Cacao Nibs

[Gold]

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience of using cacao nibs? Recently had Brewdog Cocoa Psycho and thought it was awesome and also Wild Beer Co Wildebeest (not quite as good as the BD), both aged on cacao nibs.

Online advice gives a wild difference of opinions, whether to soak them in vodka first, whether to roast them, quantities per L, etc. The health food shop near me sells raw nibs for a decent price.

If anyone has any experience thoughts would be most welcome.

[floydmeddler]

I am currently experiencing cacao/cocoa beans. Same thing only with shells... apparently.

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=58246

[stevetk189]

I've got a Mocha Stout trial on the go at the moment, best smelling tasting version right now - just coming up to bottling day - is the version that had the nibs soaked in vodka overnight, then added 1 minute from flameout. To my nose and palette it's more chocolatey than the version that's been sat on some nibs in secondary.

[floydmeddler]

Interesting Steve. I hope this continues into the bottle. I didn't really like adding the beans to secondary. Beer is really 'muddy' now. Please keep us posted.

[stevetk189]

Interesting Steve. I hope this continues into the bottle. I didn't really like adding the beans to secondary. Beer is really 'muddy' now. Please keep us posted.

Bottling it today so we'll see soon enough. I can't say i'm picking up any muddiness but I have only used 25g of nibs in each 25l batch - I've seen recipes using a lot more than that but I am very tight and wanted my 100g bag to last four trials.

Saying that, I may pull back that 25g a little as so far the choc is slightly masking the locally roasted and ground espresso which was intended to sit side by side with the choccy. We'll see, I've learned to wait until it's bottled and had a while to balance out. In 6 months time the reverse may be true.