Day 21: Chocolate Stout by Brian Roth

[Scott H]

I've done lots of wheat and IPA homebrews, but only one stout. I decided I would try giving a stout another shot and found a kit on sale through Austin Homebrew. (free shipping!) It was my first-ever partial mash.

In addition to the malt bill that came with it, I wanted to try and give it some "holiday cheer," which is why I added actual chocolate to the boil. I threw in some pumpkin pie spice because it was the end of October and it just felt like the right thing to do at the time.

Enough rambling, here's the lineup:

Grain Bill
.25 lb Black Patent malt
.25 lb chocolate malt
.25 Black Roasted barley
.5 Crystal 40L malt
.5 Carapils
1.5 lbs Pale Ale malt
5 lbs dark extract

Hops
1 oz Galena

Yeast
1 pack, Safale US-05

Additives
16 oz semi-sweet Baker's Chocolate
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice


In attempt to maximize chocolate flavor, added Baker's chocolate at 10 minutes
Added pie spice mixture at 5 minutes

OG 1.058

Single-step fermentation, 14 days in primary

FG 1.018
ABV ~5.2 percent

*Knowing oils from the chocolate was going to knock out the head retention, I added the .5 Carapils to give more body to compensate.


Hope you guys enjoy it. Always appreciate notes as you break them open, as I'd like to try to continue with partial mash and want to get good enough to do it on a regular basis.

[bryan]

Quick note: part of my reasoning to do pie spices and bakers chocolate was because I had the homebrew ingredients, stopped at Target and thought, "why not?"

For a second go round, I'd probably use cocoa nibs instead. C'est la vie.

[luukinen]

Bryan,
I enjoyed this beer last night with dinner. I got a ton of roast and lots of really dark chocolate, which I think covered up the spices a bit. You got a big mouthfeel and big body in this beer, so it really is robust for its low ABV. This was great with sausage and smoked peppers, and I'm sure it would be even better with a steak or burger. I think cocoa nibs would really add that aroma you're looking for, and a spice addition in the secondary may keep the volatiles of the spices from being driven off by fermentation. A solid, tasty, roasty stout. Well done.

[Chris Creech]

Mine was a gusher. About half the bottle erupted out in the sink. I think this might have ben an infected bottle, because it sounds like bryan had a good one. So hopefully it was just mine.

[Allen H]

That's interesting yours exploded. I thought my bottle paired really well with my bacon. I think using the cocoa nibs might impart more of a flavor, but hey, I enjoyed it.

[klinger]

This was a nice stout. Mine was fine carbonation-wise. No gusher here. The only slightly odd thing was that I had these tannish floating bits in my beer (maybe 4 of em). I'm pretty sure they were bits of fat from the chocolate. I spooned them out and as they warmed they melted into an oil-ish layer on top of the beer I spooned out. I didn't get any negative flavor consequence though. Just had never seen this in a beer before.

Nice beer.

[Heiko R.]

Brian, my bottle was perfectly carbonated and the pour resulted in a nice tan head. Also noticed a couple of small tan pieces floating in the beer, wonder if that's from the chocolate. Solid stout, good mouth feel and I could pick up the pumpkin spice. Overall I enjoyed this one. Thanks for sharing!