coconut??

[Bruno_78]

Girlfriend wants me to make a coconut flavored beer. I've seen some coconut porters before, but I was thinking about doing it with a stout. Anyone heard of this? Any ideas on how to achieve this? I found a post here that mentioned a process similar to dry hopping with coconut in a bag, but didn't go into much detail.

[Sunriver]

Interesting idea,

I have never done this before but it does sound like a beer to consider making.

I would float 9 Lbs of shreded coconut in t muslin bag in the secondary for 4 days. I would also go into a tritery fermentation to let the flavors blend for a week.

Extract based I would do a recipe with 7 lbs LME and 1 oz 12 alpha bittering and 1 oz 4 alpha flavoring.

Tell me how it works out.

[brewmonkey]

I would toast the coconut first. Not sure where I would add it though. Add it to the kettle and you will extract essential oils that will kill head retention but offer lots of flavor. Add it to fermentation (any phase) and you may not get anything.

Have you looked into coconut extracts?

[Bruno_78]

I actually added the coconut (toasted) directly to secondary. The flavor came through, but not enough. I used one fresh coconut, shredded. Left it in there for two weeks. I think next time I need more coconut. It's still a nice beer though.

[Theakston]

Fresh coconut is pretty expensive. I think you would get a better bang for the buck from the dried variety (it is usually called Desiccated coconut ) It's cheaper and the flavour is more concentrated. Having said that I've never even thought about adding it to a beer recipe.....perhaps you should buy her a bottle of malibu instead:confused: