WWYD? Vanilla beans and cocoa nibs

[mgr_stl]

I'll be adding vanilla beans (I guess more like vanilla extract from the two gutted/chopped beans I will have been soaking in a couple ounces of cheap vodka) and 4 ounces of cocoa nibs to my northern brewer chocolate milk stout kit.

I'd really rather not secondary. Would you crush the nibs before throwing them in? Soak in a bit of vodka? Put in a hop sack or let them roam free? How long would you leave them in before cold crashing and bottling?

As for the vanilla, would you toss the whole shebang in the fermenter or just the strained vodka? Hop sack? When would you put it in the fermenter?

Or would you add just the strained vodka to the bottling bucket? How long would you soak the beans in vodka?

Feel free to respond to any part(s) of this question-heavy post. Or also feel free to ignore it if you think I am over thinking this



What would you do?

 

[day_trippr]

I use 8 ounces of roasted nibs and a scraped bean in enough dark rum to cover and let that sit for 4-5 days before dumping the works in a clean carboy and racking my stout on top.

You don't want to do a secondary, but I think a lot of the goodness might get lost to the primary debris when racking off. My stouts start around 100 points and by the time the yeast have knocked that down to the low twenties there's a pretty deep pile of "non-beer" in the bottom of the carboy that the nibs might just disappear into.

Indeed, my stouts and porters are the only beers that ever see secondary vessels...

Cheers!

 

[Conan]

When I used nibs I let them steep in vodka for ~ 8 hours just to ease my sanitary mind, and dumped the whole works (4 oz. nibs, ~3 oz vodka) into a muslin bag suspended in a keg.
You can secondary in your primary vessel. Tie non flavored dental floss around a nib- filled muslin sack in your fermenter and fasten the other end of the floss to anything outside the fermenter. You can pull the nibs whenever your palate tells you to. Kyle

 

[mgr_stl]

Good info, guys. I'll have to sleep on it.

 

[Calder]

Keep vanilla beans in vodka for as long as possible if you want to maximize flavor. You are still extracting flavor at 3 months, probably even longer.

If i were you, I'd let the beer go as long as you can, and then add the liquor at bottling, saving what you can of the beans. Then add another couple of beans + vodka to the old beans and set aside until you next want to use vanilla. I have some that have been sitting for 5 months - still don't know what I will be using them in.

 

[beerisking]

I have a roasted chocolate porter going and I have nibs soaking in Basil Hayden Bourbon for three days now and tomorrow I will try and freeze the fat/oil off and then pitch the whole thing into the secondary for a week or two? It sounds like I may need mesh or cheesecloth around my siphon wand when it comes time to rack to the bottling bucket based on how others said the nibs can clog it. I was thinking of adding a vanilla bean or two for a short time as a mild flavor adjunct. From reading about vanilla, it can kinda be like salt where it can raise the flavor profile of other ingredients, if used lightly. Not sure if this is the case and want to be straightened out on this if incorrect. Whatever you do, it will come out good and you can retry on the next beer.

 

[Natdavis777]

When I use nibs, I use 4oz/5gal and crush a little bit and soak in 8oz of Kettle One for a week. I shake the mason jar a few times daily and the end result is a very nice cocoa extract that gives me a very aromatic and flavorful cocoa taste. for straining, I wrap some sanitized panty hose over the mason jar and strain into a sanitized vessel (old whisky pint).

As for the vanilla beans. I am still experimenting. I want to try the same method as the cocoa nibs but havnt got around to it yet