[HBF] Ich will Schokolade! (Trude's Stout)

[Yerry Felix]

Hi Brauer,

Mein Doppeltes Schokoladen Stout war ein absoluter Hit!

Trude Herr had no idea how good this beer is when she sang "Ich will
keine Schokolade" So, I decided to call this Trude's Stout since no
doubt this beer would have made her see the error of her ways.(1)

Hier ist das Rezept (von einem meiner postings to r.c.b, with bits
added):

Trude's Stout
-------------

I used 75gr of a Dark Belgian Bakers Chocolate bar (from Sainsburys)
and melted that into a small amount of wort (.25 l) initially, then
put that into the next 3 l of wort I collected and kept it on warm
(65C) on the kitchen cooker whilst sparging the rest before adding the
entire lot to the boil.  The key is to regularily stir to break up the
chocolate whilst its on the cooker -- this takes some time.

Fermentation (with 1084 Wyeast slurry from a previous stout) went
smooth, didn't produce a big head as usual tho (a smallish one), but
was done within 4 days at 18/19C.  Its sitting in secondary now, but
the initial tasting at racking time was mellow, clean and had a good
hint of chocolate, promising! :) It wasn't as bitter as I feared (I
messed up on the hops I thought, see below)

Recipe for 5 US gallon was:

Mash 90 mins @ 65C: 4.5kg pale Malt, 0.25kg flaked Barley, .2kg
Chocloate Malt.

50gr of roasted barley at sparge time. 

Boil 75 mins with 30gr of Tettnang (they were a bit old, so I added
more), 20gr of Target. This tasted pretty bitter in the boil, so I
removed the majority of the hops at 50 minutes. OG 1.060, FG 1.014.

... some time later ...

At transfer time after 4 weeks I was *real* worried!!! It tasted a
little too acidic and too bitter, and the yeast in it was looking oily
and there was _lots_ of it(Oh my).  However, the next day it was just
fine and everyone thought it was the best stout ever -- lovely
chocolate notes, mellow and just the right amount of bitterness. And
at 7% or so it of course gladdened the party spirit a lot, but in the
morning people were not hungover and everyone managed the morning walk
in the forest and the full english breakfast afterwards easily.

*beam*

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

Gabriela (sorry das das alles in English ist, ich hoffe das das
leserlich ist, ich was halt zu faul das uebersetzen :-)
-- 
(1) Why have one or the other when you can have one, the other AND
both? :-)