Chocolate Wit

I'm thinking nibs in a secondary may be the way to go. If you were to use enough chocolate malt or other roasted malt to get a chocolate flavor, I think you're also going to get more roastiness (coffee) than you are probably looking for. Also, if you're looking for a sweet chocolate flavor, you may want to back off the hop bitterness (hard to do with a wit recipe) and/or add a little crystal malt.

 

I have found that you can get all the chocolate you want with chocolate malt and other roasted malt without pushing too far into coffee territory by also adding a small amount of lactose, sweetens the deal and brings the chocolate to the front.

 

Mostly, I like this stategy, but I do think that he could get some chocolate flavor and minimal roastiness from small amounts of pale chocolate malt. In my experience, 2-4 ounces of Thomas Fawcett Pale Chocolate Malt lends a pleasant chocolate with little roast. I've not tried this in especially dry beers; my use of this malt has always been accompanied by some crystal malt, and it may be that the added sweetness helps to balance any roasty contributions. I never brewed a beer like this, but if I were going for orange-chocolate, I would try a combination of nibs, pale chocolate malt, and crytsal malt (plus some orange, of course).

 

nibs !

 

I'm thinking 4 ounces should do it, especially if you are also adding some type of dark malt (which I'd still probably not recommend). But I confess I haven't used nibs in a wit. I did recently used nibs in a porter. After 5 days (at room temp) I removed them. The nibs had virtually no flavor left in them. So I guess my advice would be 5 days max. You may want to taste samples to see how it's coming along before deciding when to pull them out.

They may add color, but it wasn't noticeable in the porter. My guess is that in a wit you'd get a slight color change, but not very dramatic. Hopefully someone who has nibbed a lighter colored beer will know.

 

My experience with the Carafa Special Malts is that they are mostly about color development. However, I have never used more than 5 oz of them at a time; that was in a schwarzbier, which I recall did not have a roasted character. However, it also did not contribute any chocolate character. The Thomas Fawcett Pale Chocolate is a unique malt in my experience. When I didn't have it on hand, I tried to make up for its contribution in a brown ale using a combination of Briess Special Roast and Chocolate Malts . I made a nice beer, even earned a ribbon with it, but it did not taste like a brown ale with TFPC in it and leaned more towards coffee than chocolate.


Edit: I just had a related thought. Someone, probably Randy Mosher, gave some advice about chocolate flavors in beer that I just remembered. We often associate chocolate and vanilla together. Chocolate candy, for instance, may have vanillin in it. It may be that added vanilla to such a beer will help enhance the chocolate experience. Again, this is not something I ever tried myself, and am in no position to advice on vanilla in beer. Perhaps the best idea is not to pursue all ideas (nibs, orange, vanilla, and new malts such as TFPC) simultaneously?

 

I haven't used this grain, but I've heard Midnight Wheat lends a relatively smooth flavor to a beer, that might work well.

 

I bought a lb of this but have only used a couple ounces, in a recent brew. It only imparted color at this level, not flavor. I also chewed on some of the grains and surprisingly got very little taste from the experience. I will use the bulk of my remainder to color something like an a black IPA to see if it remains flavor neutral at higher proportions. But I probably won't brew that beer for a few months. Perhaps someone else can chime in with more experience with this grain.