How to present ingredients sugars in recipe?

[sam_outt]

Hello, fellow brewers!

So I have a slight problem with my recipe. I am making a chocolate mint stout which requires some cacao powder (to be precise mint-cacao powder, you know the kind you mix with warm milk type) - which then includes sugars. So, I am adding the powder during boiling (approx. for 10min on the end of boil). How would you present this in your recipe when using Beersmith3? The "problem" is that the powder itself contains sugar, which is a fermentable. It says that the powder itself has 2.7oz of sugar in 3.5oz of powder (around 79% that is). So the recipe calls for 1.40oz of cacao powder and that would include around 1.10oz of sugar. Should I just add the cocoa as flavor in the recipe and then add the sugars separately using... sucrose, table sugar?

I mean the sugars has to be count for the recipe because otherwise I won't get the OG right. Also this would bring me to a situation where I am also struggling with the color (EBC), because the powder itself has some color too... but that's just a minor issue. I'm more concerned about the sugars and OG.

Thanks for help and cheers!

[BOB357]

It'd be much easier to make a recommendation if we knew the batch size. If it was a 5 gallon batch, I'd ignore the sugar, as it won't even make a difference of one gravity point. Look at the ingredients list on the label and see if it tells you what kind of sugar it contains. If it's Lactose (milk sugar), it's not fermentable.

Entering the flavoring and sugar separately, if it isn't lactose, will work just fine if you're brewing a small batch.

[sam_outt]

Aw crap, forgot that one. It is 17 litres, so about 4.5 gallons. The powders package says that it is lactose free product. It only says "Sugar (EU) so good guess would be sucrose.
Thanks for the advice.

[Oginme]

You can enter it in as a new fermentable in the fermentables inventory.  Add it in as a sugar and then set the potential to 78% of the potential of standard table sugar (46 points) which would make it 35.9 points or a potential of 1.039.

This would allow the program to account for the potential of the sugar based upon the amount of powder you add.

[sam_outt]

You can enter it in as a new fermentable in the fermentables inventory.  Add it in as a sugar and then set the potential to 78% of the potential of standard table sugar (46 points) which would make it 35.9 points or a potential of 1.039.

This would allow the program to account for the potential of the sugar based upon the amount of powder you add.

Okay, that sounds simple. I will try this one. Thanks, thanks, thanks 

[BOB357]

Aw crap, forgot that one. It is 17 litres, so about 4.5 gallons. The powders package says that it is lactose free product. It only says "Sugar (EU) so good guess would be sucrose.
Thanks for the advice.

At that volume, You still have the option of ignoring the sugar contribution. The result will be within the margin of error and make a much smaller difference than priming sugar does. I just used the common 5 gallon batch to contrast small batches. Your choice. Either way will work.

[sam_outt]

Aw crap, forgot that one. It is 17 litres, so about 4.5 gallons. The powders package says that it is lactose free product. It only says "Sugar (EU) so good guess would be sucrose.
Thanks for the advice.

At that volume, You still have the option of ignoring the sugar contribution. The result will be within the margin of error and make a much smaller difference than priming sugar does. I just used the common 5 gallon batch to contrast small batches. Your choice. Either way will work.

Okay, so apparently there really was no need to be worried about the OG after all. I'm brewing this batch on sunday and let's see how it goes.
Thanks & cheers!

[sam_outt]

A little update from yesterdays brewday.

I added the powder to recipe as suggested above. My pre-boil gravity was exactly what Beersmith3 told it would be. Nice! 
So, I did the boil and added the powder, had a little taste of the wort and there was no flavor of the mint-cocoa powder (should have expected that...). So I decided to add some more at the end of the boil. First I was supposed to add only 1.4oz but ended up with 3.5oz. After chill the original gravity before pitching the yeast was 1.052 as it was supposed to be 1.062. Well, I pitched the yeast anyway and the beer is in full fermentation right now and everything is fine.

Later I decided to check out, what if I would have not added the powder to the recipe and see what the OG would look like. Turns out the recipe without the powder and sugars from it would be... drum roll, please... 1.052!! So as I was told that presenting that amount of powders sugars on that size of a batch it would not change drastically.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with this situation. Now I know that the next time I will not add it in the recipe as fermentable sugar. Oh, and I still did not get any mint-cocoa flavor so I think that I will add that one to the secondary fermantation.