Chocolate porter

[Chris]

In my vein of beer made with left over ingredients...

3.5kg liquid black malt
340g crystal
240g black carafa II
14g chinook (15.5%) for 60min
7g target (11%) for 45min
5g target 20min
300g cocoa powder
Coopers re-cultured stout yeast

21L total volume.

What do people think? Especially in terms of the cocoa, as I haven't really used it before.

[KEG]

dang, that's going to be thick and rich!

looks tasty though. will be interested to see how the cocoa comes out - it might be hard to detect it on top of all the black malt and carafa II.

[Chris]

I've loosely based the recipe around Papazian's "Slanting Annie Chocolate Porter," which recommends 12oz of unsweetened baker's chocolate. It also suggests using 3tbs of cocoa per oz of barker's chocolate- as I am doing. I've worked out that the 36tbs I'd need will way about 270g, so I rounded up to 300g.

Do you think I need more? That's what I'm most worried about.

[Kevnlis]

Just remember the US tablespoon is 3/4 the size of the AU tablespoon being 15ml where here it is 20ml.

[Wassa]

Throw in 500gm of good quality yellowbox or clover honey.

It will go from being a good porter to a great porter!

[Chris]

Kev my tablespoon measure is 14.79mL. I've never even heard of an Australian tablespoon!

Wassa, almost all my beers of late seem to have honey- I am going for a bit of variety Hence, no honey this time. I'll see how this turns out, then maybe try it again with honey.

[Chris]

TL, if you are there, what do you think of the choc quantity?

[Trough Lolly]

In my vein of beer made with left over ingredients...

3.5kg liquid black malt
340g crystal
240g black carafa II
14g chinook (15.5%) for 60min
7g target (11%) for 45min
5g target 20min
300g cocoa powder
Coopers re-cultured stout yeast

21L total volume.

What do people think? Especially in terms of the cocoa, as I haven't really used it before.

G'day Chris,
The Carafa II will give a nice coffee and cocoa aroma, and 300g of cocoa powder is a brave addition! I'd be inclined to halve the cocoa powder, given that you have 240g of Carafa II in the grist. I've seen 5 Gallon recipes use between 10oz to 2 cups of cocoa in a batch, but I'd be wary of going overboard to begin with as the cocoa powder could easily overpower the flavour profile of the beer. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

You may also want to keep an eye on the boil and skim as you go - the following advice from brew guru Marc Sedam in the US may be relevant:

Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 10:43:13 -0500
From: Marc Sedam <marc_sedam>
Subject: chocolate porter

Hi Jeff,
Rogue actually uses chocolate in the recipe. Find your favorite porter recipe and add a can of cocoa powder to the boil. Skim off all of the gunk from the boil (it's the cocoa butter) and you should be OK. I also skimmed off the krauesen from the ferment too. You do this so that the head on the final beer isn't wrecked by the cocoa butter.
Good luck. Anything to bring another person into the beer brewing fold.

-Marc

Cheers,
TL

[Chris]

Ok, so you think I should drop the quantity a bit. I don't think I'd really need to skim, as I am using powder not butter (for that exact reason), but will keep an eye out and see what comes to the surface in the boil anyway.

[Trough Lolly]

No probs - I was taken aback when Marc suggested that the powder creates a "cocoa butter" presumably during the boil, and if so, it would murder any head you wanted on the porter...As you say, just keep an eye on it and skim off the skin of protein coag anyway, which is what I do during every boil anyway...

Cheers,
TL

[Chris]

Same as me. It just looks like it needs to be skimmed.

Thanks for the help everyone. It's going down tomorrow.

[Chris]

Wasn't too bad with coag on the surface. It only really came up when the hops and moss went in.

Glad it's done!

[Trough Lolly]

Good one! Have you had a taster yet? I sometimes have a sampler early on in primary!!

Cheers,
TL

[Chris]

I like to give it at good 12hours myself It stops it tasting quite so much like ME in water.

I went 270g cocoa, and the smell from the brewpot of that, the carafa and the crystal was incredible. Hope it's comes out well.

[Chris]

Racking this as we speak, and it tastes fantastic. This beer is liquid chocolate- dark, bitter chocolate. God it's good!

TL, if you make it to the Feb meeting, there might still be a bottle left. (There's no meeting in Jan is there?)

[Chris]

If anyone makes this beer as per my recipe, then there is one thing I will highly recommend...

RACK THIS BEER!!!

I just did, and there is about 6 inches of what looks like chocolate mousse all over the bottom of the fermenter. It is evil. The beer is bloody good though.

[Trough Lolly]

Congrats Chris - sounds very nice. You could repitch another batch of wort onto the mousse if you wanted to make the most of it this weekend - unless you're really clean and careful, I doubt whether the slurry is worth keeping for any period of time.

My Robust Porter should be tasty by Feb - could be an interesting meeting!!

Cheers,
TL

[Chris]

The slurry is now long since on the vegie patch. It looked too evil to go under another beer.

Battling porters in Feb!

[Ross]

Sounds great chris - i'm drinking a double choc porter at the moment, made with 2 x 250gm bars of dark 72% cocoa chocolate. I just added to start of boil. The beer is fantastic & holds a great head - no skimming.

I've also made a sour chocolate orange porter using the juice & rind of wild sour oranges (they make lemons taste sweet). This beer has also turned out great - like drinking a Terry's Chocolate Orange, for those from the old dart...

cheers Ross

[Chris]

Sounds great Ross- especially the orange. Post the recipe (assuming it's not a secret)

Where do you find wild oranges?