Adding Coffee to Porter

Looking to brew up a Porter with coffee. Pipeline Porter is the culprit.
I found a extract kit http://www.williamsbrewing.com/PORTER-P287C189.aspx now I need to add the coffee,,,,how do you do it?

I have no idea how they do it but The micro brewery in Honeoye, NY brews a killer coffee porter! One of the best beers I've ever tasted!!!

I just brewed my first porter. It's amazing how complex a basic robust porter is. I recommend that you brew a porter without coffee first, then look into doing a coffee porter.

If you want, you can secondary a gallon of the porter with some coffee as a test.

The only coffee beer I've made was a partial mash coffee stout. The instructions I had called to steep the coffee for 30 minutes or so, raise to 165, then mash what grains I had inside the coffee for an hour.

The end product was delicious.

I just did a vanilla coffee porter. I added a pot of French pressed coffee into the bottling bucket, racked and then bottled.

phattony said:

I just did a vanilla coffee porter. I added a pot of French pressed coffee into the bottling bucket, racked and then bottled.

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I might add... I sanitized all of my coffee making equipment first and brought the water to make the coffee to a boil, which is standard French press process.

I actually did a coffee porter using Hawaiian coffee (whole beans that I ground at time of use) and a french press. I filled the french press with 16oz cold water and 3 scoops of coffee. I let it cold steep for about a couple hours and then added to a gallon of the porter beer and let set in a secondary for about a week, then bottled and let age for about 3 weeks at room temp, then chilled for a week. First one after the week of chilling was ok, but tried another one after two weeks of chilling, I started picking up more coffee flavors. Might try it again using more coffee to get a bolder coffee flavor.

The reason I cold steeped the coffee was that I wanted the flavors, but not the oils of the coffee beans that come out in the hot water.

Good luck on your trials.

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

Looking to brew up a Porter with coffee. Pipeline Porter is the culprit.
I found a extract kit http://www.williamsbrewing.com/PORTER-P287C189.aspx now I need to add the coffee,,,,how do you do it?

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I actually based my robust porter recipe off pipeline's ingredients. I brewed without coffee and just recently split a batch to add coffee. I cold brewed coffee and added at bottling. In fact, I think I overdid the coffee.

Best advice I can give from my limited experience is when you design the porter part of the recipe, adjust your bittering to account for the bittering the coffee will add.

PM me if you want the recipe I used. It took 1st place my homebrew club this month. I haven't gotten a chance to post it yet.

^^ +1 for cold brewing that's what I did with my coffee vanilla porter and it came out awesome. Was very similar to Ballast Point Victory at Sea since I went to the same place they get their coffee from.

I cold brewed it in a french press for 24 hours in the fridge and then added to the keg. Was about 16oz of coffee added.

Hey Packersfan I am from San Diego as well was just down at Ballast Point Home Brew Mart last night for cask night.

Balue said:

^^ +1 for cold brewing that's what I did with my coffee vanilla porter and it came out awesome. Was very similar to Ballast Point Victory at Sea since I went to the same place they get their coffee from.

I cold brewed it in a french press for 24 hours in the fridge and then added to the keg. Was about 16oz of coffee added.

Hey Packersfan I am from San Diego as well was just down at Ballast Point Home Brew Mart last night for cask night.

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Also throwing in what I learned from a brewer, who happens to make my absolute favorite coffee stout: Use a low acidity bean like Guatemalan with a large grind, cold pressed for at least 24 hours. Boiled, pre-chilled water, in a sanitized container.

For technique, filter it before adding at bottling. You could also add it to secondary as well, and let it sit for a while. Just filter first to keep the grinds out... to avoid any potential bitter aftertaste.

As for amount, it depends on what you want for coffee flavor. I've read that slightly less than 6oz per gallon is approximately the right ratio, although I'm sure others with more experience brewing with coffee can chime in on amount.

I assume adding the coffee at bottling is going to affect the abv? I am thinking of doing similar to an oatmeal stout I have in primary now. Is there a way to measure the effect the coffee addition will have on the stout abv?

Just got back from LBHS and boss man said to try and add brewed coffee at the boil....He did not say do this or do that, it was just his opinion. French Pressed? Cold Pressed? What is that?

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

Just got back from LBHS and boss man said to try and add brewed coffee at the boil....He did do say do this or do that,it was just his opinion. French Pressed? Cold Pressed? What is that?

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A french press is a device used to steep coffee grounds for a few minutes and then pressing down on the top plunger to filter the grounds. Makes a great cup of coffee. Google it for more info.

Cold presssed is actually cold steep. Instead of using hot water, use the cold water, which will have different flavors from the coffee beans. When you use hot water with coffee grounds, the heat releases the oils in the beans, which is great for drinking coffee but when adding to beer, the oils can kill the head retention of the beer and possibly effect the flavor of the beer.

That's the great thing of homebrew, experiment with different methods and you never know what comes out.

I brewed a 5 gallon Coffee Oatmeal Imperial porter this past Wednesday. The day before I brewed (roughly 24 hours) I added 1 cup of fresh ground, dark roast coffee to 4 cups cold spring water, covered it with cling wrap, and let it steep over night.

The next day I strained the whole mess through a coffee filter, placed the liquid in a bowl, and recovered with plastic. I added the cold steeped coffee the last five minutes of the boil. The wort smelled great, and the hydro sample had a good coffee note. Unfortunately I won't know how it turns out until June-July sometime.

I hope this helped...

Topher79 said:

I brewed a 5 gallon Coffee Oatmeal Imperial porter this past Wednesday. The day before I brewed (roughly 24 hours) I added 1 cup of fresh ground, dark roast coffee to 4 cups cold spring water, covered it with cling wrap, and let it steep over night.

The next day I strained the whole mess through a coffee filter, placed the liquid in a bowl, and recovered with plastic. I added the cold steeped coffee the last five minutes of the boil. The wort smelled great, and the hydro sample had a good coffee note. Unfortunately I won't know how it turns out until June-July sometime.

I hope this helped...

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I just might have to try this method.....was always thinking of adding coffee at the boil just for sanitations sake

I found this on Northern Brewers website. Their Coffee Porter recipe says this,". Add the coffee. Coarsely grind the coffee and add it to the fermenter. Wait one week before going on to the next step."

Seems like a very good way to get an infection.....

I was going to brew today, but will wait til tomorrow as I am going to cold steep some type of medium Starbucks coffee and add it to the cooled wort. Now I just have to figure out how much to steep. Was thinking of 2 pots of brewed coffee per 5 gallons and for me, that's 4 scoops of ground coffee.