I'm attempting L'Orange Chocolat (ReDeux) this Sunday. The first attempt at this a couple Stout Nights ago, I added cocoa powder and dried orange peel right to the boil. I found it was only very subtly orange-y and chocolate-y.
Any suggestions on how *best* to bring out the orange and chocolate? Should I soak the orange in vodka and add it while kegging/bottling? Should I add whole chocolate?
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
We just did a recepie using cocoa nibs instead of Chocolate - they went into secondary. Can't tell you how that did for flavor though.
Try orange zest in vodka for a while, in theory that would get you the most flavor, extracting the most possible oil and dissolving it in the alcohol for easy transfer to beer. As for the chocolate...I got nothing. I like to eat cacao nibs, maybe experiment with steeping nibs in hot water, a few in some vodka, maybe some cocoa powder steeped and in vodka. Maybe divide up a pint of regular assed stout and sample out the extracts till you get it right, then increase scale to your 5 gallon batch.
The oil in the peel is where the flavor and aroma is at, I'm betting boiling vaporized a lot of that and drove it off
I've had success adding cacao nibs with ten minutes left in the boil. I understand they can also be added to secondary, but haven't tried it yet.
If added to the boil, remember to put them in a bag. They'll clog the counter flow chiller and are a bitch to clear out.
Thanks for the comments!
I think I'll try nibs at the end of the boil; zest in vodka at kegging.
I had a number of good chocolate orange stout/porters at the Nielsen massy competition. I think nancy may have some orange and chocolate extract left over. Add it when bottling or kegging.
Thanks, James!