I recently tried a beer at Taft's Ale House in Cincinnati that they called "banana stand". It was a hefeweizen brewed with cacao nibs and toasted coconut. It was amazing, so I decided I wanted to try to recreate this on a small scale. So, I brewed 6 gallons of my normal hefeweizen recipe, and I plan to use 2 of those gallons to try to recreate the banana stand beer. My plan is to add cacao nibs and toasted coconut to secondary (using two 1-gallon fermentors). My_qquestion is how much coconut and cacaonibs to use and for how long? I googled this, but all of the posts seem to deal with big imperial stouts and porters that have a much bigger base beer, so I am worried if I follow the advice provided in those posts, I will end up with a beer that has way too much chocolate or coconut which would overpower all of the other flavors. Does anyone have any experience using coconut and/or nibs that could help with the amounts and contact time? Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions!
I use 4-5 oz in my Belgian strawberry blonde and the cacao nibs are extremely subtle. I throw them in the secondary along with the strawberries for 2 weeks.
While this whole beer sounds like an abomination, maybe soak your nibs in rum instead of vodka for a more tropical twist.
Haha. It may sound like an abomination, but the beer I had from Taft's Ale house was fantastic. I do like the idea of soaking in rum though. If I'm just adding enough rum to cover the nibs, do you think the rum will be apparent?
I've been to Taft's a few times and they've got some good beers. Haven't had the opportunity to try this one though, but their Coconut Maverick was real good. Real coconut flavors, not those suntan lotion off flavors that are often associated with coconut beers. Since you'll just be infusing the cacao and coconut into 2 gallons, you might just have to do some research and base it off a stout/porter, and then tone it back some. Since a hefe is a lighter beer and all... Let us know how it turns out!
I don't have the numbers with me right now on the toasted coconut (on vacation), but I use around 10 oz of cacao nibs, for 5 gallons, in a hop bag in the secondary (actually primary because I dont secondary too much anymore) when I brew a yearly 10%+ chocolate stout and I think it comes off nice and rich! Perfect for me, but I'm not usually a chocolate eater. I use coconut on occasion and usually add 2 prepackaged bags after toasting them. I THINK the bags are 6 oz each, so that would be 12 oz for a 5 gallon batch, and again (for me) I think its a perfect level of coconut. I can tell you that the nibs and coconut combined completely fill up 2 drawstring reusable hop bags...and I tend to leave them in the beer for 10 days to 2 weeks before I finally keg. Some have called these beers "to chocolatey" or "too coconuty" but I think it shows up well and is balanced by the booziness and roasted grains. Last year I did a Mounds bar imperial stout with those amounts and REALLY enjoyed it! I never soak the nibs or coconut in vodka or other spirit after not having the best success doing that in the past, but each to their own.
I use Coconut and nibs all the time, and put them in a bag in a corny. I put a piece of stainless Braid on the diptube also. I actually just kegged a beer like this last night. I truly believe the coconut you use makes a big difference in the outcome. I can look up the company I've been using, they have great stuff. I usually use 2+lbs toasted Coconut for stouts and 1ish for cream ales and Hefe. This is dried weight, the pre-toasted weight is more.
You absolutely have to tell us how this turns out. When I heard the name of this brew, I was horrified too, but then you described it and I thought it sounded interesting! I'm also very interested in how much cacao nibs and coconut you ended up using and how long/when you put it in...trying to get ideas for my future brews!
