Adding coffee at bottling?

HokieBrewer · 10-15-2008, 03:59 PM

I'm at the point in my coffee stout where I should add the coffee. My original plan was to rack the stout to secondary with the cold-extracted coffee. However, I just remembered I'm bulk aging some cider in it. So, my two options are either 1) add coffee to primary or 2) add coffee to bottling bucket when it's time to bottle.

Which makes more sense? I'm scared if I add it at bottling, it won't be distributed right. But if I pour it into my primary, I might introduce a bunch of oxygen. Your thoughts?

**lamarguy** · 10-15-2008, 04:27 PM

I assume you're cold pressing the coffee separately and adding the coffee liquor (minus the grounds) to the beer, correct? If so, I think either approach would work fine.

Another approach is to directly add the coffee grounds (soaked in vodka) to the primary near the end of the fermentation since you're not using a secondary. The grounds will sink to the bottom within a couple of days and become lodged in the trub.

HokieBrewer · 10-15-2008, 04:53 PM

Yep, cold extracted the coffee. I'm thinking I'm going to put the coffee in a sanitized bowl and siphon it into the middle of the primary to avoid splashing.

tfries · 10-16-2008, 02:59 AM

From my experience, it would be better to wait until the the beer is kegged/bottled. The coffee aroma fades rather fast.

I did an Imperial Coffee Porter a few years ago. For that beer, I dry-beaned the beer with 2oz of course ground coffee for 2 days and then added 2 double shots of espresso at kegging. When fresh, the beer was an incredible coffee flavor, aroma bomb. After a few months, the coffee had faded to more of a chocolate flavor with no aroma.

HokieBrewer · 10-16-2008, 04:00 AM

Add coffee after bottling? Hmm. Maybe I'll just up the coffee prior to bottling and see what happens.

Thanks for the info all.

merculite · 10-18-2008, 09:41 PM

I have added 10-cups of chilled brewed coffee (for a 5 gallon batch) to the primary before pitching the yeast and the results have been fantastic. If bottling, the coffee could be added to the bottling bucket at the same time you add the priming sugar.