I’m thinking about adding fresh spearmnt to chocolate stout. I read about adding it in the last 5 minutes of the boil, after flameout, and during secondary racking like dry hopping. I also saw a message about some “bad” things concerning spearmint. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
not sure what ‘bad’ things you are refering to but boiling any mint will make it bitter and tannic. at flameout would be fine and dry-minting would probably also be fine. the first would be like a mint tea (although with fresh herbs you would likely get a little more vegetale character) and the dry-minting would by like adding a sprig of mint to a glass of water, fresh and mostly in the aroma.
This is all speculation as I have not done this. I do know you can use mint as a bittering agent although it’s different than hops bittering obviously.
The only bad thing I can think of would be the flavor…just doesn’t sound appealing to me in the least.
Really? chocolate and mint of any kind goes really well to me. spearmint has a slight chocolate like flavour component anyway. Hmm. to each their own I guess.
I’m barely a fan of chocolate and mint (hey, why destroy good chocolate), but I’m definitely a fan of beer flavored beer. As you say, to each their own.
…and bourbon flavored beer, and vanilla flavored beer, … 
I do like good plain really dark (90+%) chocolate. it is an experience that should not be mixed with anything. But a 76% with mint or chiles or ginger… many flavours play very well with chocolate IMHO
Surprisingly (or maybe not), I kinda burned out on that a long time ago. When I brew it now, I give 99% of it away.
That’s understandable. I have never oaked a homebrew because I got burned out on commercial “bourbon barrel” beers back in 2007 or so. And I am already tired of American sour ales and mixed fermentations… My focus has definitely shifted chiefly to 4-6.5% abv all-malt beers.
Thanks for the advise! details about the ‘bad’ weren;t mentioned but I have to belive you got it right about releasing bitter an tannics in a boil.
Sometimes I think there’s a collective unconsciousness amongst us homebrewers.
I just did a mint chocolate stout a few weeks ago, it’s in secondary with 4oz of cacao nibs as we speak. I used 1oz of dried peppermint (I prefer it to spearmint, the latter tastes too much like chewing gum to me) at 5 mins. I have not dry-minted it yet, I’m going to taste it after another week or two in secondary and evaluate further. The last time I tasted it was just before transferring to secondary and the mint character was exactly what I wanted, light and noticeable but definitely not overwhelming. It tasted much more like beer than mint, exactly what I was going for.
It probably won’t be ready until around xmas, but that’s what I was shooting for anyway. :) Now if I could just decide on a brown ale/nut brown recipe to brew next… any suggestions?
Well I just tasted the batch. I added about 1/2 to 1 oz of fresh leaves at flameout. It mostly tastes like beer and I really can’t taste the mint. Maybe a good thing. Beers good anyway!