Soaking nibs and coffee beans in run, whiskey, or vodka and will let sit a few data before adding to primary once fg is reached. Will then rack half into a 10L oak mini barrel and rest into keg. I'll age ijn the mini barrel tasting regularly until I feel the right oak character has been imparted before bottling.

1) Started with 4 gallons of water, mashed in at 162F. Completed 60 minute mash - ph 5-5.2. Raised temp for mashout and didn't squeeze.

2) Boil was normal, followed hop schedule. With 10 mins left I turned off burner and added lactose, 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient, and half a whirlfloc tablet.

3) Immersion chilled to ~70F then transfered to fermenter. OG 1.054

4) Placed fermenter in temp controlled chamber and cooled to 66F before letting aerator run for ~30m then pitched ballooned yeast packet.

5) Fermentation going strong 12 hours in.

6) 10 days in and fermentation seems wrapped up. Pulled a sample and the beer tastes great. I course ground 2oz of cacao nibs and 2oz of metropolis coffee beans (med roast) and am soaking in bourbon for 24 hours to add to primary.

7) After 24 hours I added mix with liquid (soaked up mostly) to the primary, left in for about 48 hours and tasted. It seemed the flavor had settled in so I decided it was time to keg / barrel the batch.

8) I added a little over a gallon to a 10L mini-barrel and kegged the remainder of ~1.5 gallons.

9) After barrel-aging for about 48 hours, I bottled directly from the barrel and used fermcaps. Bottles were sanitized and purged with co2.

Barrel-aged: The oak flavor overpowered the cacao nibs and coffee, likely cause it was a new barrel that hadn't aged anything yet. I'm going to let those condition for several weeks before drinking.

Kegged: I set the vols to 1.8-2.0 to carbonate through set and forget. I've been tasting the beer hasn't yet carbonated, but has a good overall flavor. The coffee overpowered the cacao so I think next time I'll do 2:1 cacao to coffee.