National Homebrew Club Ireland

Brewing Discussions => Kit Brewing => Topic started by: benji on March 02, 2014, 07:46:27 PM

Title: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: benji on March 02, 2014, 07:46:27 PM
Just brewed this recipe today

1 x 1.5kg Coopers Irish Stout
1 kilo Dark Spraymalt
250g lactose (was gonna put in 500g but Gary advised it was a bit to sweet for him)
200g Hersey's chocolate syrup
250g of chocolate crushed grain (steeped for 30 mins)

my OG finised at 1045
I plan on adding chocolate essence when bottling.

Hopefully this will turn out something like Youngs Double Chocolate Stout which I love.
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Blueshed on March 02, 2014, 07:51:55 PM
would love a bottle of this, looks like it's going to be nice. try and keep me one and we swap a bottle or two.
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: LordEoin on March 02, 2014, 08:09:19 PM
I suppose it will mostly depend on how Hershey's chocolate syrup ferments.
I'd imagine it's quite oily with a lot of preservatives
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: benji on March 02, 2014, 09:00:38 PM
@blueshed no problems mate I'll keep a few for you,

Hershey's chocolate syrup ingredients: High fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, cocoa (8%), salt, emulsifier (xanthan gum E415); Vanillin, artificial flavour.

Some geezer from NZ on youtube made a similar using the hersey's syrup and it came out pretty good for him so I guess we'll just have to wait an see
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: fishjam45 (Colin) on March 05, 2014, 07:48:42 PM
hmmm
I received a coopers irish stout kit in the post today, my plan is to steep some chocolate grain beforehand, use 1kg DME and maybe 250grm Demerara and dry hop with fuggles.  Your Hersheys idea has got me thinkin though . . . .
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Ciderhead on March 05, 2014, 09:54:20 PM
FS some fellas spend their wages as soon as they get them in the pub, yours is in the HBC :) :) :)
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: fishjam45 (Colin) on March 05, 2014, 10:05:46 PM
Pity its not in the HSBC instead of the HBC and I could still be earning some interest off it at least!
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Ciderhead on March 05, 2014, 10:06:58 PM
You and Pob are gonna be raided by revenue with the amount of hooch you are creating at the moment :D
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: fishjam45 (Colin) on March 05, 2014, 10:10:09 PM
say nothin  ;)
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Ciderhead on March 05, 2014, 10:15:08 PM
(http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-gen053.gif) (http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys.php)
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Garry on March 05, 2014, 10:23:19 PM
Quote from: fishjam45 on March 05, 2014, 07:48:42 PM
hmmm
I received a coopers irish stout kit in the post today, my plan is to steep some chocolate grain beforehand, use 1kg DME and maybe 250grm Demerara and dry hop with fuggles.  Your Hersheys idea has got me thinkin though . . . .

Your recipe sounds good until you mention Hersey's? By all means give it a try, but It's easy to get carried away. The first stout kit I hacked, I went mad! Choc malt, honey, treacle, brown sugar, cocoa power, dry hopped with i don't remember and peanuts...... I drank it, but no one else would!!

Now I just go for 1 or 2 additions, and you can appreciate what they are adding to the kit ☺

Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: fishjam45 (Colin) on March 05, 2014, 10:26:38 PM
yeah, Hersheys got me thinkin but i reckon I'll stick with my original recipe
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Ciderhead on March 05, 2014, 10:39:36 PM
Quote from: Garry on March 05, 2014, 10:23:19 PM
Quote from: fishjam45 on March 05, 2014, 07:48:42 PM
hmmm
I received a coopers irish stout kit in the post today, my plan is to steep some chocolate grain beforehand, use 1kg DME and maybe 250grm Demerara and dry hop with fuggles.  Your Hersheys idea has got me thinkin though . . . .
The first stout kit I hacked, I went mad! Choc malt, honey, treacle, brown sugar, cocoa power, dry hopped with i don't remember and peanuts...... I drank it, but no one else would!!


Whoa you gave me some of that as a favour for a drop I did, I couldn't drink it but the jacks has never flushed better ;D 
Only joking Gar, but when I read stuff like this I just think of pineapple chunks.


Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Shanna on March 05, 2014, 11:09:52 PM
Everybody is a critic :) I did a coopers stout kit before with chocolate sauce. I used it in my bottling bucket instead of sugar when priming. It was not great initially but after six months in the dark and cold of my shed it improved no end. 

Shanna
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: nigel_c on March 05, 2014, 11:37:08 PM
God I hate the stuff.
So fake its almost sickening. Sorry, if it turned out well in the beer congrats. I just have a personal intolerance to Herseys.
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Shanna on March 05, 2014, 11:55:31 PM
Personally I can't stand Hersheys either. I actually used an Aldi brand chocolate sauce that was more like chocolate flavoured sugar.

Shanna
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: nigel_c on March 06, 2014, 12:01:39 AM
If you want extract flavor I'd recommend the like of...

http://www.regimestorecompany.com/www-regimestorecompany-com-English-bbdaaaeja.asp

I used it for a nut brown ale for Christmas and it received good feedback. Holland & barret is where i got this and they have a few different types. More expensive but a far superior product. I used about 1 tsb per gallon. 
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: benji on March 06, 2014, 12:59:52 PM
My fermentation seems to be stuck for the last few days on 1017 my OG was 1045 which should give a ABV of around 4.2% when bottled. Seems a bit low to me, I would expect this brew to be around 5%. What do you guys reckon
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: LordEoin on March 06, 2014, 01:38:17 PM
I reckon that's the hershey's chocolate syrup messing with your brew
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: benji on March 06, 2014, 01:57:06 PM
Really, dang. Any suggestions on to get it going again, I gave it a stir the other night but not much action. The airlock doesn't seem to be bubbling but When I push the lid top down in the morning it seems to up again by the evening. Maybe its just gone into hyper slow fermentation? , from the recipe I provided what do you reckon the ABV should be?
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Garry on March 06, 2014, 02:04:27 PM
The lactose will give you a higher finishing gravity too since it doesn't ferment. Leave it alone for another week and it might drop a few more points. Maybe you could try bring up the temp and see does it help? 4.2%ABV sounds OK to me though?
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: LordEoin on March 06, 2014, 02:38:26 PM
forgot there was lactose in this too
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: benji on March 06, 2014, 03:55:51 PM
Cheers guys, so would I be right in saying that lactose doesn't actually ferment it just adds taste and density
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: LordEoin on March 06, 2014, 04:22:21 PM
yup, lactose is non fermentable and adds a little sweetness and mouthfeel etc.
maltodextrine will do the same with less sweetness.
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: benji on March 07, 2014, 11:46:32 AM
Yep it seems to have finished fermentation, just wondering about adding some cane sugar to up the abv a bit. Can I put some in now if I boil some in water. Is it a no no to introduce fermentables (is this a word)  at this stage, brew has been in the FV for a week now
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: Garry on March 07, 2014, 11:55:57 AM
You can add more sugar at this stage if you want. Some brewers recommend adding the simple sugar adjuncts in secondary anyway. Just make sure you leave it in the FV for a least a week to make sure it ferments out, you don't want bottle bombs!

If it's a 23L brew, you should need 400g of sugar to bring it up 0.5%ABV.

Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: LordEoin on March 07, 2014, 11:58:04 AM
You could if you really wanted to, it's done for some stronger brew styles like doubles etc.
I'd be more inclined to leave it, live and learn.
The less poking, opening, stirring etc the better.
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: benji on April 05, 2014, 10:32:45 PM
Hey peps just an update on this brew, so I added 500g of cane sugar to boost the ABV (and make sure my yeast was OK), so yeah no problems there it fermented away for a few more days but a waited a week before bottling.
I dropped in 0.5ml in to each bottle "Little Pod pure chocolate extract" which i procured from Fallon & Byrne's on Exchequer St and I bulked primed at 7g/l.
So its been 2 weeks in the bottle and I thought I'd have a sneaky taste test, so far so good. I'm defiantly getting a strong dark chocolate taste from the brew without over powering it, its still a bit malty as you would expect at this stage. Not really picking up the sweetness from the lactose but maybe that will come in time, the carbonation is perfect I think and I've a nice head on this brew already, with a bit of lacing on the glass.
I shall move the bottles from my hot-press to my garage for a couple of weeks and report back then, this brew has plenty of potential me thinks.
Title: Re: Cooper Irish Milk Chocolate Stout
Post by: benji on May 09, 2014, 10:38:09 PM
Hey peps, so yeah a month since the last my last update.
Drinking a pint now and it has turned out pretty good, pretty pretty good, pretty pretty pretty good (Curb Your Enthusiasm reference  there).  So to me at this stage it testes more like an extra stout but there defiantly is a dark chocolate taste, not really getting much sweetness from the lactose so I'm thinking maybe upping it to 750g next time. But yeah all good so far, I'd say another few months and it would be great.
@Blueshed I live in Offaly but I work in the CC so if you still want a few bottles I'll hold on to a few for you