How to add coffee to stout? - Page 2

EnVinoVeritas · 03-03-2009, 04:25 AM

Hello. I am interested in this thread as I am currently brewing an oatmeal and was thinking about adding some coffee to it. It appears if the cold-brewing technique is preferred for eliminating some of the harsher qualities of hot-brewed coffee.

My question is if you heat it up to sterilize it, is there a point in doing it in the first place?

**thataintchicken** · 03-03-2009, 08:35 AM

I have always used cold brewing. Added in Secondary.
I generally get my whole beans from Peet's.... but I set SWMBO up for Christmas... she now roasts her own coffee beans that are used in her stouts and porters.

Twang · 03-11-2009, 09:00 PM

Anyone have any thoughts on putting a couple "pods" or "capsules" in the secondary?

Also, the reason behind cold brewing and adding to the secondary instead of adding beans to the secondary - is to reduce the unwanted oils/acids/flavors? Is it the time or temperature that makes the difference? Or both?

tekhna · 03-11-2009, 10:18 PM

Cold brewing is by far the best way to go. It pulls out of some the oils, and when you cool boiled coffee from hot to cold it can take on a nasty, acrid flavor. There's a reason cold coffee left sit out can taste so bad.

**erikrocks** · 12-10-2009, 08:47 PM

I brewed an oatmeal stout a few weeks ago, and I'd like to add coffee before I bottle tomorrow.

I'm going to cold steep overnight...but the idea I had was to cold steep in the sugar water that I will add tomorrow evening before I bottle. That is, I boil my sugar water now, cool it, add the coffee, and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Then I add it to the bottling bucket tomorrow. This way, I would have to add water twice (once with the cold steeped coffee, again with the priming sugar).

Has anyone done this? Will this work?

Thanks!

Sithdad · 12-10-2009, 10:40 PM

I added cold steeped coffee to my stout and it turned out great. No harsh bitterness from the coffee. I added the filtered coffee to the boil with ~10 minutes to go. This way it got sterilized. If you want to add it to the bottling bucket I would cold steep it and then add the filtered coffee to the boiled sugar water and let it cool down and sanitize the coffee at the same time. Then just pour into your bottling bucket.

**erikrocks** · 12-11-2009, 12:13 AM

I don't really want to add the steeped coffee to the hot sugar water, as I think that would defeat the purpose of cold steeping.

What I'm saying is to boil the water, add the priming sugar. Then cool the solution and start the coffee cold steep, using the priming solution over night.

Has this been done? Is it effective?

NorCalAngler · 03-30-2010, 09:11 PM

After reading through this post I can't logically think of a difference between cold brewing the coffee and adding the same coarse grind to secondary. In both instances you're steeping the coffee at room temp, thus avoiding the transfer of the coffee oils. Is the volume of liquid in secondary more likely to leech more of the oil out? That's the only reason I come up with why cold steeping in a small container and adding at bottling would yield better results than just cold steeping in secondary.

**JOHN51277** · 03-30-2010, 09:21 PM

I have used the cold-brew method a few times with good results. I have also dome a coarse ground in the secondary the last two days and then keg/bottle.

**Irrenarzt** · 03-30-2010, 09:34 PM

I add 4 oz of ground coffee beans to a 5 gallon batch with 10 minutes left to go in the boil and get perfect coffee flavor, no real oil issues to contend with.