Mead Journal: Chocolate Duo

Ok, So I finally racked over the two primaries that I had sitting on the lees for too long. I racked it over to my two brew buckets. Reason, Adding Coco beans, or rather what is properly coco powder. I got the cacao beans roasted from chocolatealchemy.com for a good price, and roasted. I ordered 5 pounds and 4 of them roasted. I thought I was buying Nibs, which is the roasted bean broken up into bits with the shell off. But What I got was the whold beans with the shell on. I did remove the shells on some and then gave up at being too work intesnsive. I just put the whole thing into the coffee grinder and did a rough grind, Just a few twirls not breaking up the whole thing down to fine powder. Finally a use for my coffee grinder. Yea. So I have 4 pounds in a plastic zip lock. The shell make it a lighter color. I figure that it couldn't hurt as I am extracting the chocolate flavor. I took a big mixing bowl and scooped up a cup at a time to split the 4 pounds evenly as I didn't have a scale. So I ended up with 8 cups a peice. 6 cups with the shell in the mix and 2 cups that I de-shelled. I belive the term is cracking and winnowing. So 8 cups. Probly be about 6 1/2 cups each if I was to crack and winnow all of the beans prior to putting in. I put them into a couple of nylon bags that I have and dropped it into the must. I plan on stiring a bit and making sure that it ALL is submerged so that it gets some aggitation going for the extraction process. I also put into musulm bags 2 vanilla beans split and dropped those in. If you look at any candy bar or chocolate bar it does include a litte vanilla for deepinging the flavor. So I did the same.

I plan on letting the extraction process do it's thing for 2 months. Hopefully that will be plenty of time for the extraction to take place.

Steps after that:
1. Rack off of the chocoalte nibs
2. wait until clears a bit more and stabalize
3. Then Back sweeten 1 pound in each batch of Maltodextrin and some honey. This should give it a creamyness and a good mouth feel. Put Mint in 1 batch 1/8th teaspoon of extract. Should be nice and subtle.
4. Wait a few weeks and then rack onto some sparkloid to clear.
5. Oak with 1 oz medium toasted oak for 3 weeks or so.
6. Possibly Sparkloid again if not fully cleared and wait for at least a month.
7. Bottle.
8. Age for minimum a year, possibly 1 1/2 years.

So that is the plan.

On a side note, I need to get some money together to get another 42 pound bucket of honey to make the Trinary Rockbiter test. Last major test was the Rockbitter Binary Batch: To oak or not To Oak. This produced positive resulst such that I will be oaking my standard honey mead. The new test for the Rockbitter Trinary: Tale of Three Toasts is to test oak toast levels. That is to use Lightly Toasted, Medium Toast, and Heavy Toast Oak Chips or cubes and see what the flavor differences is.

The next Rockbitter test will be using step nutrients vs putting all of the nutrients in at the beginging. That will be the Rockbitter Step Up test.

This will tell me what the results of doing a step nutrient process will be and how it affects quality. But that test will be in 2014, I think.

Now is the Rockbitter Trianary: Tale of Three Toasts.

I hope to start that in 2 weeks, I just need Honey. Planing on starting that on Labor Day as that is the day that I first started brewing and it's in 2 weeks. It's going to take all day As I need to do the 3 batches all seperately and exactly the same. Due to the need to keep the results the test accurate, no additional variables.

Future Projects: Pumpkin Nut in October/November. Hopefully I can do at about the same time: Strawberry Oatmeal (Sort of my first Braggot), and the Mango Mead in January. Most of this depends on how long it takes the batches to get bottled.

I have 7 carboys to juggle:
2 have the Chocolate batches (these are my 2 brew buckets.
1 has the Blueberry Lemon: Mental Note, need to rack and back sweeten soon and then sparkloid.
3 will have the Rockbitter Trinary
1 will have the Pumpkin Nut in the fall.

Now hopefully I can Get the Blueberry Lemon clear and done by January and bottled at that time too. So that can be happily aging for a late summer/fall opening date. This will free up 1 carboy for either the Strawberry Oatmeal or the Mango.

In the freezer, I have fruit for: Strawberry, Mango, and Peach. I also have enough lemon and lime juice frozen to flavor a batch, I think 2-3 cups of each.

I have enough yeast for 5 batches and I just bought new sparkloid, Yeast Nutrient (in Bulk 1 pound) and Yeast Energizer (in bulk, 1 pound). So at this point all I need is honey. 2 buckest shoud do the trick.

Ah, for an unlimited brewing budget.

That's all for now.

Dave