Add cold brewed coffee to secondary or right to keg?

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pretzelb

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Is it a waste of time to add coffee to a secondary when you cold brew it? After reading a few posts I decided to try adding a cup of cold brewed coffee to my porter. My intent was to add this to a secondary and then rack to keg after a week. But that seems like a waste since there are no beans to absorb. Now I'm thinking I should just save time and put the 1 cup of coffee in the keg and rack the porter on top. Any thoughts?
 
I bottle, so I added it to secondary before bottling. Not sure on kegging, but racking on top of in keg makes logical sense.
 
I will go out of my way to avoid having to rack to secondary. When it comes to coffee, hard liquor, vanilla, oak, etc., I ALWAYS add them when bottling/kegging.
 
Just add it to your keg. The last time I did a cold press coffee addition, I also did vanilla beans, so I happened to have added both to my secondary at the same time. Without the vanilla beans, though, I'd just have added the coffee to my keg and racked on top of it.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I added the 1 cup of coffee to the keg. In a few weeks we shall see if it was enough.
 
pretzelb said:
Thanks for the feedback. I added the 1 cup of coffee to the keg. In a few weeks we shall see if it was enough.
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I think it will be subtle but you will notice it. I like to add two cups, but I also really like coffee.
 
I'm debating 1 cup vs 2. I am making a chocolate espresso stout doing cold brew method.
 
The 1 cup is subtle so maybe next time I will try 2 or go with a strong roast like French or Italian.
 
I recently added coffee to a barrel aged stout. I started to blend in cold brewed coffee, but found I didn't like the flavor as much. I ended up soaking 2 oz of beans in 3 gallons for 12 hours. Super fresh aroma and flavor. I won't be adding brewed coffee again.
 
robotinc said:
I recently added coffee to a barrel aged stout. I started to blend in cold brewed coffee, but found I didn't like the flavor as much. I ended up soaking 2 oz of beans in 3 gallons for 12 hours. Super fresh aroma and flavor. I won't be adding brewed coffee again.
Click to expand...

Good to know.
 
I just finished a Java Stout (drinking it as I write this actually) and I added the cold press coffee to the fermenter a few weeks before I kegged it. I ground the fresh beans and soaked it in room temperature for 24 hours in the french press I have. After 24 hours I pressed the coffee and added it to the carboy. The Stout sat in primary, never racked it to secondary.

I have to say, this is the best Java Stout I'v tasted. Has a very good coffee aroma and the taste is perfect, a very nice blend of coffee and the stout beer, neither one is over powering the other.
 
dmcman73 said:
I just finished a Java Stout (drinking it as I write this actually) and I added the cold press coffee to the fermenter a few weeks before I kegged it. I ground the fresh beans and soaked it in room temperature for 24 hours in the french press I have. After 24 hours I pressed the coffee and added it to the carboy. The Stout sat in primary, never racked it to secondary.

I have to say, this is the best Java Stout I'v tasted. Has a very good coffee aroma and the taste is perfect, a very nice blend of coffee and the stout beer, neither one is over powering the other.
Click to expand...

how much did you use? I just added my cold brewed coffee when I kegged last week. I ended up with 1.5 cups. I used a local espresso blend for the cold steeped coffee.
 
I used 4oz of coffee beans that I grounded at home and brewed it in a 33.8oz French press so the coffee was a bit strong. I brewed the coffee 24 hours prior to adding it to the carboy, after the fermentation stopped, about 7 days in. I left it alone for about 5 weeks like that and then kegged it. If you add the coffee to soon, you risk having the coffee flavor "scrubbed" out by the active yeast. If you put the beans in during the wort boil, you can extract bitterness from the beans.
 
I did not take any sanitary steps with the coffee addition. There is generally enough alcohol after fermentation to keep bugs away (or so I've heard and relied on!). I did a cold press with filtered water (at least 24 hour steep), french press, and added the liquid to my coffee vanilla porter. No issues.
 
I cold steeped 8 ounces of coffee grounds (Papua New Guinea) in a quart of water for about a week. I then had to put some of the grounds/liquid in coffee filters and squeeze them to get the coffee. I added it to the primary then had other things to do. It sat in there for another 2-3 weeks. It is a porter and it turned out great!

Brewed on June 6 and kegged about Sept 3.
 
I just sanitized the coffee press. Then I poured in the grounds, added water and then covered it tight with seran wrap. Let that sit for 24 hours and then pressed it with a sanitized press. I used a coffee filter I sanitized and a sanitized funnel and pour it through. I had no issues.
 
I have had consistent results using hot-pressed Espresso Chiiled to room temp before adding to keg or bottling bucket prior to transfer in my Espresso Amber.The flavor seems to last for up to a year in bottles. Top 2 or 3 beers that I brew. Kegged it also using this technique with same results. Here is the technique I used
http://coffeegeek.com/guides/presspot
 
MillStreetBrewhaus said:
I have had consistent results using hot-pressed Espresso Chiiled to room temp before adding to keg or bottling bucket prior to transfer in my Espresso Amber.The flavor seems to last for up to a year in bottles. Top 2 or 3 beers that I brew. Kegged it also using this technique with same results. Here is the technique I used

http://coffeegeek.com/guides/presspot
Click to expand...


I have read that using hot water to make your coffee is what leads to the stale coffee flavors you get once it cools, hence the cold brew method or steeping of beans when using coffee in brewing beer. Just curious, have you tried the cold brew method to compare to your hot press method?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
What about "dry beaning"?vs the press? There is a brewery in San Diego that uses dry beanjng and their stout was great
 
Just putting the whole beans into the fermenter? Sort of like dry hopping? It could work but the reason for grinding a coffee bean is to get the max coffee flavor out. With just using the whole bean, you probably would have to add more beans to it then if you just ground it and brewed it.
 
dmcman73 said:
Just putting the whole beans into the fermenter? Sort of like dry hopping? It could work but the reason for grinding a coffee bean is to get the max coffee flavor out. With just using the whole bean, you probably would have to add more beans to it then if you just ground it and brewed it.
Click to expand...

I believe the idea is to keep the oils from coffee beans out of the beer. Cold brewed coffee takes a minimum of oils and tannins from the coffee. Just throwing whole beans into the coffee might give more oils and impact head retention. Also, if you don't grind them you won't get much impact from the beans.
 

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