Ordered the malts and extract (amber instead of gold or dark) and read a lot of chocolate stout recipes, most people seem to be using semi sweet backing chocolate at 5min to flame out. Wonder how they avoid chocolate explosions...
Recipe Critique: Chocolate Mint Stout
- Thread starter Fisher kel Tath
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Again, since I'm not a "brewer", I'm guessing the "flame out" is when you stop heating the wort/mash/whatever on the burner? If so, you should have no issue with a "chocolate explosion" since that's similar to a nucleation reaction (like dropping Mentos into Diet Coke). Basically, the dissolved CO2 latches onto every tiny bump that they can and come out of solution that way. So because of the huge surface area of the chocolate powder, the CO2 goes crazy (similar to when you add nutrients, or imagine a fire eater spitting gas out their mouth...they make it as fine a mist as possible to increase the available surface area).
Long story short, you don't have any CO2 at the boiling stage, and therefore, no risk of an explosion.
Hope this helps...haha
I had an idea.
What if, when it comes time to bottle the beer, i take the chocolate mint tea and boil it with the water intended for the priming solution?
What if, when it comes time to bottle the beer, i take the chocolate mint tea and boil it with the water intended for the priming solution?
That sounds tasty. It would give you some fresh chocolate mint flavor. Go for it, if it'll pair well with the primary mead/must.
Got the chocolate mint tea today, tried about 3.5grams in a cup of tea. 20min steeping and smelled awesome but didn't taste all that strong, mint was more of a mouth feel afterwards.
Testing about 6 grams in 800ml of water in a long term room temperature steep for a couple days to check the extraction rate.
Will also do the same test (though in a smaller amount) in beer.
And beer test began, test subject is 200ml of Bell's Two Hearted Ale (ABV 7.0) with 2g of chocolate mint
Testing about 6 grams in 800ml of water in a long term room temperature steep for a couple days to check the extraction rate.
Will also do the same test (though in a smaller amount) in beer.
And beer test began, test subject is 200ml of Bell's Two Hearted Ale (ABV 7.0) with 2g of chocolate mint
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Additional experimentation you could try is halfway between making tea and room-temp steep: make tea with boiling water but steep it till it's cold (or 24 hours) rather than the traditional few minutes recommended by the directions. I find this works well for me for wine/mead because it releases more flavour which is fine for tea but also more tannins that you don't necessarily want to drink as tea but work fine when fermented.
Yea, I'm half tempted to put some of it in all 3 stages just to cover my bases.
1oz to 5gallons seem too much? or 10g per boil/primary/secondary?
1oz to 5gallons seem too much? or 10g per boil/primary/secondary?
Sorry I can't be more helpful, I didn't record the weight of what I used either time I made Applemint Wine... The first time I used a 750 mL yogurt tub packed full of dried applemint with a fairly short steep for one gallon and the second time I used a giant ziploc freezer bag of fresh-then-frozen applemint steeped overnight in a gallon of water for 3 gallons. The second batch came out much darker in colour but I think that's because it was frozen fresh instead of dried, it was already making brown juice while thawing before I steeped it.
Well obviously color isn't gonna be a problem hear, I'm looking at an SRM of like 42-46 so it's gonna be pitch black anyway
Just disclosing all observations!
I think I'm going to just drop the mint from this recipe and go with a chocolate stout, the mint tea i have i can't taste the mint in it even after 2 days soak and drinking 800ml in one go...
- 1lbs chocolate malt
- .5lb caramel 120L
- .25lb Roasted barley
- .5oz Cacao nibs
Heated 1 gallon of water to 155 (160), steeped grains for 30mins at 155-160, let set for 20mins, rinsed grains with half a gallon of 170 degree water twice
Preboil (2gallon) Wort gravity 5.5 brix
- 1oz German Northern Brewer (7.0%)
- 1oz First Gold (8.0%)
- 6lbs Amber LME
- 4oz Milk sugar
- 4oz Cacao Powder
Brought water up to near boil, removed from heat. Add 4.5lbs of Amber LME, returned to heat, water back to boil, added 1oz Northern Brewer Hops and 4oz Milk Sugar.
At 15 mins remaining added rest of LME. 10mins add 1oz First Gold hops, and at flameout added 4oz of cacao powder.
Sat wort in bath of ice water, stirred, stirred again after 10mins, wort was at 85-90 deg.
Poured wort into 2 gallons of cold (~50*) water, top off with another gallon of water to bring it just a hair above 5gallons.
- 1pkg 1084 Wyeast Irish Ale
Pitched yeast at around 65 degrees.
OG: 13 brix or about 1.050sg
This sounds like a tasty stout. So, are you dropping the mint because it was in tea form? You might have better luck with bruising up fresh mint (think mint julep) and adding it to secondary to age on until the desired "minty-ness" has been achieved.
I dropped the mint cause I couldn't taste it in the tea. Already one or two bubbles in the airlock. I'm tempted if I do the mint, I might just do mint extract at bottling.
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Racked to secondary. Which brings me to ask, how long should i leave it there before bottling? I was thinking 2 weeks, but not sure...
that was fun...not...carried the carboy to the basement, and it degassed a bit on the way down
that was fun...not...carried the carboy to the basement, and it degassed a bit on the way down
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You can pretty much bottle this whenever at this point. If you wanted to wait a week to let any big stuff drop out, go for it. If you wanted to wait another month, that's fine too. Normal-strength beers don't really require a secondary.
Bottled today, kinda odd in flavor, nothing upfront, nothing, then on the follow through it's all roasted and toasty... hoping carbonating and aging makes it more balanced...
Well figured I'd update this one.
It's a good strong flavored stout, but the chocolate presence is really low key in it I think. It is however darker than the inside of a black hole, 120w light bulb against the glass doesn't shine through at all.
It's a good strong flavored stout, but the chocolate presence is really low key in it I think. It is however darker than the inside of a black hole, 120w light bulb against the glass doesn't shine through at all.
