Chocolate Cherry Stout

Info:

• Brewer: Ryan
• Mash: Straight infusion mash
  
• Date: 12/14/2008
• Size: 5.75 gallon post-boil after cherry addition

Grain Bill:

Main Mash

• 9.4 lbs 2 row malt
• 0.5 lbs black roasted
  
• 0.75 lbs 350L chocolate malt
• 0.5lbs 80L crystal malt
• 0.75lbs victory malt
• 0.5lbs oatmeal (actually quick oats - pre gelitanized) lightly toasted in a 300F oven until just barely showing color and nicely aromatic.
  

Yeast:

• Coopers Ale yeast (dry)
  

The Mash:

• Dought in to protein for 10 minutes (not totally intentional, I was a little short on hot water - Doh! indeed)
  
• Brought up to 154F with roughly 4 gallons of 180F (+ a little at 200) water (I put two pots on at once and it was getting a little thin so I dumped in some of the hotter water. I blame the weather for the slow rise, it was 17F outside, yeah I was in the garage but the door was mostly open to keep from poisoning myself. Brrr)
  
• Mash until conversion is complete about 1hr and 30m. Iodine test showed happy grain time.
  
• Sparge with 180F
• Sparged to 6 gallons
  

The Boil (60 minutes):

• 1.5oz US goldings 5.7AA @ 60
• 4oz of Penzeys dutch process (22% butter fat) coaco powder (dutch process is less bitter), I had saved a little (~1 quart) of the tail end of the wort (after having poured out a cup for the celebratory post sparge drink) and whipped that with the coaco powder to make a medium thick paste (looked like frosting)
• Added 2 cups of hot wort to the coaco mix and then stirred into beer @10. Hopefully just long enough to izomerize the oils, but not long enough to kill the flavor. It took about two minutes to get back to a roiling boil, so full boil with coaco for only about 8 min.
• Cooled to roughly 80F (yes it was freezing, I had to pour the saved sparge water on the drain hose to unfreeze the immersion chiller drain. The new chiller - 40' or 1/2" copper worked awesomely though, down to 80 in about 5 minutes, which is damn good even considering how cold it was out).
• Pitched in 5lbs of pitted bing cherries I'd gotten from a buddy over the summer and froze for just such an occasion. I realize that this is earlier than most people add fruit, but I'm shooting for an rich cherry undertone with less of the fruity up front and based on past experiences I think the CO2 scrubbing from the primary will do what I want.
  

The Finish:

• OG: 1.060 with cherries (stupidly I didn't take OG w/o cherries - I think I was suffering from a mix of carbon monoxide poisoning and brain freeze at this point). Either way its going to be a nice thick beer. Tastes delicions already!
• Pitched yeast on Dec14 at 8:00PM
  

The Polish:

• One vanilla bean, split open added evening of Jan 2
  

The Dog Cookies:

• 2 whole eggs (shell and all)
• two medium apples chopped
• one giganormous spoonful of peanut butter
• blend in food processor until fully blended
• 6 cups spent grain
  
• 2 cups fresh ground brown rice
• 4 cups flour
• enough "grain juice" from the bottom of the sparge vessel to make a stiff dough (may not take any)

The cooking of the cookies

• Mix well, and form into deliciously shaped cookies (press into a flat and then cut with a pizza wheel works for me.
• Put on a cookie sheet, leaving some space between the cookies helps them dry faster/better.
• Bake in 350F oven until dry on the outside (45m-1.5 hours)
• flip over
  
• lower heat to ~250F and leave for a couple of hours until pretty dry
• crack oven door open and leave to dry fully overnight
• Enjoy (err I mean - the dogs will enjoy, yeah thats what I meant)