AG x: Prunus Theobroma Chocolate Cherry Stout

[richc]

The recipe for this brew is a pretty simple one, until the last minute of the boil. It starts as a fairly chocolate malt heavy stout.

3kg Pale Malt
500g Crystal
500g chocolate
100g torrified wheat
50g black malt

Mixed by brewing assistant no.1

Mashed at 67C which I hit exactly, with interference from brewing assistant no.2 who wanted to add a toy aubergine.

Then 20g of fuggles as first wort hops

Boiled as usual until the last minute when I added a whole tub (200g) of pure cocoa powder and 300ml of polish cherry stuff. As expected this made the wort look rather like mud (sorry no picture of this, busy at the time). But it cooled and drained fine with quite a lot of the chocolate getting through to the fermenter.

Pitched with WLP04 (Irish Ale) and set to ferment at 21C....

 

[WelshPaul]

By "Polish cherry stuff" do you mean the drinks syrup that is for sale in most Polish shops?

 

[jinxy72]

hope he dont mean this :lol:


cherry blossm by jinxy72, on Flickr

 

[TheMumbler]

Looks good rich, is the cherry syrup that lowicz stuff? I'm thinking raspberry mild...

 

[richc]

Yea, it's the Lowicz stuff, surprisingly reasonable cherry taste considering there isn't an awful lot of cherry in it.

 

[WelshPaul]

So how did this turn out?

 

[Archtronics]

+1 for that

 

[richc]

Kegged it on Sunday, it's fermented down pretty dry and has a nice dark chocolate taste with a reasonable touch of cherry. I added a bit more cocoa powder (100g) and cherry liquid stuff (~100ml) about 4 days into fermentation to boost the flavours a bit.

 

[luke_tucker]

Hi all,

After reading through your recipe I've spent all day looking for the lowicz cherry syrup you're on about but cannot find it anywhere - living in Cornwall is always interesting if you're after something other than root vegetables...

Anyway, can anyone offer a substitute? How would tinned cherries work, maybe blended up and reduced down?

Luke

 

[richc]

I wasn't massively impressed by the syrup, it was OK but not as cherry flavoured as I would have liked. I have also tried jars of cherries with a little more success.

I think the next time I will try a mix of whole cherries and canned or frozen ones. I want to use some whole cherries to try to get some of the flavour from the pits....

 

[luke_tucker]

Thanks Rich,

I think I'll go for a handfull of of fresh cherries then - leave the stones in and cook them down with a bit of water and sugar then add to fv1 and 2.

 

[richc]

Sounds good, I'd probably add more than a handful though, for 20l you probably want at least .5kg. Have a search for recipes and see how much they use.