Chocolate Malt or Cacao nibs?

Ingredients
1

So Im thinking about making a Peanut Butter Cup brown ale (I know most people do this as a stout but I wanna try this).  Would I get better chocolate flavor from using chocolate malts or if I put some cacao nibs in the secondary for a week before bottling?  I plan on using 1lb of pb2 in the last 10 minutes of the boil.

2

The ‘chocolate’ in chocolate malt refers more to its color than its flavor. Chocolate malt is a roasted malt used in brown ales, porters, and stouts. Cacao nibs would work better.

3

thanks for the help!

4

and add the nibs in secondary and not in the boil right?

5

Yeah, I crack them and add them to a fine mesh nylon bag, and into secondary until it tastes the way I like then pull the bag. Sample every day.

6

It’s really depends from maltster to maltster for roasted malts and crystals. I’ve used US choc malt and they do not have a good flavour, but the UK chocolate malts are amazing! It’s like coco pops when u chew on the malt. I get a very good chocolate flavour and aroma purely from the malt in a porter. It’s the same for crystal malt, the UK and german (Caramunich/cara-aroma) have a very pronounced caramel flavour to it, whereas the US malster doesn’t nail it for me. The german cara-malts do differ slightly from the UK ones, but are better subs than the US ones.

Personally, i like chocolate malt to give the flavour vs cocao nibs, and roasted barley vs coffee grains. It marries into the beer better and gives a nicer choc or coffee flavour than the actual thing which I find sticks out a little too much like a sore thumb, can be a little distracting and overpower other subtleties in the beer.

Kinda like belgian yeast expressing spice better than adding actual spice like cloves or nutmeg… etc.

But this is purely my palate.

7

Yes, I agree that you get more “chocolate” flavor from the U.K. chocolate malt. They are darker and more flavorful than the U.S. chocolate.

+1

8

I agree that the UK versions are much better in flavor than domestic, but given his ‘peanut butter cup’ beer, I felt that the cacao nibs might get him closer to his goal than having the roastiness of a chocolate malt.

9

I see a cocoa nib candi syrup available from Cascade Beer Candi Company that might be worth considering. Last week I brewed a sweet stout with their tart cherry candi syrup. I really liked the flavor straight out of the jar and am looking forward to tasting the gravity sample I plan to take on Wednesday.

10

thanks for the input!  I appreciate it

11

Can I ask if you posted a recipe for this? Sounds interesting for a friend.

12

How much nibs would you add to a 23litre?

13

three gallons, O G 1.058 (about 1.068 after candi syrup added), IBUs 33
4 lbs. Irish malting company stout malt
1 lb.  Blackprinz malt
1 lb.  flaked barley
8 ozs. British crystal 60
8 ozs. lactose powder
4 ozs. midnight wheat malt
mashed at 154f for 45 minutes
1 lb.    tart cherry candi syrup to be added after primary fermentation is mostly over (day three)
1 oz.  WGV @ 6.4% for 45 minutes
pinch  irish moss plus 1/4 tsp. nutrient for 15 minutes
1 pack Munton’s plus
1 pack K-97
yeast pitched at 12:40 pm at 63f. There were signs of fermentation by bedtime at 10 pm and was bubbling every three seconds at 7am the next morning.

14

thanks looks very interesting