Chocolate Beer, Boysenberry Blonde, Maple Pecan Brown

As you might have heard, Diablo 3 came out May 15th. As a Birthday present to myself, I got a friend to build me a computer that runs the game at max settings. I also started a new job on May 7th so I've been especially tired. All of this hasn't stopped me from brewing so I have a few updates:

Chocolate Beer (6.8% ABV, currently drinking)
In early April, I followed a recipe from Beer, Beer, More Beer called Jamil's Chocolate Hazelnut Porter which originally calls for 8 oz. unsweetened coco powder and 25 ml of hazelnut flavoring. I changed the adjunct levels and addition time based on feedback from the techs at bbmb and personal preference.  I also used a 3rd generation CA ale yeast which is atypical for this style. Well, the beer came out great.

Instead of the coco powder, I used cacao nibs which are the shelled and crushed inside of the cacao bean (where chocolate comes from). I think it's basically an unprocessed chocolate. I added the 4 oz of aromatic nibs once fermentation had finished it's rigorous beginning, which was about 4 days after pitching the yeast. I let them sit in there for a month without racking.

To boot, the adjuncts weren't even finished at that point. When I bottled it after a month in primary, I added half of the 25 ml bottle of hazelnut flavoring along with the 2 cups water and corn sugar primer. I didn't want to go overboard with hazelnut smell or flavor so eye-balled it. I think the flavoring must have sunk to the bottom really fast because some of the bottles came out way more hazlenutty than the majority of the batch. Out of all them that I drank or saw opened by a friend or family member, only 2 of them were noticeable.

The lack of hazelnut was perfectly fine considering the semi-sweet chocolate creaminess that the beer took on. The beer is pretty easily mistaken for a stout on look and smell, and it even has a stronger kick to it than what the recipe predicted (5.9%). However, I believe these sort of inconsistencies are what gets you dinged in a competition so I'm planning on tuning my methods.

Boysenberry Blonde (5.8% ABV, bottle priming)
Not much to say about this because I haven't gotten to drink it yet. Brewed on May 13th, less than a week since I'd started the new job, I decided to try another adjunct beer in tandem with the chocolate. It was a standard white wheat / pale malt hybrid with low hops. I upped the game by adding 1/2 lb. of dried malt extract during the boil. I used the same 3rd generation CA Ale yeast as I did in the chocolate. At bottling, I added 4 oz boysenberry extract. The recipe originally called for raspberry extract, but I wanted to see how the bitter-sweet boysenberry would fare (they were out of blueberry). If this one turns out to be something my girlfriend and I like, I plan to use this recipe to make other berry or citrus beers using fresh fruit.

Maple Pecan Nut Brown (fermentation)
More adjunct beer! This recipe I found in an internet forum and I didn't really modify it from what was suggested. I got a pound of grade A Canadian maple syrup and poured it all in during the boil (recipe only called for 3/4 lb). I was supposed to save some for bottling, but I just plan to buy more or use the end of a house-bottle. A pound of halved pecans were roasted for about 10 minutes in the toaster oven and this made the house smell incredible. It did turn out to be the most expensive beer I've made, especially because I super missed my target boil volume, being distracted and a little drunk. I basically pulled it too early from sparging because I don't have a proper measuring device for my converted keg. A sight glass is in the mail, so that won't happen again. The O.G. read about 1.060 which I am happy with. I got about 4.75 gallons into the fermentor, pitched a starter of British Ale yeast. It's my Beer Adjunct Naturàl Experiment.

Also somewhere in the mix of month and a half Kyle and I brewed 10 gallons of a Blonde Ale. It's fermenting at his house and he is getting ready to keg for the first time. I lent him 2 of my cornelius kegs because my C02 tank is out and I plan to build a kegerator before filling it back up for normal use.

Here's a picture of my friend building my super fast gaming machine. Thanks John Eternal!