Hans sloan chocolate stout

[delboy]

Quite some time ago I made a variant of PoPs (he of breakfast cereal mashing fame) stout, it was a fantastic brew and swmbo has asked me to do it again in readiness for when she can drink homebrew again (junior brewer on the way start of april). Its a big beer but im hoping it should be ready to drink by then.

Recipe is going to be slightly different as i don’t have any caramunich which was in my original variant and im going to substitute oats in for flaked barley which i don't have in the stores.

Pale Malt 4.5 Kg
Vienna Malt 0.5 Kg
Carapils 0.5 Kg
Crystal malt 0.5 Kg
Oats 0.5 Kg
Roast Barley 0.4 Kg
Choc malt 0.4 Kg
black Malt 0.25Kg

On the previous one i mashed with chocolate etc, im unconvinced this made any difference to the beer, i did however also add some choc essence and vanilla extract which i believe did make a difference so i’ll be repeating that again.

Mashing at 67-68 C for 90 mins.

Going to be using bobek hops as the bittering hop , OG to IBU ratio of about 2:1.

Heres a link to the first go at it clicky

Naming it after hans sloan from my neck of the woods (visited his home town yesterday) the inventor of drinking chocolate (which was a prelude to chocolate as we know it) and whose private collections was the nucleus of the british museum.

[dave-o]

On the previous one i mashed with chocolate etc,

With actual chocolate? I've never understood why people would do this. Chocolate is:
-Cocoa
-Milk
-Sugar
-Vegetable fat

The milk and vegetable fat are things you definitely do not want in your beer. The sugar is going to be such a small amount that it'll pale in comparison with the other sugars in your beer.
So really the only thing you'll need is cocoa.

When i've made chocolate beers i've created a chocolate syrup thus:
-Add 100ml water to 250g sugar in a pan
-Heat it until sugar is melted
-Add cocoa powder and stir until combined

Add this to the boil - perhaps 10 minutes before the end.

I've always used Green and Blacks organic cocoa powder, as it's very chocolatey. I'd recommend two tubs of it in a 20-ish litre batch, if you want to taste the chocolate.

[mysterio]

Looks good.

I was listening to BBR yesterday and a commercial brewer (Odonata Beer Company) was saying he put real dark bittersweet chocolate in with the kegged finished beer , saying it was the best way to get chocolate flavour. Next best was actually mashing cocoa in with the grist.

Worth a try if you're brave

[delboy]

On the previous one i mashed with chocolate etc,

With actual chocolate? I've never understood why people would do this. Chocolate is:
-Cocoa
-Milk
-Sugar
-Vegetable fat

The milk and vegetable fat are things you definitely do not want in your beer. The sugar is going to be such a small amount that it'll pale in comparison with the other sugars in your beer.
So really the only thing you'll need is cocoa.

When i've made chocolate beers i've created a chocolate syrup thus:
-Add 100ml water to 250g sugar in a pan
-Heat it until sugar is melted
-Add cocoa powder and stir until combined

Add this to the boil - perhaps 10 minutes before the end.

I've always used Green and Blacks organic cocoa powder, as it's very chocolatey. I'd recommend two tubs of it in a 20-ish litre batch, if you want to taste the chocolate.

I've experimented a bit with chocolate, in the orginal there was real chocolate (belgian dark) and some chocolate mocha powder (twinning i think). I've also used cocoa in other brews, despite the naysayers telling me the fat would kill head retention it was a complete non issue (killed the fermentation head but not the head on the finished beer). As i said though i was unconvinced about the efficacy of any of these approaches to add chocolate flavour.

Actually nearly all of the flavour components of chocolate are fat soluble, hence why cocoa in water didn't catch on until hans sloan mixed it with milk which obviously has enough fat to carry the flavour compounds and why chocolate the world over is mixed with some form of fat. Expecting these fat soluble flavour compounds to transfer into a water solvent without additional fats is a big ask IMO, and explains (in my mind) why chocolate in the form of fat (ie real chocolate) may give better results (im still not convinced though).

The cheap bottle of chocolate essence i threw in after fermentation did a cracking job of giving me that chocolate aroma and subtle taste and which the vanilla extract seemed to complement.
In this case somebody has done all the hard work for me, they have extracted the major flavour compounds in ethanol which i can then adde simply by tipping my wrist.


I've found a quick and easy solution that suits me so i think i'll stick to that, good to hear though that people are successfully getting choc aroma and flavour in their beer using cocoa.

[dave-o]

good to hear though that people are successfully getting choc aroma and flavour in their beer using cocoa.

Not aroma actually, only flavour. Interesting to hear about essence though.

[delboy]

Not aroma actually, only flavour. Interesting to hear about essence though.

I highly recommend it, after all aroma and flavour are one and the same in many regards.

[mysterio]

I tried the cocoa essence after Delboy's suggestion, all I could find was some fairly pricey stuff from Waitrose but it worked nicely. I just took my ml syringe and added about 5 drops to the glass, inevitably you get sick of the flavour after a while but it worked well.