I'm After A Orange And Chocolate Beer Recipe

[boostin]

Well I brewed the Jaffa Porter about a week and a half ago (Saturday before last). Had alsorts of trouble, including a stuck sparge. It took near an hour to finish my sparge and ended 40Lts with an SG of 1.039. After nine days fermenting @19C the SG is only down to 1.014 giving me ABV of 3.25%.

Is there any way i can bring down the SG?
Will upping the ferment temp help?
Will gaving it an almighty stir help?


jeddog

How did this turn out?

 

[jeddog]

CRAP :icon_vomit:
Just poured the first 20lts onto the garden (needed the keg for a Kabooby's Mocha Porter i'm about to try, love this recipe).

No head retention, had a head like a pot coke.
Too much oil from the chocolate, i think
I still have another 20Lts that i just can't bring myself to piffing away

If i was to try it again i would use Kabooby's Mocha Porter recipe and add some orange zest and thats it...

O well, thats brewing. Ya gotta try these things, if yaou don't you will never know...

cheers

 

[geoff_tewierik]

What was the actual taste like?

 

[jeddog]

could'nt get passed the no head thing.......

still got 20lts of the stuff left, I'll get back to you...................

cheers

 

[manticle]

Considering you want the chocolate flavour and any sugar will ferment out why not just add in good quality cocoa? Top quality chocolate is mainly cocoa anyway - if you liike the milk chocolate flavour then chuck in a bit of lactose as well.

Avoid the fat I reckon.

 

[manticle]

And the post I was replying to disappeared.

 

[Uncle Fester]

And the post I was replying to disappeared.

Sorry - I read further and decided to restart my question.....

Do you think the head retention was crucified by the anount of chocolate? I was thinking of doing a choc porter and using 250G of dark choc. GMK recomended skimming the boil.

aiming at a post boil volume of 22 litres. Would 250G be too much?


As always, comments welcomed, yours especially Manticle!


BTW, cocoa leavesa very bitter result I believe (stand by to be corrected though)


Fester

 

[manticle]

I'm definitely not an expert and the only chocolate flavours I've had in homebrewed beers have been either from organic cocoa or choc malt. However consider that chocolate is made up of different proportions of cocoa/cacao (which is bitter) sugar (which is fermentable and shouldn't affect flavour), fat (which supposedly affects head retention and otherwise adds nothing beneficial to a brew) and milk (which contains unfermentable sugar that may add sweetness and balance the cocoa bitterness as well as fat).

Which elements are desirable in a chocolate beer? Choc flavour with a hint of bitterness certainly. Some sweetness quite possibly. Richness most likely.

Take cocoa (high quality) and lactose and mix with some steeped choc malt. You will get these desirable elements. However add fat and you run the risk of destroying your results. Sugar is neither here nor there except in calculating your exact gravity which may not matter so much.

My advice, to be taken with a grain of malt is EITHER brew with lactose and cocoa and maybe some choc/choc chit malt OR split the batch and compare the effect (one with choc, the other with cocoa etc). At least you know then that some of the beer will definitely be unaffected by too much oil.

By the way - in terms of bitterness (which is not out of place in a brew) - I think it must depend on how much is used. My extract stouts that I made were milk stouts and they were quite sweet. I could taste the choc but it was certainly not overpowering. You want a hint rather than a whole Brazilian farm.

I'd eat the chocolate personally.