Chocolate flavour

[Aaron]

Evening,

I'm planning on brewing a chocolate + vanilla stout. Just thought i'd see if I can tap into peoples experiences on the best way to impart a nice, rich, chocolate flavour. From some of the posts on here it seems cocoa nibs are a bit lame. What about adding powder? My intuition says it would be best to add post fermentation but i'm open to suggestions? Also what quantities?

Cheers

[Coffeeuk]

I've successfully used chocolate extract. You get it in liquid form just like vanilla extract.

[injac]

I've used cocoa powder in the mash...you get the chocolate flavour though the fats in the powder kill any head. Also no krausen during ferment!

[Kyle_T]

Cocoa nibs I have used for an easy and satisfying effect. 125g for a 23L brew, crushed or uncruahed it doesn't matter.

[Kev888]

FWIW I tried a brew with lots of cacao nibs added to the boil at 20mins before the end. They were quite strongly flavoured before and near tasteless afterwards so the flavour was definitely extracted... but could barely be tasted in the finished beer. Maybe 20mins was too long. Other methods are to add them to the fermenter and/or infuse in a little vodka.

[Aaron]

I've successfully used chocolate extract. You get it in liquid form just like vanilla extract.

I like the sound of this. Does the extract kill head retention?

[Aaron]

Cocoa nibs I have used for an easy and satisfying effect. 125g for a 23L brew, crushed or uncruahed it doesn't matter.

Kyle - did you add the nibs post-ferment or during boil?

[Coffeeuk]

No not at all

[Aaron]

Great. Thanks for the tips.

[Jocky]

I soaked a pack of cocoa nibs on vodka for 3 days. Couldn't taste it in the final beer though. Wondering if I need to roast them first instead.

[donchiquon]

I've been looking at a recipe for a coffee and chocolate stout that adds the nibs (90g for 23L) to the fermenter as you would do with dry hopping. No mention of sanitisation.

How does this sound?

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

I did a chocolate stout recently I soaked mine for about 10 days in dark rum then lobbed them in. Could taste the chocolate from them but not massively. Was just a subtle taste towards the end.


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[tuffty22]

The Rouge Chocolate Stout uses chocolate extract I'm sure and that's pretty tasty.

[Andy__]

+1 chocolate extract

[mshergold]

I've used cocoa powder for a chocolate porter before as well as chocolate malt. For 25 litres I used 250g chocolate malt and 200g cocoa powder.

Without access to my notes, I seem to remember that I looked at Bournville and Morrison's own brand organic cocoa powder and opted for Bournville as the ingredients stated only cocoa powder. I've brewed it several times and as far as I can remember experienced no problems with head-retention or with a krausen forming. I'm sure I added it to the boil when Graham Wheeler recommends you add sugars and other ingredients.