Breakfast stout

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charley

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Just brewed a breakfast stout (Founders clone). Never brewed with coffee before. Seems to be floating all over the place. Will it settle with the rest of the wort?

Here's the recipe if anybody's interested:
6.6 lbs. (3.0 kg) Briess light, unhopped, malt extract
1.7 lbs. (0.77 kg) light dry extract
22 oz. (0.62 kg) flaked oats
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) chocolate malt (350 °L)
12 oz. (0.34 kg) roast barley malt (450 °L)
9.0 oz. (0.25 kg) debittered, black malt (530 °L)
7.0 oz. (0.19 kg) crystal malt (120 °L)
2.0 oz. (57 g) ground Sumatran coffee
2.0 oz. (57 g) ground Kona coffee
2.5 oz. (71 g) dark, bittersweet baker’s chocolate
1.5 oz. (43 g) unsweetened chocolate baking nibs
14.3 AAU Nugget pellet hops (60 min.) (1.1 oz./ 31 g of 13% alpha acid)
2.5 AAU Willamette pellet hops (30 min.) (0.5 oz./ 14 g of 5 % alpha acid)
2.5 AAU Willamette pellet hops (0 min.) (0.5 oz./ 14 g of 5 % alpha acid)
1⁄2 tsp. yeast nutrient (last 15 minutes)
1⁄2 tsp. Irish moss (last 15 minutes
White Labs WLP 001 (American Ale) or Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) yeast
0.75 cup (150 g) of corn sugar for priming (if bottling)

Step by Step:
 
I brewed it, and it'll settle out. Be ready for a MASSIVE amount of trub in the primary.. I had.. 4 inches atleast and I strained pretty well I thought.

Word of warning. The coffee addition in that recipe is a bit much. Plan to age this one for a while. I'm at... 4 months? It's starting to mellow. Cold pressed addition at flame out, or at kegging/bottling is THE best way IMO to add the real coffee flavor that you don't pick up from the grain bill.

It's a decent recipe.. Not my favorite that I've made, but it's close enough to call it a "clone".
 
When you let it age are you leaving it in bottles/keg or are you leaving it in a fermenting chamber for that long?
 
Cold Pressing refers to using a french press to cold steep coffee and then adding it at bottling time. This is supposed to provide a smoother coffee flavor. I have also read that the coffee aroma from this method fades faster. I am going to try cold pressing and then dry hopping with beans in the same recipe this year to compare. I have cold steeped coffee 2x and they have turned out great.
 
What does cold pressing at bottling mean?


I let mine in secondary for a month or two and then kegged.

Cold pressing, is somewhat the same as cold brewing.

Grind the beans, and add to cold water. Stir. Let sit in the fridge covered. This will brew the coffee without the heat and get the flavor without the acrid burnt possibility of a hot brew.

It might fade faster, but it taste better in the beer.

When I did my breakfast stout, I added coarse ground beans at flame out, or 5 minutes, I cant remember... Then I added whole beans in the secondary with oak soaked in bourbon...

The coffee flavor was so strong it was unbalanced in that recipe. It will fade, as I've had to let it sit to balance it out. It's too much in that recipe.
 
I hope I didn't mess up. I used 2oz of coffee at 5 mins before flameout but I ground them as I would if I made a pot of coffee (not course but very fine). 2oz is about as much as a regular pot of coffee for me. I was thinking the same thing that if I added another 2oz in a week them I'd have the equivalent to two pots of coffee in the beer... Seems a little much. I decided that I'd skip the second coffee and then leave it as is for 2 weeks then bottle. Would that still turn out? The recipe said to let it ferment and settle for two weeks then bottle. I'm hearing that you say to leave it for longer though. What should I do?
 
I hope I didn't mess up. I used 2oz of coffee at 5 mins before flameout but I ground them as I would if I made a pot of coffee (not course but very fine). 2oz is about as much as a regular pot of coffee for me. I was thinking the same thing that if I added another 2oz in a week them I'd have the equivalent to two pots of coffee in the beer... Seems a little much. I decided that I'd skip the second coffee and then leave it as is for 2 weeks then bottle. Would that still turn out? The recipe said to let it ferment and settle for two weeks then bottle. I'm hearing that you say to leave it for longer though. What should I do?

Let it sit 3 weeks in primary atleast. It's a bigger beer.

Rack to secondary.. taste it... I think this beer needs a secondary to settle out personally.

See if you think it needs the coffee addition.

I personally found that 5 minutes of boiling coffee extracted some harsh bitter tannins. It'll fade so don't worry
 
3 weeks at keeping temp in the bucket with cold water is a little discouraging :/ I really need to get a chamber. I'll do 3 weeks. Does it need to stay at 68 the whole time?
 
3 weeks at keeping temp in the bucket with cold water is a little discouraging :/ I really need to get a chamber. I'll do 3 weeks. Does it need to stay at 68 the whole time?

Keep it cool until fermentation slows or stops.

Usually the first 5-6 days I'll keep it cold, and then slowly let it warm up. After that, I don't do anything to keep it at any temp. It stays under 70 without any problem in the same water.
 
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