figured I'd rather do it myself.

Good call.

olotti · Dec 25, 2016

lilbova3 said:
Good call.

The toasted did smell good and had a nice light brown color to it so I know what to toast it too. I will say 24oz of coconut is a lot more than I thought. I was gonna just throw it in primary for two weeks but now I'm thinking of doing two steeping bags instead as I could see using loose coconut like using whole hops, one would lose quite a bit of beer in the end. What was ur plan? Hop sack or free floating? This batch for me is in a bucket so I use sterilized cheesecloth tied off with sterilized dental floss and then just close the lid so it steeps like a tea bag. Worked well in the past for the coffee bean and coca I nib flavorings I've used.

lilbova3 · Dec 25, 2016

olotti said:
The toasted did smell good and had a nice light brown color to it so I know what to toast it too. I will say 24oz of coconut is a lot more than I thought. I was gonna just throw it in primary for two weeks but now I'm thinking of doing two steeping bags instead as I could see using loose coconut like using whole hops, one would lose quite a bit of beer in the end. What was ur plan? Hop sack or free floating? This batch for me is in a bucket so I use sterilized cheesecloth tied off with sterilized dental floss and then just close the lid so it steeps like a tea bag. Worked well in the past for the coffee bean and coca I nib flavorings I've used.

I plan to add it to the serving keg in a paint strainer bag attached to floss.

olotti · Feb 17, 2017

So kinda resurrecting a thread but wanted to give my thoughts on my first attempt with coconut. So I toasted two bags 24oz total and added them to cheesecloth sacks and steeped for two weeks in my ris. In the end there's maybe only a slight coconut flavor on the finish however I also added coffee beans so that may be covering up the delicate coconut flavor. The one thing the coconut did do was as previously stated and it killed head retention, there's a head when pouring but after that zero and it also leaves a film on the sides of he glass I'm guessing from the oils. All in all next time I wouldn't steep the coconut I'd prob just add it directly into primary in hopes more of the flavor is extracted and I'd skip the coffee so the coconut could stand out more but as to how to avoid the killing of head retention I'm not sure how If your gonna use real coconut to get by this seemingly side effect of using real coconut.

ToddCarrick · Apr 1, 2017

So an update on my brew...again I toasted 8 oz and put that in the mash and toast 16 oz and put in the secondary...this was a toasted coconut porter. Turned out amazing, but the coconut flavor began to subside after 2 weeks. Next time I will leave the toasted coconut in the secondary for 2 full weeks. Here is a link to my review of the finished product: https://youtu.be/1BB3VkofseU