How many Nibs?

Hi all,
I’m thinking of making a chocolate mead. If I go with nibs, how much will give me a good, strong chocolate flavor? How many ounces per gallon? I may add a few vanilla beans too, just to bring out the chocolate flavor. Thanks for any thoughts.

Mike

I have never used nibs in mead before but I have used them a couple times in beer. I find that 4oz / 5 gals seems to give it a nice chocolate flavor. I used them for a porter and a dopplebock so they have some flavoring power to them. One thing I would advise is that it will take a while after the nibs are removed for the flavors to meld. Initially they can be a little bitter. Good luck! :cheers:

I have never used Nibs either. I am actually about to bottle my first batch of chocolate mead this weekend, I just used standard chocolate powder. I didn’t use vanilla beans, but I have heard that makes for a very nice combination. Just be careful not to use too many, apparently a few go a long way.

LDB

I’ll second the bittering aspect of them. I have a chocolate oatmeal stout on tap now and I used how ever big the NBrewer packages are (4oz?) and it has a nice bitter chocolate flavor. I mixed the package with a few ounces of vodka and then dropped them in the secondary a week later. It is starting to settle out now after a week or so on tap and is amazing on nitro for some reason which brings out the chocolate flavor.

I have never tried doing a choc. mead before. But, I would think you would want to go light on the choc. so that you don’t mask the delicate flavors of the honey.

I just bottled my mead this weekend. I think I used 16oz of powder for the 5 gallons and could just barely taste the chocolate. I don’t think you will need to worry about masking the honey flavors.