I want to substitute chocolate for some or all of the corn sugar in my porter. Any suggestions on the amount of chocolate and the kind of chocolate I should use?
1lb black malt
1lb crystal malt
6lbs Dark DME
1lb corn sugar
2oz galena Hop pellets 13.2% Bittering
2oz Belma Hop pelets 11.3% Flavoring
1 Tsp Gypsum and Irish moss
American Ale Wyeast.
Any feed back would be great.
I would not substitute chocolate for the corn sugar in your porter.
If I were to make this according to the recipe, I would sub in about 1lb extra light DME, and use a tincture of cocoa nibs into the keg or bottles (4oz vodka on 2oz cocoa nibs for 1wk, for 5 gallons).
If I were making a Chocolate porter without the recipe, I would go something like this:
7lb Extra Light DME
.5lb Medium (60-80L) Crystal
.5lb Chocolate malt
.5lb Black (patent) malt
2oz (meh, I think this might be overzealous, 1oz or about 25-30 IBU) galena (or magnum) for Bittering
NO Flavor hops - (I think they would clash with the chocolate)
and use American ale, or some British strain.
Add Chocolate tincture (as prepared above) to bottling bucket or keg.
if you want to meet a specific flavor standard, you can take a dropper of some sort, and add a measured amount of Chocolate tincture to 1 pint of beer, and scale up to the full amount. I personally have found that 4oz tincture to 5gal beer is exactly where I like it.
As always, YMMV
I use a Ghirardelli dark baking chocolate bar in my stout. You can definitely taste the chocolate. It’s either a four ounce or eight ounce bar, whichever size they sell. I use the whole bar.
I don’t think it will replace the 1lb of corn sugar you’re planning to use, but you could cut back or just add the chocolate and not worry about it.
I’ve used cacao nibs only once and that was recent. I didn’t care too much for the base beer to start with, so I don’t really have an opinion yet on what they added, but nibs are a popular way to get chocolate flavor.
I like cocoa nibs, also. I’ve used them in Bock and Double Bock, about 3 ounces per 5 gallons, added to the keg. A pro brewer recommended that you remove them after three to five days to prevent some weird off flavors from developing, but I’m not sure what they were.
Thank you all. I will try both Nibs and backing chocolate at some point to see what I think.
Chocolate would not be an appropriate substitute for corn sugar in this recipe. However, if you want to add chocolate flavor to it I have had excellent results using this coca powder (Black Onyx Cocoa Powder for Baking | Savory Spice) at the end of the boil followed by using cocoa nibs from the same company in the secondary.
+1 on cocoa powder at the end of the boil
Good thinking flavor-wise! You just need the right kind of chocolate.
Any type of fat/oil/soap that gets in your beer, especially in the fermenter/bottle, will kill the head. The suggestions for cocoa nibs, cocoa powder and bakers chocolate have little to no fat or oil content. Adding it at the end of the boil further reduces the risk of it carrying over.
If you want to replace the sugar (which doesn’t bring much to the beer besides higher ABV), you can just substitute more DME. Or you could just leave it out!
Yeah, I have since realized, from every ones input, that substituting chocolate for corn sugar isn’t a good idea. But I do enjoy the 8+ PABV, so i will leave the recipe the same, but add backers chocolate at the end of the boil. Just not sure how much to use in a five gallon batch.
I had a bad experience a long time ago when adding cocoa powder at the end of the boil however I must have used the wrong type or something. I boiled a mixture of water, baking dark cocoa powder, corn sugar, and honey then added to the end of the boil. By the time the beer was ready it was extremely bitter and undrinkable. I don’t think it was an infection. I have been wanting to try this again
I think I used Hershey’s dark cocoa baking powder…
Read the description of the product link I posted. It is “alkalized” (whatever that is) to remove more of the fat content. It is very dark black, almost purple. As for the amount, I can’t help you with baker’s chocolate, but for the cocoa powder I add 4 oz for 5 gallons. Then another 4 oz of cocoa nibs in the secondary.
That coca powder looks delicious! Brings out the confectioner in me. I will order some for my next experiment of this recipe, and a bit more to coat some truffles. And I’m going to take my second carboy out of my failed lagering fridge, to use as a secondary fermentor. Not throwing out the mini fridge, I can get that working.
Coca powder? What kind of brew do you think that would go best in?
That would be a Columbian White Ale. What else?
Well the Colombian white is off. Called both the homebrew stores in town and neither carries coca powder, So it will need to be the original chocolate porter using coc**O**a powder. Who would have thought spelling could turn a legal hobby into a fellony :o
At one comp I was judging, I was given a quinoa/coca leaf pale ale to judge! Have no idea where they got the coca leaf.
Did you see sounds and taste colors? Or did you just talk a lot?
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