Andrei Zmievski

As mentioned in the Brewing Résumé post, I once attempted a clone of Dieu du Ciel’s Aphrodisiaque stout, brewed with cocoa and vanilla. While the result was decent, if not very close to the original, it was popular enough that I am now left with only a single bottle of it. Various people have strongly hinted that they would like some more of this beer, so I was obliged to re-brew it.

Chocolate stout split into secondaries

After tasting Firestone Walker’s Velvet Merkin and similar beers, I decided to base the recipe on an oatmeal stout rather than a foreign extra stout as before. Oats are high in beta-glucans, provide a nice body and silkiness, and help with head retention. The recipe was based on the oatmeal stout from Brewing Classic Styles, with a couple of modifications. To avoid doing a cereal mash, I used regular flaked oats instead of old-fashioned, rolled ones. I also baked them in the oven until they turned golden and had a nice toasty smell and flavor. The Victory malt was reduced a bit to avoid saturating the beer with its biscuity taste, and I upped the roasted barley a tad and added a bit of Carafa II Special malt — a dehusked version of normal Carafa — to intensify the aroma and color without adding astringency. A portion of East Kent Goldings hops used for bittering was replaced with Willamette and the EKG was moved 30 min to give a bit of hop flavor.
There are various ways to add chocolate flavor to beer, including raw cocoa nibs, cocoa powder, chocolate syrup, or even just chocolate malt. Cocoa nibs are supposed to give a more integrated taste, but they require the beer to be on them for a couple of months, so I just went with what I used last time with good results — cocoa powder added at the last minute of the boil. Some advocate adding cocoa powder to secondary, and I might try that approach in the future. The vanilla flavor will come from organic vanilla beans. (I picked up 2 Indonesian beans at Whole Foods for the low, low price of $11 #sarcasm.)
San Francisco water is really soft, so I added some baking soda to keep the mash pH from falling too much due to the presence of dark malts.

Vanilla bean in vodka and oak cubes in bourbon

While working on the recipe, I happened upon the Breakfast Stout Riffs post on The Mad Fermentationist blog, which I’ve been reading a lot lately. Mike, the author, brewed an imperial stout and split the batch into different secondary fermenters to experiment with various additional ingredients. I was inspired by his approach, and decided to split my 5-gallon batch as well. The first two variations were easy: 2 gallons would go on top of medium-plus toast American oak cubes soaked in bourbon and some vanilla bean, and 1 gallon would have regular medium toast Hungarian oak cubes and some vanilla as well. After some hard thinking about the third variation, I simply stole the recipe from Mike — a half each of dried ancho and guajillo chile peppers, vanilla bean, and a bit of cinnamon. The final gallon was a complete gamble: sour cherries and dregs from a couple of bottles of Orval (basically adding Brettanomyces and some funky bacteria). I’ve never used fruit or Brett in beer before, so it will be interesting to see how this portion turns out (a few months from now, since Brett works fairly slowly).
I’m going to post a brewing/fermentation log, similar to how The Mad Fermentationist does it, and see if it’s helpful or not. The log will be updated as the beer progresses through fermentation, finishing, and tasting. (Feedback is appreciated.)