Three part homebrewing question....?!
2. I'll be adding real chocolate to the chocolate malt... I'm thinking a nice 80/20... But then I thought maybe I should use a bitter sweet cooking chocolate... Any first hand knowledge as to what is better?
3. Fruit Puree like these…
http://www.northernbrewer.com/beer-flavo...
Any good or go with fresh?
Answers: 1. Imperial Stouts need to ferment longer than your average stout/ale... How much longer?
2. I'll be adding real chocolate to the chocolate malt... I'm thinking a nice 80/20... But then I thought maybe I should use a bitter sweet cooking chocolate... Any first hand knowledge as to what is better?
3. Fruit Puree like these…
http://www.northernbrewer.com/beer-flavo...
Any good or go with fresh?
Hey, Mr. Mayor...
Here's a link from Midwest Homebrew I found on the subject of fermenting Imperial Stouts. Basically they say allow 14 days in the primary (use a yeast starter), then 3 weeks in secondary with Champagne yeast. I've never done an RIS myself, but I know these guys are pretty reliable.
http://www.brew-winemaking.com/ProductPD...
As far as chocolate, I recommend unsweetened baking chocolate. Unless you want some of the sweetness from the chocolate, in which case, I'd go for semi-sweet cocoa powder. I've only done one with choc in the past; it was a Chocolate Mint Stout (not Imperial, necessarily, but it did come in at roughly 6%). For this I used the unsweetened baking chocolate found in the baking aisle at the supermarket.
As far as fruit goes, I know the puree tends to be much easier to work with, and less time consuming, but I've never used it myself. I prefer fresh ingredients that I boil/bake/puree myself, partially so there's no one else to blame if something goes wrong. I'm sure the puree is fine, but fresh is my preference... and probably cheaper as well.
Cheers! and Happy Brewing!
choclatate added to beer,who knew? I gotta tell ya Mr Mayor My Roman home brew stand alone is sweet and potent,when I add some pinot grigio Half and half, It has a kick and is helping knock out my flu. Good to see you my friend.
1. I don't know that they need to ferment longer necessarily, but a good bit of aging is always nice. Everyone over at HBT decided to make a RIS for 08-08-08, and I know that most of them started the brew in January to give it time to age. Fermentation time is really dependent on your starting gravity and the yeast you are using.
2. I haven't personally, but I've seen a lot of recipes with real chocolate. The only advice I can give you off the top of my head is to make sure it's the pure cocoa baking chocolate that you're using. I remember someone (again, over on HBT) mentioning using Hershey's Special Dark bars, but I can't remember the outcome.
3. Again, I haven't used them myself (I always use fresh just because it's 'more real' to me), but the purees are made to be used just like fresh pressed (or blended) fruit/berries. I'd say to use it the same as your recipe calls for fresh crushed or blended fruit. I personally either pick my own fruit/berries, or just go buy them frozen, and use a press or blender.
1) The time needed to finish fermenting depends on the yeast you use. It's taken me about a month to get it to stop bubbling. I've also used champagne yeast with imperial stouts and barley wines instead of beer yeast and I encourage you to at least try this once when fermenting a high gravity beer. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Age the imperial stout in bottles a year if you can wait that long....this kind of beer taste better with age.
2) I've used several types of chocolate in beer. I'm always experimenting, I've tried powder cocoa, nestle quick, milk chocolate bars, chocolate syrup,and priming 5 gallons with a 5th of cream de cocoa ) Priming with Creme de cocoa was interesting...I would probably use a little less than a 5th next time if I was going to do that again. I have concluded that chocolate malt by itself is best but if you want to add chocolate, 3 mini bars of Hershey's bitter sweet chocolate is good for 5 gallons. This does have the potential to change the head of your beer...but not too bad and can make a decent stout or porter.
3) The fruit puree is decent and good for wine and I would use those over fresh fruit as they are rather convenient and I am lazy. I've never used them for beer so I can't comment on that.
1. I'm a huge fan of "the longer, the better" but there's no hard and set time.
2. The actual chocolate would be used for flavor/bitterness, and not to contribute fermentable sugars. Unsweetened cocoa powder is the easiest to mix into you wort without having to muck about with melting. The chocolate malt gets its name primarily from the color it imparts, not its flavor.
3. Fruit puree is so much easier to work with and it's already pasteurized so you don't have any prep time (for either pasteurizing or campden tablets) before just tossing it in to your wort. The nice part about that is if you add it to your secondary instead of primary, you get better fruit flavor...and you just pop the top and dump.
With fresh, there's always the risk of infection if it's not pasteruized.
Ferment until you reach your final gravity. Take gravity readings once the air lock activity is less than once every 1-2 minutes. If the gravity is the same over a day or 2, you've hit your final gravity.
I am going to be making a Young's Double Chocolate Stout clone and will be using powder baking chocolate. I think that works well. I also used this in making a chocolate porter.
I have only ever used fresh fruit or Oregon fruit purees. But I have used them when making meads, not beer.
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