Plan is to use the nibs I can get cheaper from BSG. But I wanted to add some Belgian Chocolate to the whirl pool. In the business world we call this a “gimmick”.
Callebaut is by far the best commercial Belgian chocolate. Côte d’Or is also quite good, but not as good als Callebaut. There is better, of course, but then you go into the realm of the “single origin” stuff. Very very expensive and silly to put into beer.
When I last put chocolate in my boil kettle, it took me an entire day to get my plate chiller clean. Flush, flush and re-flush with hot PBW. Chocolate is greasy and when melted will plate out on the first cold thing it touches. Beware.
I agree that Callebaut is probably the best Belgian chocolate you can get your hands on in the US. Chocosphere is where I get most of my chocolate fix satisfied, and I do think they have some Callebaut cocoa powder:
As an aside, when I had my dark chocolate blog I would consistently get 10 times as many hits when I posted about some mediocre mass-market stuff like Godiva, compared to the really high-end single origin stuff from guys like Pralus and Amedei. You know your audience, so you should consider whether Godiva may be a better choice for name recognition’s sake.
That is interesting feed back and I appreciate it. I’m not sure I want to go so gimmicky as to use a brand name. Just “Belgian” is enough for me, as long as it is factual. But of course most people are idgits (not a typo, direct from looney tunes) and what you post makes so many damn sense!
I used to use Ghirardelli in my stout just cuz I could tell people it had Ghirardelli chocolate.
I’ve gone to using simple baking chocolate. Whatever they have at the store. It’s been years since I used powder.
I add it in the last 5-10 minutes of the boil. Never tried the whirlpool, but the baking bars are thick and I’m not certain they would fully melt in the whirlpool. Powder wouldn’t give you that issue.
I think that just saying “Belgian” chocolate is sufficient. There aren’t too many people who would know Coat da Oar from Callebaut, IMO.
Powder in the boil seems like the best way to go. Of course nibs in the fermenter. Anyone ever try chocolate syrup in the fermenter? Chocolate extract? Liquor? Combination there of?
Man…I need to try reading some posts here more often.
First off, this post is silly. Second off, you are missing the point on this one. I appreciate more your posts before which were helpful. this one I might as well have seen on Facebook.