Will Adding Chocolate Affect the Final Gravity?

I am currently about 2 weeks into the primary fermentation a black stout to which I added 8oz of unsweetened cacao powder during the boil. The gravity seems to be stuck at 1.022 rather than the 1.014-1.018 that was predicted by the recipe. It doesn't seem that far off of the predicted gravity so I wonder if the chocolate could make a difference.

Would adding the cacao affect the final gravity of the beer?

Topic final-gravity chocolate homebrew

Category Mac

1
answered at

Some elements in the chocolate are dispersed throughout the beer, so it does affect the FG in principle, but not by any appreciable amount. 8oz in 5 gallons would be much less than 1 gravity point.

It could be a stuck ferment, or that your FG realy is 1.022 due to unfermentables. Try rousing the yeast a little and raising the temperature by 5F/2C which may help get it started again. You could also try a forced fermentation test to see what the real FG is.

Also, check the attenuation of your yeast strain - 1.022 is not so far off 1.018 - and well within the range of attenuation of different strains.

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