Adding coffee to light beer

I'm brewing a saison right now for the purpose of adding coffee to it. The only thing is, most coffee beers are brown, porter, or stout. I'm looking at going the cold-pressed route, and in the darker beers I've seen anything from 2 oz coffee in 2 cups water (so 2 cups coffee) added to secondary, up to 4 or more.

For a light beer of about 6% ABV, 27 IBU, and about 5 SRM, I'd say 2 cups of cold-brewed coffee in 6 gallons would probably be the upper limit, but if anyone has experience with coffee in lighter beers, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks!

This is just from my personal experience. I just made an oatmeal stout and I wanted to add a coffee taste to it. I also went the cold-extraction method and used 4oz of coffee in 2 pints of water and let it sit for 24 hours. Then I added that in the last 5 min of the boil. It completely dominated the flavor and took over the oatmeal stout (which by the way, was amazing before I added the coffee). For your situation, I would go with around 1-2oz to get a slight coffee taste from real cold extracted coffee and 3-4 if you want a dominate taste. When I do this again I am going to use about 2oz in my stout. For a saison, I am thinking maybe an ounce? I am not sure though. Just take good notes so you can adjust based on your final results.

I would also watch out for doing the extraction for longer than 24 hours. The first extraction I did for this batch, I started 3 days before hand with the thinking that the longer it sits the more coffee taste will be extracted - wrong! I got harsh flavors and it tasted bad. Just go 24 hours and use a super premium coffee that you personally enjoy. This is not the kind of thing where you want to use cheap coffee or a coffee you have not tasted. Some coffees are just hard to drink, even expensive ones.

Good luck. Keep us posted as to what happens. I have been toying with the idea of adding coffee to some of my lighter beers to just try something different and see what happens.

If you've brewed the base beer before and have some around use that or grab a commercial saison you think is similar and experiment. Make the extract with the coffee you plan to use. If you don't roast your own, I bet there are some fancy coffee roasters in Richmond. Look for something that will go with your beer, be it fruity, peppery, or earthy. If you go to a good roaster and tell them what you want and why, I bet they can make some suggestions. Pour a bunch of measured samples and dose them with an eyedropper or a syringe would probably be better.

Good luck! I think coffee saison sounds terrible. I figured if anyone could pull it off, it would be Ron Jeffries at Jolly Pumpkin. Worst JP beer I've had by far. Have you had a saison with coffee that you liked or do you have a particular flavor in mind?

There is stuff out there called natural coffee distillate. I know, it's not like adding cold brewed fresh coffee to your beer like you would a stout or porter. But it's clear, mostly used by bakers to give coffee flavor to white frosting. It may be a good option to give the flavor you want without mucking up the color of your beer. I'm not so sure of the cost but might be worth looking into. You could also do as suggested above with an eye dropper/ syringe into a commercial Saison to dial in the flavor.

TNGabe said:

Good luck! I think coffee saison sounds terrible. I figured if anyone could pull it off, it would be Ron Jeffries at Jolly Pumpkin. Worst JP beer I've had by far. Have you had a saison with coffee that you liked or do you have a particular flavor in mind?

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Fortunately we have a bunch of great roasters here. I'm looking for a light roast with a fruity, spicy flavor, low oil, low bitterness. I've never tried a coffee saison, but I thought it'd be interesting, and thought I could pull it off.

fluidmechanics said:

There is stuff out there called natural coffee distillate. I know, it's not like adding cold brewed fresh coffee to your beer like you would a stout or porter. But it's clear, mostly used by bakers to give coffee flavor to white frosting. It may be a good option to give the flavor you want without mucking up the color of your beer. I'm not so sure of the cost but might be worth looking into. You could also do as suggested above with an eye dropper/ syringe into a commercial Saison to dial in the flavor.

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Interesting! It's like Sinamar instead of Carafa. Think I'll go with the real thing though.

TahoeRy, I think you're right - one ounce coffee in one cup of water would probably be plenty.

I think the one oz amount will give you that slight coffee taste and not be to over-powering or change your color to much. It's so hard to estimate it though. Just brew it and adjust it for the next batch. You are on the right track by using a lighter roast. I think you might find a good blend depending on how you brew your saison. Also, one thing to be aware of. Coffee does have oils so that means you might lose some of your head retention. You are not using very much so it might not affect it at all. Maybe try to plan for this by adding some wheat, carapils or anything else to bring that head back. Oils tend to take the head away but as long as your ok with the possibility, I say do it. Again, your not using very much so it might not affect anything. The best thing about brewing is doing exactly what you are doing - experimenting. Please keep us posted, I am interested to see what you come up with and how the flavors play out. I know Mammoth Brewing Co. near me is playing with coffee in one of their ales so its not a weird thought to try it.

FWIW, Starbucks has a blonde coffee. I've only looked at it briefly, but i think it's lighter in color & flavor. Maybe your Richmond roasters have something similar?

TNGabe said:

If you've brewed the base beer before and have some around use that or grab a commercial saison you think is similar and experiment. Make the extract with the coffee you plan to use.

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This. Much better to experiment first on a small scale, rather than risk ruining your batch!

Boulevard in Kansas City

Just released their coffee ale here some info to help you

http://www.boulevard.com/BoulevardBeers/coffee-ale/

Good luck

According to this article:

http://www.pitch.com/kansascity/boulevard-roasterie-coffee-ale/Content?oid=3146005

Boulevard simply dry-hopped with freshly ground coffee beans.

Eventually, they discovered that the softness and citrus notes of an Ethiopian Sidamo produced a smooth coffee brew — and required close to 1,000 pounds of freshly ground coffee, which was steeped in the fermenter.

"It was like dry hopping but with coffee," Belden says. "We made a gigantic toddy but with beer instead of water."

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Belden is Elizabeth Belden who works for Boulevard. I read a comment on that same site by someone who tasted Boulevard's Coffee Ale. They think it is "[Boulevard's] Farmhouse Ale with coffee." So, maybe checking out Boulevard's attempt will give you some pointers as the above poster suggested. They tend to do their custom brews with belgian ales or saison's as a base to start their recipe. I just bought four bottles today and will try it out tonight when I get home from work!

frailn said:

According to this article:

http://www.pitch.com/kansascity/boulevard-roasterie-coffee-ale/Content?oid=3146005

Boulevard simply dry-hopped with freshly ground coffee beans.

Belden is Elizabeth Belden who works for Boulevard. I read a comment on that same site by someone who tasted Boulevard's Coffee Ale. They think it is "[Boulevard's] Farmhouse Ale with coffee." So, maybe checking out Boulevard's attempt will give you some pointers as the above poster suggested. They tend to do their custom brews with belgian ales or saison's as a base to start their recipe. I just bought four bottles today and will try it out tonight when I get home from work!

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I read that also and got me thinking about using coffee in stouts...I've used the cold brew method and never like the results ...never thought of dry hopping ....time to experiement

Schumed said:

I read that also and got me thinking about using coffee in stouts...I've used the cold brew method and never like the results ...never thought of dry hopping ....time to experiement

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It's what Terrapin does for WNB. I think 24 hrs, but listen to the CYBI interview with Spike.

One of the members of my brew club adds whole beans to secondary, says it gives it a nice, smooth coffee flavor. Never thought of making a toddy with the beer. How would you sanitize the coffee though? Or just don't worry about it?

eulipion2 said:

One of the members of my brew club adds whole beans to secondary, says it gives it a nice, smooth coffee flavor. Never thought of making a toddy with the beer. How would you sanitize the coffee though? Or just don't worry about it?

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I think she meant that dry-hopping with ground coffee beans is like using a coffee "Toddy" - which is a name brand cold brewing device for coffee.

http://www.toddycafe.com/

Basically, she's just saying that they are throwing the beans directly into the fermenting beer. Just like dry-hopping with actual hops. So, basically they are doing the same thing your brew club buddy is doing, but grinding the beans, not putting them in whole.

Yeah, I get that. I meant, it'd be like a 5 gallon toddy. Rather than making a 1-cup toddy, add the beans to the fermenter. Just didn't convey my meaning well. Some times my typing and my actual meaning don't match up.

My main concern is sanitation. Do I need to worry about any beasties on the beans?

And if you grind them up, should the grinder be sanitized as well? Hops are a different beast to work with when compared to fruit (yes, coffee is a fruit). Maybe if the whole beans where frozen first then added to try to help kill off anything. When I added coffee to my beer I was afraid of going directly to secondary with them so I did the cold extraction and added during the last 5 minutes of the boil. I think you could get better flavors by just throwing them into secondary if you didn't have to worry about infection.

You're probably fine on sanitation if you add directly to the secondary (or if you don't secondary, after primary fermentation is finishing up). By that point, the wort has become mostly beer, which means it's acidic, nutrient-poor, and alcoholic, which makes it hard for other things to grow.

But if you are paranoid, the best solution (pun intended) is probably to put ground beans in small amount of vodka for a few minutes, and then put that whole shebang into the secondary. A little vodka will do nothing to your beer, but will sanitize your beans.

http://blog.stonebrew.com/index.php/dayman/

Stone recently did a Coffee IPA which still maintains a relatively light color

I was told that they added beans to secondary as well, not sure how crushed/ground they were

I'm having Dayman as I type. Man is it surprisingly good! It sounds weird, but man o man it blends so nicely. I don't see a thread on it yet so I'm gonna try and clone this one. According to the bottle its a citra based (which I have over 2.5lbs of) IPA with coffee. So good, but as you can see its pretty light. Is say 6-8 SRM max

Never would have thought to do a coffee IPA...huh.

So far this saison is smelling nice. I'm almost afraid to add coffee and risk ruining what smells like an amazing beer, but I'll do it. FOR SCIENCE! The lightest roast I can find is (without resorting to $tarbuck$ Blond Roast), according the the pics on Wikipedia, is somewhere between a New England and an American roast. Should probably serve me well.

Eulipion, could you bottle or keg most of it and reduce the amount of coffee you were going to add by the same amount, then add that to the remainder in the carboy? This way you can have the regular saison and still try the coffee addition like you originally planned. I would hate to see you end up with my issue of the coffee just completely dominating the batch like we discussed earlier in the thread. Either way, please keep us posted!

I probably could, but I have no accurate way of measuring such things, so it would be mostly guesswork.

Use ounces. For example, A pint is 16 ounces. If thats the amount of extract you were going to use for 5 gallons, just add about 3 oz of extract per gallon. That should give you a rough amount to try. Or just add it all and see what you get. Your not adding very much so I doubt its going to overpower it.

How'd this turnout? About to do a clone of Indeed's Burr Grinder so I'm curious.

Here's what I did:
6 gallons

8.4 lb Pilsner malt
3 lb Weyermann Dark Wheat malt
3 oz Acid malt (for pH)

1.25 oz Styrian Golding (3.8% AA, pellet) FWH (calculated as 30 min)
1.75 oz Styrian Golding in No-Chill cube (calculated as 20 min)

Wyeast 3711 French Saison

1 oz Black Hand Brazilian roast (local coffee roaster, medium roast) ground and added 1 day before bottling.

Turned out interesting. Good and dry with appropriate spicy/fruity notes, but with a very noticeable coffee aroma and flavor. I could easily drink it, but it's definitely not for everyone. I've gotten mixed reviews from the few people who have tried it, everything from "I would buy this!" to "uh...interesting..."

If I do this again, I'm going to use whole beans (grounds got into the bottling bucket and bottles), and experiment with different roasts. I picked three different coffees from local roasters and chose the one I thought would best fit with saison. Definitely worth trying others, but the beer is still good.

I would recommend putting the grounds in a fine mesh bag and steeping them at flameout when the wort temp dips below 208F.

As for the additional coffee flavor, you could always save one of these bottles and use the beer to make a cold press to add to the next batch.

Interesting though. I'll be doing a flameout addition and cold press. I've done cold press and whole bean steeping. The combination created great coffee flavors in a stout.

One of the natural foods stores in the area started carrying cold-brewed coffee concentrate that comes in what looks like a Star San bottle. Thought about using that next time. That said, I like the flavor I got with adding beans to the beer, just not getting the grinds in the bottle.

I just made a reasonably hopper amber (based on Mosher's India Red Ale) to which I added 3 oz of coarsely ground beans from a medium-roast Stumptown coffee as a "dry hop" for three days. I really like it based on the bottling gravity sample, though I'm sure not everyone is going to like it. You have to really like both coffee and beer (which, of course, I do).

From my tasting of it, I'd say the coffee has imparted a stronger aroma than flavor--it's most noticeable right as you're taking a sip. But the beer is pretty bitter too (high 70s calculated IBU), so there's a coffee-like finish in some sense too.

Agreed, more in the aroma than in the flavor, even for a mildly hopped saison. I'd be curious to try a coffee IPA, or maybe rye PA.

Eventually my curiosity is going to force me to do a coffee pilsner or similar, and then my brewer credentials will probably be revoked.

eulipion2 said:

Agreed, more in the aroma than in the flavor, even for a mildly hopped saison. I'd be curious to try a coffee IPA, or maybe rye PA.

Eventually my curiosity is going to force me to do a coffee pilsner or similar, and then my brewer credentials will probably be revoked.

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Stone Dayman IPA was well received so a coffee IPA is certainly a good idea.