All malt and Chocolate

[Dogger Dan]

Ok,

The sun must have baked my brain when I was on the roof shingling so I am going to have another crack at an all grain (The first one really was bad and has been about the worst beer I have ever made).

Anyone have any words of advice for holding the temperature profiles required for enzyme action. I am not complex, just a big brew pot. My Chiller is the bath tub and I strain through a regular kitchen strainer.

I intend to flash this up on the weekend and enjoy some wets while doing it.

Any advice will be listened to

Dogger

[Gough]

Go for it Dogger! The temp profiles like everything else once you are brewing from scratch depend entirely on what style you are after. Generally a higher temp profile (68-70 degrees celcius for eg) will give you a maltier, 'thicker' mouthfeel. Higher and it will be really dextriny. Lower temps (64-67 degrees celcius) will give a drier profile with a little less body. The length of time you mash the grains for also has an impact.

So it depends on style. Above all you need to try and keep it at the desired temp as best you can. I use an esky (47 litre Coleman cooler) and find I usually lose about 3 degrees across 60-90 minutes. I've only done a few all grain brews so far but have been really happy with them all. Best beers I've brewed by a long way. No turning back now What sort of recipe are you using?

Shawn.

[Dogger Dan]

Gough,

Thanks for the vote of confidence, the recipe is as follows

800 g pale malt
1 kg Crystal Malt
1 kg wheat malt
150 g black roasted malt
150 g chocolate malt
1.4 kg light malt extract
340 g unsweetened Bakers Chocolate (can substitute 36 Tbs Cocoa powder)

35.5 g Williamette hops (boiling)
14.2 g Williamette hops (flavour)
14.2 g Williamette hops (dry hop)
0.25 tsp Irish Moss

step mash 1 gallon water (130 deg F) to crushed malt stabilize at 122 and hold for 30 min. add 2 gal boiling water, stabilize at 154-157 and hold for 60 min. mash out to 165 deg. Sparge with 3 gallons water

microwave chocolate to soften, add with malt extract and boiling hops. boil 75 min

add flavour and Irish moss, boil for 15, dry hop, pitch yeast when cool.

Drive on as Normal
for rest of batch, carbonate

Drink

Go Team

Dogger

[Gough]

Sounds good dogger. Why not get rid of the extract and up the Pale Malt though? Go the whole hog...

Haven't brewed with chocolate before. Used chocolate malt, but not the actual eating kind. How does it go? Which yeast are you using? I did a Porter recently that had Choc malt, black patent malt and crystal in it and used the wyeast 1056 American Ale. Came up pretty well.

Shawn.

[Dogger Dan]

Having never brewed with chocolate I am not sure what to expect. Intuitively I would think there will be some issues with cocoa butter forming on the top of the beer so you need to watch out for that when transfering.

I am going to keep the light malt extract so if I dink up the starch conversions at least I will have something to ferment. This was the problem the last time I made an all grain.

Dogger