when to add cacao, coffee, nibs, etc

[odie]

any benefit to adding cacao power, nibs or coffee grounds during the boil or wait until flame out? I do other spices after flame out.

I assume they don't need to boil for any period of time.

The cacao powder will dissolve into the hot wort almost immediately?

Coffee grounds will steep very fast while the wort is cooling.

And cacao nibs really do their thing over time in the fermenter...no?

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I add cocoa powder five minutes before FO as it does take a little time in the boil to get fully dissolved. Nibs get soaked in dark rum for a week before the whole works is dumped in once fermentation is complete and FG is stable. Never used coffee grounds...

Cheers!

 

[worlddivides]

fwiw, I add cocoa powder five minutes before FO as it does take a little time in the boil to get fully dissolved. Nibs get soaked in dark rum for a week before the whole works is dumped in once fermentation is complete and FG is stable. Never used coffee grounds...

Cheers!

Nibs in dark rum is a good idea. I've always soaked nibs in vodka, but a chocolate stout I've been planning to make in 1-2 months from now I want to have a rum-like character, so I initially planned to add black sugar (brown sugar but much darker), but am now thinking of adding molasses. Soaking nibs in, say, Myers dark rum could help accomplish that too.

I've made quite a few chocolate and coffee beers before, but I've always added them in secondary (cold brew coffee immediately before bottling or vodka that had been soaking cacao nibs a day or two before bottling). I actually have some chocolate powder (the kind for hot chocolate) that I've wondered how it would work if added to the end of the boil. I know some homebrewers do that, but I'm not so sure about the flavor.

I've also never used coffee grounds. Only cold-brewed coffee in my case.

 

[day_trippr]

Be cautious about using molasses as it is known to convey a metallic character.
Also, fwiw, "brown sugar" is just refined sugar with molasses mixed in...

Cheers!

 

[worlddivides]

Be cautious about using molasses as it is known to convey a metallic character.
Also, fwiw, "brown sugar" is just refined sugar with molasses mixed in...

Cheers!

I've used demerera brown sugar in the past and have enjoyed the character it imparts. The problem, though, is that typically 98-99% of brown sugar is fermented into alcohol (as opposed to 100% of regular sugar), though it might only be 97% for some of the darker brown sugars (and maybe even 95% or 96% for the black sugar I mentioned). I believe in the US brown sugar is often refined sugar with molasses mixed in, but in other countries (especially countries where molasses does not exist natively), it's just uncentrifuged cane sugar.

The main problem I have with using brown sugar is that to get the amount of character I want, I'd end up with an ABV of around 7 to 9% and it could end up thinning out the body more than I want, whereas I want it to be around 5.5% or so, so I'm considering molasses since only 50% or so of it is fermentable (depending on the type). But molasses has a very strong flavor, so I'd need to use a lot less of it to avoid getting too much of it. I'm currently thinking of 100 grams of light molasses for a 3.3 gallon batch, but I'm going to need to consider it some more before I actually brew it.

I do think your dark rum soaking in the nibs instead of vodka could mean I could either reduce the amount of molasses further or avoid it altogether.

 

[day_trippr]

If you can think of a way to test using dark rum you might give it a try. But it really is simpatico with stout in general and chocolate stout in particular. Vodka is close to characterless while that small amount of dark rum is enhancing, imo...

Cheers!

 

[worlddivides]

If you can think of a way to test using dark rum you might give it a try. But it really is simpatico with stout in general and chocolate stout in particular. Vodka is close to characterless while that small amount of dark rum is enhancing, imo...

Cheers!

Totally. Vodka being virtually characterless is the reason I've always used it as a solvent for things I want to add to secondary. I think the only other thing I've used is neutral grain spirits like Spyritus. But your idea of dark rum really hit me like a lightning bolt because I was thinking both that I want characteristics of toffee, caramel, and smokiness you get from dark brown sugar but also the more almost rum-like character you also get from molasses, but a lot of those characteristics I want are in dark rum, so why not use it?

Great idea, really!

 

[odie]

I've always soaked my nibs in Burbon or other whisky. Rum if that's all I got. Never used vodka.

Brown sugar. I try to buy whatever seems most natural but it's probably all the same just with food coloring. I've taken to waiting for flame out cause sugars tend to burn and stick to my electric element. same with DME and lactose. Cleaning is a pain.

Pretty sure most everything can wait until flame out. except hops since bitterness takes time in the boil. Aroma, not so much.

Coffee I've always tossed in towards the end since in my mind...I'm brewing coffee. But I suppose grounds cold in the fermenter will probably give the same flavor, perhaps without any of the bitterness a cup of hot black coffee has?

 

[InspectorJon]

Do a search here on HBT for adding coffee, there are a lot of posts on this subject. From my research and personal experience, I would recommend adding whole beans to the fermenter a few days before bottling. I would not add it to the boil. I mean who boils coffee? It makes bitter yuck. You don’t want that in your beer.

I have added cocoa powder at the end of the boil. It is a powder that really does not dissolve, it’s not water soluble. The flavors extract out but the powder does not dissolve and ends up in the trub. If you don’t let the wort settle for at least a couple hours it ends up in the bottom of the fermenter. That’s not necessarily bad but it increases the trub in the fermenter. I do both cocoa powder at the end of the boil and an alcohol tincture at the end of fermentation. I use Everclear. Personally I don’t like whisky flavor in my beer.

 

[odie]

yeah...I've noticed cacao powder does not dissolve. when I screen wort trub with cacao powder...the screen clogs tight and it takes days to get that bottom wort to pass. it gets dumped into the fermenter after a few days.

I did whole beans in the fermenter once. to a kolsch. replicating something from Banger Brewing.

 

[Dog House Brew]

Coffee for me is 3-4oz, course cracked, and added 3days before package. I’ve tried every way possible and this renders the best results.

 

[G_robertus]

I'm not that into coffee beer, but I've done some testing on the subject anyway. Cracking or grinding beans results in worse results and so does higher temperature. Ranked from best to worse it's whole beans for 1D at 4°C, cold brew at packaging*, cracked beans for 1D at 4°C, mixed cracked and whole beans at RT (~16°C at the time)**, whole beans at FO and finally cracked beans at FO. Heat and cracking both add astringency and make it taste more like old coffee. Especially heat is just not recommended.

*I do have to say that the cold brew experiment was with different beans and a different beer that I made years ago, so I can't tell for sure whether it was better or worse than whole beans cold. I'll try that just for the sake of it.

**This also was another beer that actually benefited from some astringency as it was too portery. I do think the combination made it better though. I also added honey and cacao after fermentation, so this is also hard to place in the lineup objectively. Might be a bit better than cold cracked, but I don't remember tbh.