Cacao and Coconut Stout - Dry "hop" weights?

[James_sweden]

I have put this off since Christmas because of the weather and DIY, but now the snow is melting and I am not able to claim that as an excuse. So, on to making the Bounty Stout, a modified version of my Winter Stout with coconut and cacao added as a dry hop. The stout is loosely based on BJCP's "American Stout" style, with about 65 IBUs from Chinook and EKG and should be about 6% when done.

I am currently planning a 11L batch with a 500g dry hop of toasted coconut flakes (unsweetened) and 50g of toasted cacao nibs. I think that will lose me about half a litre of the final beer, so I should end up with about 9.5L of drinkable beer.

The question is, is that going to be enough of both to make the tastes noticeable, without totally taking over? Or am I going to end up with something that taste like drink a bar of chocolate out of an actual coconut? Anyone have advice on this? It does not seem to be a common combo

 

[Craigerrr]

Sorry, I have no experience with coconut.

 

[Semper Sitientem]

I can help answer part of your question. I just cracked a coconut porter from a 3 gallon (~11 liters) batch where I used 7 ozs. (~200 grams) of coconut. It’s a good porter, but the smell and taste of coconut is barely perceptible. So, I think your 500 grams is a good number. You may know this, but make sure there are no preservatives in the coconut. Also, I toasted mine and made a tincture before adding to the primary (I don’t secondary).

 

[Nosybear]

I have put this off since Christmas because of the weather and DIY, but now the snow is melting and I am not able to claim that as an excuse. So, on to making the Bounty Stout, a modified version of my Winter Stout with coconut and cacao added as a dry hop. The stout is loosely based on BJCP's "American Stout" style, with about 65 IBUs from Chinook and EKG and should be about 6% when done.

I am currently planning a 11L batch with a 500g dry hop of toasted coconut flakes (unsweetened) and 50g of toasted cacao nibs. I think that will lose me about half a litre of the final beer, so I should end up with about 9.5L of drinkable beer.

The question is, is that going to be enough of both to make the tastes noticeable, without totally taking over? Or am I going to end up with something that taste like drink a bar of chocolate out of an actual coconut? Anyone have advice on this? It does not seem to be a common combo

500g in 12 l sounds a bit excessive, I've had good success with half. It should work if you want in-your-face coconut flavor, i prefer less additions and more beer flavor, your choice.

 

[James_sweden]

I guess I am aiming for something between the two... noticeable, but not so distinct. Hmmmm. Looks like going for about 300-ish grams should be a decent middle ground. Slightly toasted.

 

[Donoroto]

I recently made a coconut porter with 9 (~300g) oz of toasted coconut (5 gallon batch), 6 oz of unsweetened and 3 oz of sweetened. I also used 3 oz cocnut nibs, 2 oz )~55g) of Hershey's chocolate syrup and 2 oz of ground coffee in the recipe. S-04 was the yeast.

The coconut was definitely noticeable, more aroma than flavor. The sweetened coconut appears to have added some additional body to the mouthfeel, but no sweetness. Chocolate aroma was muted, flavor was detectable but not very large, and the coffee was undetectable as separate from everything else.

 

[James_sweden]

Hmmmm. That's making me think that 300g is likely to be about right-ish. I mean, it will likely be a beer when it gets done, so will be drinkable.

Listening to Genus at the weekend, there was a comment about cacao being good as a whirlpool addition for flavour, so I may split my nibs into half whirlpool and half fermentation. That doe smean I need to go and buy some more rolled oats. Turns out my girlfriend is eating porridge these mornings, so we are down on stocks!

 

[James_sweden]

I chickend out a little bit. "Dry-hopped" on Monday night with a 200g bag of lightly toasted shredded organic coconut and 50g of some amazing cacao nibs. Leaving the kitchen to go get some dry hop bags and then coming back in was an amazing thing!

As for the stout itself, OG was a point or two higher than plan 1.063 for a planned 1.061) with, oddly about 0.7L more collected in the fermenter. I am not complaining about that as I expect to lose a decent amount with the absorption from the kokos. The yeast was kicking within a few hours of pitching and it worked in peace and quiet over the weekend, looking like it is close to done now. I still have at least five days for the dry hop and there is no hurry to get it into bottles, well, apart from wanting to see what it tastes like.

 

[James_sweden]

A small update on this from a "first taste" perspective.

Beer is bottled and conditioning, but the magic two weeks has passed and that means I can taste it. So far two bottles worth of taste..

Carbonation is on the lower side (personal prefernce for a stout) at about 1.7 volumes, so the head is not super-long lived. As with the heavier stout that used pretty much the same recipe base, it's quite roasty. The initial sample I took had a significant chocolate taste, but limited cocnut, whereas now it is bottled, the flavour has changed to a subtle aftertaste of coconut and limited chocolate.

If I make this again, I'm going to maybe reduce the roasted grains, but probably up the coconut and possibly add the chocolate in the end of the boil to try and get a more persistent flavour from it.

With that said, it's a really nice 6% stout with a tan head and a subtle coconut aftertaste. I'm happy with it.

 

[Craigerrr]

Sounds like you made a real good stout!
My experience with chocolate in a stout was with cranberry as well.
I was astonished at how the flavor changed after several months of conditioning.
Maybe keep your notes from this tasting and set them aside.
In a few months time do another tasting and make your notes, then take out these notes and compare them.