I plan on lightly toasting the coconut between layers of parchment paper to absorb the oils so as to not destroy the head retention of the beer. I haven’t quite settled on temperature or time for the toasting. I was just wondering if anyone had experience working with coconut in beer themselves.

Update: so I toasted the coconut for about 15 minutes across 2 trays (to avoid overcrowding them) in a 325°F oven shaking the trays and moving the coconut around every few minutes to try and get as even of a toast level as I could. I removed the coconut from the oven when it was lightly golden (and smelled delicious) assuming that it would continue to toast slightly as it was cooling down. I deposited the toasted coconut onto another tray lined with paper towels and patted as much of the fat/oil as I could.

I repeated this same process with the cacao nibs (relying instead on their smell as an indicator of when they were toasted enough because I obviously couldn’t go by color).

I’m going to add both the coconut and cacao nibs to the beer today and let them sit for a week or so before kegging and carbonating the beer. Hopefully if there are any oils or fats they float to the top of the fermenter and I can leave them behind when I transfer the beer to the keg.