I just brewed a stout and I was going to add 2 oz of chocolate extract prior to bottling. Has anyone ever done this? Does it have a flavor impact, or is it just for aroma? Should I also add unsweetened cocoa? Should I also add vanilla extract? I've made several terrible chocolate stouts. Has anyone ever made a good chocolate stout? I'm open to suggestions.

do you do all grain? Extracts at bottling IMO are not such a good thing they tend to be over powering. Look at my imperial milk stout thread it is very chocolatly, and sweet.

If it was me I would use cocoa nibs in the secondary. Vanilla beans split down the middle and added to secondary would be my preferred method for that particular ingredient.

also the coffee flavorig you buy for coffee works well too and its a higher quality than that shit the HB shops sell... if you go extract route, proceed very carefully on how much you add, it can overpower quickly.

Thanks for the help guys. There's not a lot of information out there about how adding chocolate extract affects the chocolate flavor in a homebrew. I notice that Rogue uses chocolate extract in their chocolate stout and I really like that one. Also, my favorite pumpkin ale is Shipyard pumpkin ale and they use pumpkin extract in that one. Hopefully, this works and I'll report back with my findings.

just look for high quality extracts, there are several places on the net... I've posted the links in other threads... do a search on extracts.

The cherry flavoring in Red Stag whiskey made by Jim Beam works great to get that cherry flavoring with the added benefit of a little whiskey kick. Try it in your next porter. 10 oz per 5 gal.

I used an alcohol based chocolate extract once. It was "okay" but nothing special.

Having just won my club's comp with a chocolate stout (yep, bragging a bit here).. I can say I used 1oz of hershey's chocolate powder in the boil, and then 4oz of cocoa nibs + 1 vanilla bean in secondary. I boiled enough water to cover the nibs, took it off the burner, and added the nibs- then after a few minutes, added them to my fermenter.

My club is mainly hopheads and there were about 4 IPAs entered and mine still won. Apparently, I did something right!