Adding Coffee to Stout

I'm making a Java Stout. It's still in primary but I have a question. I'm brewing some super strong coffee to add to secondary. Can I just brew it and pour it in before I siphon in the beer??? Does the coffee need to be boiled to sanitize 1st???

I have made a few coffee stouts, and have never boiled the coffee. In fact I have cold steeped the coffee grounds in the refrigerator. When you boil anything coffee, it has a nack for messing with the oils, making it more bitter.

ground up your coffee beans and add them to your fermenter. let it cold steep for 24 hours then bottle/keg. I used 8 oz and it was waaaayyyy too much. Use sparingly.

The directions say to make 8 cups of coffee with the beans provided, then add coffee to secondary.

I'd just cold-brew the coffee, let it sit for 24-48 hours, strain it off with a coffee filter, and use that. I put mine in my bottling bucket when I was bottling.

I would cold steep 8 cups and add to secondary. Must be a midwest kit?

Yes a midwest kit. How would I go about cold steeping?

hoppheadIPA said:

Yes a midwest kit. How would I go about cold steeping?

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2 quart water with the coffee grouns overnight-maybe 24 hours, kept in the fridge, mix it up every once in a while......

Add the "coffee" not the grounds to the secondary.

Well if you wanted to add it directly to the beer just crush your beans and toss em in. I didn't use a bag, just free balled it. You can put them in a hop sock. Let sit for 24 hours then rack off of it the next day.

I don't like the idea of adding water after fermentation, that's why I add them to the beer. You're going to get A LOT of coffee flavor from 8 oz.

I cold brewed some coffee for a vanilla coffee porter that turned out great.

Soak 12oz coffee ground in 1.5qt cold water at room temp for 24 hours. Strain the grounds, yielding about 1qt. I added to the cooled wort just before pitching. The coffee flavor is definitely noticeable, but still subtle enough.

I added 3.5oz of cold-brewed to 2 gallons and man is it apparent.

Steep crushed grains in secondary and TEST EVERY DAY, EVERY HALF DAY, EVERY HOUR...I followed someone else's directions for my second or third batch (left a pound of beans in for a week - WRONG!!! - way smarter after 10 years)...needless to say this is the ONLY batch I've ever tossed...seriously could not drink this stuff and the beans were friggin bleached white!!!

Go slow with steeping and taste, taste, taste - pull when satisfied...tossing in a strong tea or other methods all at once leaves NO GOING BACK!!!

Whenever I use coffee in my beers, I just drop the beans in un-ground. Usually for about 4 days and it's perfect. That's for beans that I roasted the day before.

I was up at Lagunitas Brewing Co the other day, and their Cappuccino Stout is one of my favourites - I asked how they added the coffee, if it was brewed coffee in the boil, cracked beans during fermentation, etc., and was told that they added fresh grounds to the mash. Must say, never heard of that approach, but it makes sense - oil extraction with coffee really happens around 190 degrees, so by having the grounds in the mash, it extracts a lot of the flavour without the oils. Next coffee stout I make, I'm gonna give it a lash.

ubermick said:

I was up at Lagunitas Brewing Co the other day, and their Cappuccino Stout is one of my favourites - I asked how they added the coffee, if it was brewed coffee in the boil, cracked beans during fermentation, etc., and was told that they added fresh grounds to the mash. Must say, never heard of that approach, but it makes sense - oil extraction with coffee really happens around 190 degrees, so by having the grounds in the mash, it extracts a lot of the flavour without the oils. Next coffee stout I make, I'm gonna give it a lash.

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Those oils contain a lot of the best flavors of coffee and the boil would seem to drive them off anyway. I haven't tried this yet, but when I do get around to making a coffee stout, I will brew the coffee and throw it in to my beer a day or two before bottling.

A friend of mine asked the head brewer at one of our local breweries how they added the coffee and he said that he actually used his beer straight from his primary to brew the grounds. So instead of using water he used his beer. Once brewed he strained out the grounds and added the beer to the rest in secondary.

I havent tried it but it seems like an interesting idea to me. If someone tries it let me know, I am interested to see how it works out.

i've done it. works great. 24 hrs does the trick.

What concerns should I have with contamination? If you add to the secondary is there enough alcohol to deal with a possible infection? If you are just adding beans to the fermenter how many and do you sanitize them?

So how did the mashing the grounds work out anyone? drive off too much of the coffee flavor or still good enough in there?

Another method I was tossing around in my head is what I do with my chocolate grains...cold steeping them and adding the water to the boil about 15mins before killing the fire. ANy thoughts there, ya'll?

doghousechef said:

Those oils contain a lot of the best flavors of coffee and the boil would seem to drive them off anyway. I haven't tried this yet, but when I do get around to making a coffee stout, I will brew the coffee and throw it in to my beer a day or two before bottling.

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I made the founders breakfast stout clone (BYO recipe0 but I cut back on the coffee. I added 2 oz. of coffee grounds at flame out. It still seems like the coffee flavor is over-powering but the hops may be adding to the bitterness. All in all I'm happy with it but I'll probably modify the coffee addition for future batches.

The problem w/adding the coffee before you bottle is you have to GUESS how much to use. Yea, you can follow a recipe, but will it be to YOUR taste or that of the guys who came up w/the recipe? So here is what I do and have done it three times already and will be doing another 10 gallon extract batch in two weeks.

Cold brew the coffee as explained above and then add to the bottling bucket until it tastes to what YOU LIKE!. Don't worry bout infections, just be clean and you should have no problem. Just remember to mix the coffee to your beer GENTLY so you don't introduce O2, but hard enough to get a good mix as you are tasting it.

Good luck.

Cold brewing is hands down the best way.

kanzimonson said:

I cold brewed some coffee for a vanilla coffee porter that turned out great.

Soak 12oz coffee ground in 1.5qt cold water at room temp for 24 hours. Strain the grounds, yielding about 1qt. I added to the cooled wort just before pitching. The coffee flavor is definitely noticeable, but still subtle enough.

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What size batch did you add this too?

It was 6gal at the end of the boil.

Just did a 5 gal batch of a coffee brown ale and the coffee flavor is amazing on the back end! I boiled water and dumped over a quart in the coffee brewer, my sanitation, with grounds enough for a full pot. Don't be cheap, buy some quality medium roast! Let it cool and dump in kettle at about 150 while whirl pooling. I will not budge from this process. Cheers! Happy Brewing. It's not craft beer unless you try something different while improving your process each time.