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dicko

Boston Bay Brewery
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Can anyone tell me which malt causes that chocolate flavour that you taste in some stouts and porters. Is it roast barley, chocolate malt or black malt.
I want to do a stout and create that flavour but only as a hint as I dont want it overpowering.
I tried chewing a bit of each of the grain and I dont think it is the black malt, but I cant pick between the other two.
Cheers
 
Chocolate malt will or alternatively:

cocoa
milo
dark compound cooking chocolate, or
coco pops :lol:
 
Thanks Guys,
Chocolate malt is the go and the stout will be under way by the weekend.

Kenny i think I will save the chocolate for Easter eggs for the grandies and for late additions in the missus cakes. :D :lol:

Cheers
 
i just shoved my toffee chocolate porter into the fermenter on the weekend(smelt glorious) and I used an entire box of cadburys velvet drinking chocolate. Its pure chocolate(looks like broken bits fo cadburys flake), and from what I can read doesnt seem to have preservatives, so in it went :D
 
I hope to taste that sometime pr!me....
 
no problems, hopefully it will be my first kegged beer if things go to plan, so it should be available when i throw a bbq and christen the bar :D
 
pr1me said:
i just shoved my toffee chocolate porter into the fermenter on the weekend(smelt glorious) and I used an entire box of cadburys velvet drinking chocolate. Its pure chocolate(looks like broken bits fo cadburys flake), and from what I can read doesnt seem to have preservatives, so in it went :D
Pr1me, that sounds awesome!
Can you post a recipe? I've never tasted, let alone brewed a porter.
I'm getting a bit tired of my standard ale recipes. The toffee chocolate porter sounds like it would be a real treat!
If I wanted to see what porters are all about, what do you recommend me trying?
 
james squire make a porter...closer to a dark lager but will give you an idea.

Samual Adams does a Porter too.

Hope this helps.
 
having never tried a porter myself i wouldnt be a good judge yet lol

The recipe is part kit, and a few ideas of my own, its made from a muntons gold porter kit(2 can 3kg kit), and i made my own toffee in the oven by spreading a mix of castor and normal sugar over a baking sheet in a baking tray, and slapping it in the oven at 200C for about 25 minutes, it gets a little burnt by that time, but that was what i wanted. After that, 10 minutes its cool to the touch and should come right off the baking sheet. Then just shatter it and jam it into the fermenter with the chockie and the kit cans. You will need lots of boiling water to melt and dillute all the toffee/chocolate and kit mix. Stir the shit out of it and shake it often or the chocolate is gonna settle methinks.
 
Instead of doing the tofee in the oven - judt do it on the stove.
You are making belgian candi sugar.
add a little lemon juice/citric acid to sugar, just cover with boiling water and heat it up until it is boiling.
Let it boil until it turns the colour you want - golden thru to deep dark burgandy.
Turn off heat - stand well back and pour in just boiling water.
Will hiss and staem - this stops it from going into hard crack.

Now add this to the boil or the fermenter etc.
 
if this brew turns out ok, might try that next time, if i dont get distracted by something else i want to experiment with in the wort :D
 
Thanks for the input guys but you fellows doing the kits and bits certainly do some radical things as far as additions are concerned.
Cadburys chocolate, cooking chocolate and all the rest must be pretty risky to say the least particularly if you have spent good money on a Muntons kit or other kits and bits.
When I was at Goliaths during the Batz world tour I was lucky enough to try a sample of TDA's oatmeal stout and IMO it was perfect for my taste.
The reason for my question was to find out what GRAINS created that marvelous taste so that when I am formulating my own recipes I may achieve some of those excellent flavours that are so unique to brews of that type.
At this stage in my brewing I dont think I could bring myself to do a five hour mash and boil with all grain to then add an adjunct that may ruin the whole thing.
I am currently reading the Daniels book on Designing Great Beers and I find it is great for my level in all grain brewing so with due respect I will just be sticking to grain adjuncts.
Cheers
 
Nothing wrong with coffee or chocolate in a beer, but better to add these to the boil.

There is a malt, kilncoffee malt, that looks like pale chocolate malt adds a coffee taste. Have some on order from overseas.

Jovial Monk
 
Jovial_Monk said:
Nothing wrong with coffee or chocolate in a beer
yes JM.
But have a closer look at the approach some of these bits brewers take.
Theres a big difference between a craft brewed beer with the addition of chocolate and just some bits brewer adding choc just because he can.

Jayse
 
hehehehe

Just chucking things into a brew generally means every brew tastes the same

My approach is to formulate a recipe sitting down with brewbook, pen & calculator. This recipe is then adhered to rigidly--no on-the-fly changes

JM
 
jayse said:
Jovial_Monk said:
Nothing wrong with coffee or chocolate in a beer
yes JM.
But have a closer look at the approach some of these bits brewers take.
Theres a big difference between a craft brewed beer with the addition of chocolate and just some bits brewer adding choc just because he can.

Jayse
Jayse (GMK getting on Soap Box)

You are sounding like an "eletist" like those people that say " you are only a real brewer if you All Grain"

We all craft/create beers - some have the time, equipment and inclinination to go AG - others dont.

There are different skill levels involved in both - but we are all real brewers, albeit different brewers.


(GMK now off Soap Box)
 
just because not everyone creates a beer from scratch, i see no reason to label them "just some bits brewer", it makes us or our ideas no less important. I dont have the time nor equipment to do an all grain mash, period.

That being said, I dont see how I am wasting anything in putting chocolate in the brew. It may work, it may not, but I wont know until I try it, thats how i aquire knowledge. I could read until blind and humm and harr about it, or i could just do it and see what the result is. If something is buggered due to process or product, i have learned, and that is good. I change my process, or i change my ingredients. If i lose a kit, so what, there will always be other beers.

As to rigidity of a recipe, it may be great to spend time with a calculator determining amounts and weights, but being rigid does not innovate anything. How many of us have created something wonderful through chance mistakes or outright cockups. I know acouple of my brews turned out great due specifically to the fact that I made mistakes or took chances with new ingredients.

At any rate, I know the amounts of the adjuncts i've added, once finished i will know the result. If i feel something could be altered, theres next time, and no doubt ill add something else entirely next time as well to ensure that brew is specific, special, and above all, different. If i wanted the same thing over and over again, I'd buy megaswill from West End.

sorry for the flame, but thats just how i feel, and i dont think there is any need to belittle or mock anyone in this community based on HOW we brew. We all brew, we are all brewers, and that is why we are here, regardless of our methods.
 
Nothing I, and I am sure jayse also, applies to all grain brewing or implies only all grain is worth doing.

The creativity goes in the recipe.

Jovial Monk
 
As iam being labeled a so called elitist. I'll go the whole hog. Please recognise this is aimed at becoming a more advanced brewer not a dig at any type of brewer.
Iam not gunna hold back because i may offend someone with a post, i don't mean to ever offend anyone. My posts are generally aimed at helping people to brew better.


JM hit the nail on the head I never made mention of all grain brewing being superiour.I do believe however that anyone who is really a advanced brewer will prefer all grain brewing. there are some advanced brewers that use extract but not many advanced brewers will use dark extract, hop extract or old extract and they will always design the recipe in the same way a all grain brewer would.
A good extract brew (which can hold up to a good all grain if done right) will be made in the very same way as a all grain beer only you will sub a lot of pale malt for light unhopped extract.
Now this is not what some so called masters of extract brewing do, Their recipes look nothing like a recipe a all grain or any advanced brewer would do but simply a list of all these things they think in their own mind will make a good beer.

Now there's is nothing wrong at all with using what ever you like in a beer and experimenting. You could put a old sock in there and i won't question it if you have designed the base recipe well and have some thought process and reason behind this practice and use the best known practices for making beer.
Its just the way some people go about making up the base recipe that sometimes to be honest makes this 'elitist brewer' cringe.

What iam saying is and this does'nt really aply to you pr!me as i can see clearly where your coming from but to be honest GMK does the reverse.
ie he wants to use all these other ingredients but the way he brews is just not cricket, not because of the way he adds whatever he feels like but because i beleive he is using the adjuncts in the wrong way.
Maybe putting the horse before the cart really. A chef will base a good soup on a well known and proven practice of making soup then he will maybe add something a little extra on the end. He doesn't think i want to make a soup with something wierd so the wierd ingredient is the main player. The wierd ingredient will only play a small part and the soup will be made to fairly strict chef's practices he won't just add a bit of this and a bit of that.
Much like i believe a extract brewer should brew.

All right so you think iam being a elitist, i don't think thats the case at all iam only interested in helping everyone make the best possible beer they can.
If anyone can't see that then that can't be helped.

Iam no 'know it all' or 'master' by a long shot and will never claim to be as long as i live. But nobody needs to be to make great beer and to understand how to make great beer.

Part of the reason i give GMK such a hard time is he claims to be a master of extract and bits and pieces and i honestly think his practices are not that of a master of the craft. Honestly i think he needs to reavalueate the his approach to brewing and read some books writtin by someone who really is a master.


Anyway i don't think i can even make my point here anyway, but everyone can 'maybe' see where iam coming from.
I have no intention of offending you ken and will happily brew with you anytime. With my posts iam just hoping to get you arked up enough to see some great brewing come from your way.

Finally although you can't reinvent a way to brew, don't let anyone stop you from letting your imagination run wild, just bear in mind you should master making beer in a way a all gain brewer would make beer but use extract instead. If your only interested in making a beer that you can drink and share amoung friends and enjoy then you don't need to take anything i say on hand. Iam strickly talking about making the very very best competive beers you can.


Ok everyone go ahead and chop me down to pieces and put me in my place.
This is a public forum and if i believe one thing strongely enough than it is in the greater interest of all brewers to see all sides of the spectrum and i will not refrian from posting something because someone feels it was not meant in a way that i intented it to come across.

Blabba, blabba, blabba, ra,ra,ra.

Jayse(not a master, just a brewer)
 
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