Cholocate Milk Stout

[gedburg101]

Hey,

I've done about a dozen all grain brews now and I'm sort of getting to grips with the process and my equipment. Whilst I love stouts and porters, so far I've brewed exclusively pale ales and IPAs.

I want to make a Chocolate Milk Stout.

This is what I'm thinking;

3.18kg Pale Malt (US 2 Row)
0.46kg Munich Malt
0.46kg Roasted Barley
0.34kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
0.34kg Chocolate Malt
0.28kg Flaked Barley
0.22kg Flaked Oats

15g Magnum - 60 mins (pellet)
30g East Kent Goldings - 10 mins (pellet)

0.46kg - Lactose - 10 mins

Yeast

Safale Americal US 05

Father Christmas also got me a 180g block of Venezuelan 100% cocoa. I'd like to incorporate this if possible to add the chocolaty notes but I have seen from many recipes that cocoa nibs are the usual order of the day. This block is 100% cocoa so from a composition point of view its just ground, emulsified cocoa nibs but I'm still not positive it'll work.

So;

1. Is there anything obviously wrong with the Grain bill or hop schedule?
2. Can I use my fancy Venezuelan choc block in my stout?
3. If yes, when and how? e.g. while in the fermenter or as a boil addition?

Any input much appreciated.

 

[TheRedDarren]

Looks good to me. One thing to note is you do have a lot of speciality malts in there... If this is your first dark beer I'd say two things to be aware of. 1) You'll have quite a drop in efficiency compared to pale beers, my system always gets me 84/86% on pales but, depending on the grist, down to about 65% on dark beers. When you factor in low attenution aswell your ABV can be half what you'd expect. 2) Start simple. That grist, whilst looking pretty good, is complex. I'd go with a large portion of base malt then no more than three specialty malts to start. Then once its ready you can adjust from there. At least thats the sensible and conservative approach, if that doesn't suit you, go for it!

Regarding the cocao, the fat content is quite important. If it's emulsified, what with? Emulsification is the process of getting two substances that don't usually bond to mix with eaach other without splitting. What did they use for this? Maybe oil, in which case it could impact on head retention. I've used cocao nibs and it takes a little longer to condition and produce a head, it has had a small effect. You can negate a lot of the effect if you have the means to cold crash.

 

[Hoddy]

Looks good to me. One thing to note is you do have a lot of speciality malts in there... If this is your first dark beer I'd say two things to be aware of. 1) You'll have quite a drop in efficiency compared to pale beers, my system always gets me 84/86% on pales but, depending on the grist, down to about 65% on dark beers. When you factor in low attenution aswell your ABV can be half what you'd expect. 2) Start simple. That grist, whilst looking pretty good, is complex. I'd go with a large portion of base malt then no more than three specialty malts to start. Then once its ready you can adjust from there. At least thats the sensible and conservative approach, if that doesn't suit you, go for it!

Regarding the cocao, the fat content is quite important. If it's emulsified, what with? Emulsification is the process of getting two substances that don't usually bond to mix with eaach other without splitting. What did they use for this? Maybe oil, in which case it could impact on head retention. I've used cocao nibs and it takes a little longer to condition and produce a head, it has had a small effect. You can negate a lot of the effect if you have the means to cold crash.

Exactly what Darren said. Start simple, see how the beer turns out. If you're too complex right off the bat then developing it to get it better will be difficult. (it won't be a world beater first time out) then you'll struggle to work out what to tweak.


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[Tanzanite]

dissolve the chocolate in a pint of boiling water,let it go cold, throw in some ice cubes any solid fats should rise to the top and solidify and stick to the ice cubes just pour out the choc liquor into another container, you then add the chocolate liquor to your brew towards the end. Its same principle for defating stock to make gravy

 

[gedburg101]

Looks good to me. One thing to note is you do have a lot of speciality malts in there... If this is your first dark beer I'd say two things to be aware of. 1) You'll have quite a drop in efficiency compared to pale beers, my system always gets me 84/86% on pales but, depending on the grist, down to about 65% on dark beers. When you factor in low attenution aswell your ABV can be half what you'd expect. 2) Start simple. That grist, whilst looking pretty good, is complex. I'd go with a large portion of base malt then no more than three specialty malts to start. Then once its ready you can adjust from there. At least thats the sensible and conservative approach, if that doesn't suit you, go for it!

Regarding the cocao, the fat content is quite important. If it's emulsified, what with? Emulsification is the process of getting two substances that don't usually bond to mix with eaach other without splitting. What did they use for this? Maybe oil, in which case it could impact on head retention. I've used cocao nibs and it takes a little longer to condition and produce a head, it has had a small effect. You can negate a lot of the effect if you have the means to cold crash.

Cheers for the advice.

I've never properly tested my efficiency (although I know I should have) so when building recipes I generally work to 65-70%.

I've lifted the bulk of the grain bill from another recipe. If I was to cut back on the specialty grains where would you suggest beginning?

The block is 100% cocoa so I presume the cocoa solids and cocoa butter have been emulsified during the grinding and conching. Given its super dark chocolate though, I assume there will be very little cocoa butter in it.

In hindsight this might have been a bit of an ambitious build for a first time. Do you think nibs would be better?

 

[Tanzanite]

i might be right , i might be wrong, but i have just finished a stout using 125g of 80% chocolate from lidl and 200g of lactose, i reheated the choc liquor and dissolved the lactose in it then stirred it into the stout. left it a couple of days and bottled,

 

[BeerCat]

Personally i would not use US05 for a Stout unless it was an American hoppy one. I prefer WLP004. Coco is best with below 10% fat so i have read (Gashslug). Last time i added coco and lactose to a Stout kit came out extremely bitter so beware. I love high IBU beers too.

 

[TheRedDarren]

dissolve the chocolate in a pint of boiling water,let it go cold, throw in some ice cubes any solid fats should rise to the top and solidify and stick to the ice cubes just pour out the choc liquor into another container, you then add the chocolate liquor to your brew towards the end. Its same principle for defating stock to make gravy

Thats a good idea!

 

[TheRedDarren]

Cheers for the advice.

I've never properly tested my efficiency (although I know I should have) so when building recipes I generally work to 65-70%.

I've lifted the bulk of the grain bill from another recipe. If I was to cut back on the specialty grains where would you suggest beginning?

The block is 100% cocoa so I presume the cocoa solids and cocoa butter have been emulsified during the grinding and conching. Given its super dark chocolate though, I assume there will be very little cocoa butter in it.

In hindsight this might have been a bit of an ambitious build for a first time. Do you think nibs would be better?

Personally I'd go with...

Base malt - you need this, obviously.

Roasted barley - again, you need this.

Choclate malt - definately include this, but push it quite high, the addition of lactose means you can put quite a bit of this in as it tones down the harsh roasty flavours quite a lot and acts a bit like a seasoning for the chocolate flavours. In a recent milk stout I made (Mikkeller) I put 25% in, but that included 1 kg of lactose which chilled it right out again. Most books say no more than 5-10%... You call it...

Crystal - for a bit of added sweet caramel..?


One last thing, vanilla can also act to highlight the choclate too, worth thinking about. but maybe try this once you've sorted out the grist.

 

[gedburg101]

Personally I'd go with...

Base malt - you need this, obviously.

Roasted barley - again, you need this.

Choclate malt - definately include this, but push it quite high, the addition of lactose means you can put quite a bit of this in as it tones down the harsh roasty flavours quite a lot and acts a bit like a seasoning for the chocolate flavours. In a recent milk stout I made (Mikkeller) I put 25% in, but that included 1 kg of lactose which chilled it right out again. Most books say no more than 5-10%... You call it...

Crystal - for a bit of added sweet caramel..?


One last thing, vanilla can also act to highlight the choclate too, worth thinking about. but maybe try this once you've sorted out the grist.

The recipe is based on a BrewSmith one I found so as far as why things are included I can't be completely sure.

I have the Mikeller book so I think I might make their milk stout as a trial run. I might be running before I can walk here...

 

[Manxnorton]

There loads of make the milk choc stout!!
And many additions to try!
My recipe is tried n tested from both the Ag set up I had and now the GF!
But now I prefer the lactose in the batch when nearly bottling!
Found out if in the boil the reading goes to 1.012 and stops.
I've been trial adding hazel nut vannila essence in the brew befor bottling!!


Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.530
Total Hops (g): 15.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.043 (�P): 10.7
Final Gravity (FG): 1.011 (�P): 2.8
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.22 %
Colour (SRM): 18.4 (EBC): 36.2
Bitterness (IBU): 8.3 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
3.800 kg Maris Otter Malt (83.89%)
0.270 kg Crystal 60 (5.96%)
0.200 kg Carapils (Dextrine) (4.42%)
0.200 kg Chocolate, Pale (4.42%)
0.060 kg Black Malt (1.32%)

Hop Bill
----------------
15.0 g East Kent Golding Leaf (4.7% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------
270.0 g Lactose Acid @ 15 Minutes (Boil)

Single step Infusion at 66�C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 20�C with WLP004 - Irish Ale
Bri

Good luck it a brew that need tweaking for your needs!