Bourbon Barrel Coffee Porter
 

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056)
Batch Size (Gallons): 4
Boil Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.069
Final Gravity: 1.018
IBU: 33.9
Boiling Time (Minutes): 120
Color: 23.81 SRM

Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU
9.60 lb Brewers Malt 2-Row (1.18 SRM) Grain 84.2 %
0.60 lb American Caramel 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5.3 %
0.60 lb British Dark Crystal (166.5 SRM) Grain 5.3 %
0.30 lb American Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.6 %
0.30 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 2.6 %
1.00 oz Cluster [8.50%] (60 min) Hops
0.35 oz Northern Brewer [7.90%] (2 min) Hops
0.35 oz Chinook [11.4%] (2 min) Hops
1.00 teaspoon Irish Moss (15 min) Misc
4.00 oz Cameron's Toasted Southern Pecan coffee beans (Secondary)
4.00 oz Oak chips soaked in Maker's Mark bourbon
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale


Mash at 152 degrees for 1 hour. 1.4qt/lb. Collect about 5 gallons and boil for two hours total.

On brew day, I started soaking 4oz. of Oak chips in 12oz. of Maker's Mark whiskey. After 10 days in primary @68, I removed oak chips from the whiskey, dried them, and racked on top of them into secondary. Also added 4 oz. of fresh crushed coffee beans. Secondary for 1 week @62 degrees.

How did this come out?

It turned out to be a great brew. Not quite what I was going for. I wanted a bit more oak and bourbon flavors, but it's mostly coffee. I plan on trying it again (the base recipe was wonderful) but next time I will pour the whiskey in after soaking the chips instead of discarding the whiskey.

This beer has made a complete 180. The last time I tried this (2 months ago) it was good, but it wasn't superb. Now I intend on entering the few bottles I have left into a competition to see how they do.

I now have a new house porter for my recipe book. After allowing this to age for about 4 months, most of the coffee flavor has mellowed into what I like to call "perfect bliss". The oak flavor now shines through with just a hint of whiskey up front. Everything is extremely mellowed out and has turned out exactly as planned.

VERY good beer.

What is recomended to sanitizing the coffee beans prior to adding to the secondary? I figure I don't know where this coffee has been prior to the store container and I don't want to risk contaminating my brew during fermentation. Im guessing the bourbon does the sanitizing of the oak chips?

You could use the coffee in the boil if you're concerned about contamination. I just dumped mine into the secondary. I'm sure FDA regulations are fairly strict about companies packaging procedures, so I wasn't too worried about it.

I imagine adding coffee to the boil would create some undesirable bitterness.
Once I read an article that said that the flavors in coffee that taste good are released at just below boiling, like 211.9 degrees. It further pointed out that the bitterness of the coffee bean was released at boiling temps and above. Since then I've been using a coffee press and my coffee is never bitter.
Something to think about.

I don't brew a whole lot with coffee, but I did a breakfast stout recently that I added coffee to. I added 1.75oz of fresh ground beans to the boil and it worked out great. Yes, you will get some bitterness from the coffee if you boil it, but this is why I usually add it at flameout. At this point, the wort is still hot enough to sterilize it, but probably a bit below 212. Maybe that's why I didn't notice the bitterness you speak of.

I have seen some threads saying to cold brew in the refridgerator over night and add to secondary or at bottle time. Im thinking cold brew to secondary or beans at flameout is what I will go with. This will be my first brew so I will start with a kit and add the coffee and bourbon soaked chips to that to lessen the chances of me screwing it up.

Cold steeping would still leave you with an issue of unsanitized beans. The point of cold steeping the coffee (in my understanding) is to remove any bitterness like what was discussed above. You'd boil the water, but you wouldn't actually let the coffee hit the water until it was cooled. Then you let the grains soak in cold water overnight and strain when you're ready to use.