Coffee Stout

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SuperBrew

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I'm looking to brew a coffee flavored stout or porter in the next few weeks, anybody know of any recipes? Also I've seen many different suggestions on how to treat the coffee beans, some say to steep in room temperature water overnight, others say to crush the beans and add to the hot wort. Anyone have an opinion on what technique to use to add the beans? :D
 
It depends on your setup. It could be just as simple as letting the coffee steep for 5 minutes in the kettle and then whirlpool. Of course this requires a kettle with a valve. If you dump and pour, find some a convience pack which is in a filter pouch. Then you just pick out the pouch before pouring the wort.
 
I'm also planning on brewing a coffee stout next and the recipe I plan to use has crushed (not ground) beans being steeped for 15-20 mins after the boil but before cooling. Anyway, here's the recipe I plan to try using if you're looking for one:

Cottage Coffee Stout

3.0 kg Dark Malt Extract (2 cans x 3.3 lbs)
1.0 Lbs Crystal 80L
0.5 Lbs Chocolate
0.5 Lbs Black Patent
1.25 Cup Light DME (priming)
1.0 Oz Kent Golding 5.5% AAU (bittering)
0.5 Oz Fuggles 4.7% AAU (bittering)
0.5 Oz Fuggles (flavoring)
0.5 Lbs Lactose
0.5 Lbs Hawaiian Chocolate Coffee Beans crushed not ground (or your favorite java blend)
Yeast Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale

Steep grains in 1 1/2 gal water at 155 F for 15-20 min. Remove and sparge grains with 1/2 gal water bringing brew to 2 gal total. Stir in malt extract and bittering hops boil 1 hour. Dissolve lactose in 1 quart water. Add flavor hops and lactose last 15 min of boil. After full boil remove from heat and steep coffee beans for 15-20 min. Cool wort and pitch yeast. Ferment in
primary 5 days, secondary 15 days. Bottle using DME and condition 4-6 weeks.
 
I can tell you that steeping 6oz of crushed beans in secondary for a week is overkill. Cut the time and/or amount by about half, and you should be OK!
 
Ironic.. I just done putting together my "Kaffe Stout" recipe, and then logged in to see this thread.

I think that boiling the grounds is bad and so is boiling the liquid coffee.

I have nothing to back this theory up other than my 20 years of coffee drinking. Have you ever drank coffee that has been sitting on a hot plate for too long, cooking? It tastes like hell. That's why I wouldn't boil liquid coffee.

Have you ever had cowboy coffee? I've done this a few times when on long backpacking trips. Cowboy coffee is just a pot of water that you throw coffee grounds into and boil it. This, also, tastes like hell.

so, based on these coffee experiences, my plan for the coffe was to brew up about 8 to 10 oz of espresso. Then, when I turn the heat off on the boil, I would dump that in and let it sit for 10 minutes or so before chilling the wort.

Never boiled the grounds... never boiled the liquid... lots of coffee flavor in there.

-walker
 
posting race...

i just read the ideas for steeping the grounds after the boil, and that should be good.

I'm still going for the big mug of espresso. :)

-walker
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm definitely going with that Cottage Coffee Stout next week. Thanks for the recipe joeyuwp!
 
By the way, joeyuwp or anyone else who is reading this, what do you think about adding a few vanilla beans to the mix in the secondary?
 
i think it would be yummy with vanilla, but I can't say for certain if throwing beans in the secondary is a good idea or not. My basic rule when adding anything to my beer is that I want to have it thoroughly heat cleansed in some way.

Maybe you can steam the beans in a veggie steamer before tossing them in?

Or, just cave in and use vanilla extract. Put some (I don't know how much) in a cup or two of water and boil it. then toss it into the secondary and rack the beer onto it.

-walker
 
Good idea. I got that toss them in the secondary idea from morebeer.com, it seemed odd to me as well because they said to remove the beans from my secondary after I had achieved my desired level of vanilla flavor. For me though that would be tough because I have glass carboys and I don't know how I would be able to fish them out, unless I left them in a pouch of some kind. I'll figure something out though.
Anyhow I'll brew it and eventually post a review of how it came out
 
I was actually thinking about adding some chocolate maybe. Semi sweet baking stuff. I've read that adding broken peices to the start of the boil can work. I'm not too sure on this though. Any ideas? Vanilla beans actually sound like a good idea too. That will definitly give it a unique flavor.
 
I have made one chocolate beer some years back. I used bakers non sweetened and added to the boil. After the boil I dumped it into the fermenting bucket. After the primary, there where solids that looked like wax floating on the surface. The trick was leaving this behind when going to the secondary. If I had to do over, cocoa powder might be a better alternative.
 
In The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Papazian doesn't explain when to add chocolate, but his book does say to use either bittersweet baker's chocolate or bittersweet nonmilk chocolate. The book also says that powdered bakers cocoa would do even better, in that case I would treat it like any spice I put in my beer and add it in the last 15 minutes of the boil. Not sure about that though because I have never tried it before.
 
Any idea how much cocoa powder to use? I don't know if it would be an equal conversion, say if 0.5 lbs of peices are needed would 0.5 lbs of powder be used?
 
I'm not sure, but I would guess that the powdered cocoa form would be stronger. Right? :confused: So I'm guessing it would yield a stronger flavor? I've never brewed with cocoa before though and I'm not that experienced a brewer (only around 9 brews total) so you might want to start a new thread to see if anbody else thats more expericed out there knows. Either way let me know how it turns out cause I am very interested! :cool:
 
I did a coffee/ vanilla stout a while back. I just brewed a half pot of strong coffee in the old Mr. Coffee and added it to the bottling bucket along with a little too much vanilla extract. Tasted like Hell at first, but as it aged, it smoothed right out. I know it's a simple approach, but it worked and there was no guesswork involved, except for the amount of vanilla extract. Add it to the coffee and taste with a sponn until it's almost right. I advise doing this sober.
 
Looking at Papazian's Homebrewers Companion, he has a recipe for a chocolate porter (p. 296) and says that 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder equals one ounce of baker's chocolate. He also has the chocolate being added at the beginning of the boil. I might just try using chocolate coffee beans steeping after the boil though. Don't want to take too much of the coffee flavor away.
 
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