When to add ingredients like Vanilla, coffe & chocolate

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Hi All

Well I'm preparing myself to brew a milk stout batch.
I want to make it now and then forget all about it until Christmas.

However it got me thinking, all my beers so far have been rather simple, but this time I want to add vanilla, chocolate and lactose, but when should you actually add these type of ingrediants in such a beer?

Is it at the same time as boiling and adding the hops? or when you cool and put the wort in the fermentor

As always your support is appreciated.

Craig
 
Chocolate - do you mean cacao or actual chocolate? Chocolate has fat that can affect head retention while cacao does not. Cacao and lactose go in the boil, generally around 5 mins. Lactose has no flavor to boil off and cocoa flavors aren't volatile. If you're using real chocolate, add earlier so that the fat binds more to the break proteins. Vanilla - I generally add when packaging to taste. Use a good quality extract - commercial is fine - and add it until it tastes the way you want. Chocolate flavor is cocoa, vanilla and sugar so you can use cacao rather than chocolate.
 
Chocolate - do you mean cacao or actual chocolate? Chocolate has fat that can affect head retention while cacao does not. Cacao and lactose go in the boil, generally around 5 mins. Lactose has no flavor to boil off and cocoa flavors aren't volatile. If you're using real chocolate, add earlier so that the fat binds more to the break proteins. Vanilla - I generally add when packaging to taste. Use a good quality extract - commercial is fine - and add it until it tastes the way you want. Chocolate flavor is cocoa, vanilla and sugar so you can use cacao rather than chocolate.


Hi,

Thanks for the input, so basically these stages are always in the boil phase while also hopping and near to the end
I also meant 100% cacao
 
The lactose and the cacao should go in at around 5 - 15 mins, it's not that critical. You can put the lactose in at the beginning of the boil, in fact, I'd recommend you do so because you'll get a lower gravity reading than expected if you don't - not a factor if you don't measure pre-boil gravity. The vanilla, I'd put that in at packaging to taste using a tincture such as commercial vanilla extract (the good stuff, not McCormack's vanillin-alcohol solution) or vanilla beans soaked for a couple weeks in vodka.
 
The lactose and the cacao should go in at around 5 - 15 mins, it's not that critical. You can put the lactose in at the beginning of the boil, in fact, I'd recommend you do so because you'll get a lower gravity reading than expected if you don't - not a factor if you don't measure pre-boil gravity. The vanilla, I'd put that in at packaging to taste using a tincture such as commercial vanilla extract (the good stuff, not McCormack's vanillin-alcohol solution) or vanilla beans soaked for a couple weeks in vodka.

Thanks again,

Got the idea now, Cacao & lactose at the beginning of the boil and vanilla at kegging or prior to bottling.
Now would you do the same when experimenting with an IPA? as I have a plan to make one and add orange & lemon skins to zing it up as an experiment.
 
I put rinds in at the beginning of the boil. I doubt it matters much when you do, but I bet most people put them in sometime during the boil, rather than secondary. You’ll get more bang for your buck on rinds if you grate them.
 
I put rinds in at the beginning of the boil. I doubt it matters much when you do, but I bet most people put them in sometime during the boil, rather than secondary. You’ll get more bang for your buck on rinds if you grate them.

Thanks Jeff...
 
Thanks again,

Got the idea now, Cacao & lactose at the beginning of the boil and vanilla at kegging or prior to bottling.
Now would you do the same when experimenting with an IPA? as I have a plan to make one and add orange & lemon skins to zing it up as an experiment.
I'd put the cacao in with 5 mins to go. Using orange and lemon zest are different - the flavors are volatile. Those should likely go in at flameout, just before you start chilling.
 
We made a coffee oatmeal brown ale from this site recently. The instructions for the coffee was 8 oz of course ground coffee in the fermenter for 24 hours before bottling. We put it in a muslin bag and suspended it in the fermenter. That worked really well for us.
 
for coffee I either get it roasted and course ground at a local roaster, or buy and grind it my self, again course grind (French Press) then put it in a paint strainer bag and throw it in with the mash......but that is just me

There was an article I read about 4 years ago that walked through the mashing with coffee process, some say it can screw with your Ph, and others talk about the risk of tannin extraction.

I have no answer for the Ph question, but at 152 +/- a few degrees I don't feel tannin extraction is an issue, and I always pulled the coffee before mash out.

Mashing the coffee gives you a different perception of the flavor in the final product, more subtle, so if you want the coffee up front, cold brew it, and add it at/after fermentation

T
 

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