I’ll never use this CRAP again. Off the cuff I decided to try it in a chocolate stout. Not saying its bad, but its not up to snuff. I guess I’m getting more and more against using adjuncts because while they may contribute certain flavors or attributes IF you don’t have the malts available… they are still by far substandard, and usually an undesirable quality or character carries over in the final product. jmo… ymmv. This stout is drinkable and probably not really bad but I won’t use cocoa powder again when I can brew much better with malts… it just won’t happen again. I feel like it was a waste and detriment to use it. :
If you’re looking to get more chocolate flavor in your brew, cacoa nibs! By far the best flavor/aroma I have found for chocolate. I was really disappointed in the powder too
A month ago I had a sweet stout that used ground cocoa (cocoa powder). It was like drinking chocolate milk smoothie. I’m telling you, it was absolutely amazing.
My Brown tasted like a mocha coffee at one point and I didn’t use any cocoa but I did once in an extract batch with pale and dark DME. Not a lot maybe a 1/4 cup of Hershey’s in a 4 gal batch. It was nice beer. That keg went quickly.
I’m for at least trying chocolate again.
The only experience I had with cocoa powder was in a German Chocolate Cake Porter recipe I tried . . real aggravation. Not from the flavor standpoint as the beer really did taste like German chocolate cake. But my BK had a SS braid in it and the cocoa powder clogged it like epoxy. My advice is if you want to use cocoa powder and you have a screen or mesh in your BK, better remove it first.
Dean, were you trying to get a flavor with cocoa powder that you usually get from malt? Were you trying to make a chocolate stout? I’m just trying to get at what you were up to.
I added half a cup of cocoa powder at 5 minutes left in the boil thinking it would give it more of a chocolate kick. What I got was a dry powdery mouthfeel sensation. But with that said it is subsiding now, maybe it settled in the keg with any yeasties that transfered. It didn’t give it the kick I expected though either. I was a tad short on chocolate malt thats why I added it, next time I’ll be sure to have more of the malt on hand rather than subbing. ::) A little more roasted malt might have been the better choice. Its drinkable, actually quite smooth going down but not the flavor I wanted. I’ve also noticed that I have to crank my pressure up a couple of pounds here to get the right carbonation… it sucks when I’ve got two different styles and only one regulator. 
IMO, the best way to get chocolate flavor in beer is with extract, like Rogue does with their excellent chocolate beers. Starkay White is about the best brand of chocolate extract around, if you can source it.
Did you use the Powder in the Boil or “Dry Hop”?
I tried the Powder one time in the Boil and the other as a dry hop to attempt to reproduce a Youngs Double Chocolate Stout. I received very different character results from the chocolate in both cases.
I put the chocolate in the boil last 5 minutes, and dry hop was placed in when yeast dropped out, and essentially left for two to three weeks until the flavor development was at the level I wanted.
At some point, I am going to try a chocolate extract and see if that is just easier. If I do not like those results, my plan is to play with ratios of chocolate powder in the boil and dry hop to see if I can dial it in better.
In my opinion, the chocolate in the dry hop never really settled out, and gave me a bit of a chalky sensation when drinking the beer. I was thinking of using a fining if I dry hopped chocolate poweder again.
Also, the chocolate in the boil gave me much more of what I was after, but either I did not add enough or the flavor characteristics were not quite what I was expecting. When I blended the two beers, however, I was very close to what I wanted.
Hope that helps, and Good luck.
+1
I see they sell that in 4oz bottles around $9. Any idea as to how much in a 5 gallon batch? And would you add something like that at bottling?
I’d add to taste at bottling or kegging. My usual method is to pour 4 2 oz. samples and dose each with different, measured amount. Taste them all and pick the one you like best. Scale up the amount of extract to the batch size.
I’ve used 12oz Semi Sweet Baking Chocolate added at start of boil to my normal stout. It came out real nice. My Stout Chocula. Next time I’d up it to about 14-16 oz to really put the chocolate up front.