Sanitizing chocolate powder

So I was planning on adding cocoa powder to the secondary, but after doing some searches I have not found a good answer on how to sanitize or sterilize cocoa powder. A lot of people add it to the boil, but its too late for that. Other people say that boiling or exposing to heat will change the flavors. I was thinking of soaking the powder in vodka. People do that with cocoa nibs, but I have yet to find any that suggests that for cocoa powder. I would love to know how people add cocoa powder to the secondary. Another problem is that I read that cocoa powder should not be left in the secondary for too long, but how do you remove cocoa powder? Will it stay in a cheese cloth?

Thank you in advance!

You could do vodka.......the problem with that is then you will have to add chocolate vodka to your beer. If it is going into secondary you can just toss it in. It will be fine. Like dry hoping we don't sanitize the hops before they go in. Trust your yeast they will take care of you.

You just put the cocoa powder in for the last few days of secondary then rack it off the cocoa and bottle.

Thank you for the very fast reply! That sounds like good advice, I may just toss the powder in. And that makes sense to rack it off of the cocoa.

For later reference... When adding chocolate, use the powder in the boil OR nibs in secondary. I'm sure it will be fine for you though.

Good point MedicMang. The beer might be a bit cloudy but if it is a porter or stout it shouldn't matter too much.

I wouldn't worry about the sanitation part. Just dump it in. Your beer should have enough alcohol in it to kill any baddies from the cocoa. As stated above though, your going to have a hell of a time getting the cocoa to settle out come bottling/kegging time.