Brewing With Chocolate

MyQul · Jan 16, 2017

We regularly have someone ask how to add chocolate to beer. Here is a really comprehensive article from HomeBrewTalk on how to do just that

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/brewing-with-chocolate.html

BeerisGOD · Oct 29, 2017

I'm thinking of creating a syrup/extract with 100g of cocao powder. Using sugar, vanilla extract. Leaving in fridge over night. Then put in the boil. I've heard it's a bit bitter otherwise. But then wouldn't the sugars from the malts not be enough?

BeerCat · Oct 29, 2017

I think extract is wasted in the boil and better to add it in secondary or bottling. For the boil i would use a couple of vanilla beans. Cheapest i buy them for is ÃÂ£6 for 4. The coco powder is very bitter and adds more perceived bitterness which is why adding lactose can be good or more crystal. If you add sugar to the boil it will thin out the beer and ferment out so not exactly sure what the point of leaving it overnight is. I have just made a stout with a caramel sauce though so i guess that's just the same. I plan to try out some chocolate essence soon. Will split a stout and add various flavours.

BeerisGOD · Oct 29, 2017

BeerCat said:
I think extract is wasted in the boil and better to add it in secondary or bottling. For the boil i would use a couple of vanilla beans. Cheapest i buy them for is ÃÂ£6 for 4. The coco powder is very bitter and adds more perceived bitterness which is why adding lactose can be good or more crystal. If you add sugar to the boil it will thin out the beer and ferment out so not exactly sure what the point of leaving it overnight is. I have just made a stout with a caramel sauce though so i guess that's just the same. I plan to try out some chocolate essence soon. Will split a stout and add various flavours.

I think I'll go for crystal as the cheapest I've seen the lactose is on eBay and it's around six quid! Unless this is supermarkets cheaper?

Sadfield · Oct 29, 2017

I've said this before, but the easiest way to get chocolate flavour into beer is to use Chocolate malt, does exactly what name suggests and has no disadvantages like adding head killing fats, odd textures or adding extra processes to fermentation. Steep it and add to a kit or extract brew, or add to mash before sparge to get flavour and colour with reduced roasty bitterness.

Chocolate Malt

chub1 · Oct 29, 2017

BeerisGOD said:
I think I'll go for crystal as the cheapest I've seen the lactose is on eBay and it's around six quid! Unless this is supermarkets cheaper?

C. if you want some lactose i can send some up. How much you wanting?

BeerisGOD · Nov 2, 2017

MyQul said:
We regularly have someone ask how to add chocolate to beer. Here is a really comprehensive article from HomeBrewTalk on how to do just that

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/brewing-with-chocolate.html

There's also a thread on chocolate and 'pale' chocolate malt, which concludes the pale comes off more choclately, as I'm off to my local HB store later this is most likely the grain I'll be purchasing of the two.

Sad field, I see what ur saying but I'm sure brewers are just trying to achieve even stronger choc character for they're beer by using powder/nibs.

Sadfield · Nov 2, 2017

BeerisGOD said:
Sad field, I see what ur saying but I'm sure brewers are just trying to achieve even stronger choc character for they're beer by using powder/nibs.

I'd go along with that, but invariably there isn't a strong chocolate element to the base recipe. Often it seems that many go straight for the obvious addition and not look to use core brewing ingredients to achieve their goal. Usually this requires more effort and can be detrimental to other aspects of the beer.

For example, I've seen brewery's going to the effort of making salted caramel for Salted Caramel Stout, when a healthy crystal malt addition in the mash, and a salt addition at packaging, would be easier and more controllable. With the added bonus of making the Stout richer and fuller bodied rather than thinning it out with an unnecessary large sugar addition from the caramel.

Design a beer, rather than modify an existing recipe.

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Simonh82 · Nov 2, 2017

Sadfield said:
I've said this before, but the easiest way to get chocolate flavour into beer is to use Chocolate malt, does exactly what name suggests and has no disadvantages like adding head killing fats, odd textures or adding extra processes to fermentation. Steep it and add to a kit or extract brew, or add to mash before sparge to get flavour and colour with reduced roasty bitterness.

Chocolate Malt

I made a very standard porter recently Maris Otter, medium crystal and 200g of chocolate malt. I tried the first runnings before any hops were added and was staggered at how much like hot chocolate it tasted.

The end result was a nice porter but didn't taste very chocolatey. I think we expect chocolate to be sweet, so I think the suggestion to use lactose or another way to sweeten makes sense.

chub1 · Nov 2, 2017

Going to have a bash at a 'Youngs' double choc stout at some point:)

Sadfield · Nov 2, 2017

Simonh82 said:
I made a very standard porter recently Maris Otter, medium crystal and 200g of chocolate malt. I tried the first runnings before any hops were added and was staggered at how much like hot chocolate it tasted.

The end result was a nice porter but didn't taste very chocolatey. I think we expect chocolate to be sweet, so I think the suggestion to use lactose or another way to sweeten makes sense.

Totally. Designing in some residual sweetness through mash temperature, dextrine malts, yeast selection or lactose would work. Or a combination of.

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decanter2020 · Jan 6, 2020

Chocolate is fairly common in beer, and most brewers use cocoa nibs. White chocolate isn't chocolate at all, so I don't think adding chocolate would the same flavor as the candy that is commonly called white chocolate. It's got cocoa butter in it, and sugar, but that's about the only similiarity. I would be worried about the oils in the candy causing problems, but I haven't heard of anybody doing it so I really don't know.

BeerisGOD · Jan 8, 2020

decanter2020 said:
Chocolate is fairly common in beer, and most brewers use cocoa nibs. White chocolate isn't chocolate at all, so I don't think adding chocolate would the same flavor as the candy that is commonly called white chocolate. It's got cocoa butter in it, and sugar, but that's about the only similiarity. I would be worried about the oils in the candy causing problems, but I haven't heard of anybody doing it so I really don't know.

Wow this was a blast from the past

MrRook · Jan 8, 2020

I don't know if it's available in the UK but there's an American company that makes several unusual varieties of candi syrup including cocoa nib.

Hoppy · Jan 9, 2020

Without using chocolate, there are many ways of getting the flavour of chocolate into beer.
All have been touched on here, including the negative effects of actually using chocolate derivatives.
It is getting the correct blend of roasted malts. This will negate the need to doctor the beer with lactose etc.
The biggest problem with home brewing as opposed to commercial brewing is the ingredients.
The correct blend of freshly milled chocolate, crystal and wheat will give a great chocolate flavour.
Not all maltsters have the exact same ways of getting to the resulting spec of crystal (do I use 120/140/160 etc giving differing levels of unfermentables/intensity/sugar profile. Chocolate malt is no different, making it very hard to replicate/fine tune your recipe to get the desired result.
It is highly likely some maltsters blend some over coloured malt with under coloured to get overall specs.
Therefore, brewers use multiple malt suppliers for base malts and speciality malts, drawing on their individual expertise/strengths.
That said, best results seem to come from nibs, if you're going down the chocolate use route.

RummerMan · Feb 14, 2021

Love this, thanks for sharing. There are so many options and approaches. Would be interesting to split test and see which is the tastier approach. Either way, this sounds like something worth a try.

Brewing With Chocolate

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