how to add coffee

Hoping somebody could help me out, I'm brewing a java stout from midwestsupplies and am only using a primary (no secondary). when and how should I add the coffee? Just pour it in after 3 weeks? do I mix at all? thanks

whats up guy. i just made this beer. i added the coffee to the last bit of the boil (5 min? what ever the directions said) and i think it's a bit much on the coffee. i would add to secondary, or just poor in after three weeks like you said. i wouldn't stir, it should mix well enough on its own and when you rack to a bottling bucket

good to hear...thanks

How are you prepping the coffee? I would not add it to the boil. The oils will boil out and create and off flavor that is not desirable. I did a bourbon-coffee porter that I cold steeped the beans & bourdon in the fridge for 72 hours and then added to the bottling bucket. Just use water instead of bourbon and grind the beans coursely. You should be good.

was going to make the pot of coffee and then just dump it into the primary this week (been fermenting for 17 days so far), let it sit there for another week and then bottle, hoping that the transfer from primary to bottling bucket would be enough to mix the coffee with the rest of the beer.

i would think it would be. also you can stir (carefully, without splashing) in the bottling bucket. i was just suggesting not to do it in the fermenter so you didn't stir up the yeast sediment.

rycov said:

i would think it would be. also you can stir (carefully, without splashing) in jkku bottling bucket. i was just suggesting not to do it in the fermenter so you didn't stir up the yeast sediment.

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Mop

I apologize for the nonsensical post above. My 1 1/2 year old got a hold of my phone yesterday and somehow posted on this forum. I didn't think she had actually posted anything but apparently she did.

that's funny, I assumed "mop" stood for something that I just wasn't aware of. hopefully going to add the coffee tonight and let it sit for another week before bottling.

My sister's BF just made a batch of mocha porter last month. He brewed a full gallon(!) of coffee and dumped it in the primary just prior to adding the cooled wort.

Note: 1 gal. of coffee in a 5 gal. batch of beer is a LOT. 1 or 2 pots should be plenty.

weekapaug19 said:

that's funny, I assumed "mop" stood for something that I just wasn't aware of.

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This.

I'm so obsessed w/ HBT that Just for a second, I expected to scroll down and read some crazy microbiological exposition about straining coffee thru the fibers of a mop, backed up by various experimental data....

MOP = mocha optimal porter?

"All your home brew are belong to us!"

J-Tho said:

Mop

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Yes, I thought it was some secret procedure. So I did. My kitchen floor is spotless.

I cold brewed my coffee for my coffee and cream stout. Just steeped a pound of coffee in around 3/4 a gallon of water for 3 days in the fridge then added to secondary for a week. Very smooth coffee flavor. You could get the same effect by combining at bottling and allow a little more bottle aging, you definitely want to cold brewed though.

I just threw a couple of scoops of starbucks vanilla when i kegged.
I will be taste testing it tommorrow ill let u know

what exactly does cold brewed mean? Just make the coffee and stick it in the fridge for a couple days?

weekapaug19 said:

what exactly does cold brewed mean? Just make the coffee and stick it in the fridge for a couple days?

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To my knowledge it is sticking the ground coffee beans in cold water and letting it absorb for several days rather then steeping coffee in hot water (like how coffee pots are done).

Cold brewed coffee is brewed in either room temp water or in the fridge.

Usually a large amount of coffee is used. The grounds go directly in the water for 24 hours and then you filter it, a french press works well for that part.

You end up with a very concentrated coffee that is very smooth, not bitter or acidic.

+1 to cold-steeped coffee added St some point after the boil.

Do NOT add your mop to secondary!

gingerdawg said:

Do NOT add your mop to secondary!

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Damn, wish you had told me earlier . . . .

anybody ever just grind the coffee beans and throw them into a nylon bag and then just let that sit in the primary for about 24hours before bottling?

Huh. I suppose that's the same as cold steeping.

ya, i thought of that after I wrote it, though I deleted it but guess I didn't. In my head originally I had cold steeping as doing it in a different container, then adding that water into the primary.

Yeah, I mean most folks suggest steeping coffee in water in another vessel and pouring coffee into the beer, but steeping directly in the beer sounds like a better way to do it.

weekapaug19 said:

anybody ever just grind the coffee beans and throw them into a nylon bag and then just let that sit in the primary for about 24hours before bottling?

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I was going to try this myself but several people told me the alcohol in the fermented beer can extract some odd flavor from the coffee beans, don't know how true this is. But I do know steeping a pound of course ground beans steeped in water in the fridge for a couple days yields excellent smooth results. If someone knows, or wants to try, how steeping in the fermentor comes out I would like to know the results.

feedbag said:

I was going to try this myself but several people told me the alcohol in the fermented beer can extract some odd flavor from the coffee beans, don't know how true this is. But I do know steeping a pound of course ground beans steeped in water in the fridge for a couple days yields excellent smooth results. If someone knows, or wants to try, how steeping in the fermentor comes out I would like to know the results.

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what would be the best way to warm up the coffee if you brew it this way? (for drinking not putting in beer)

I want to resurrect this thread for a sec.

The consensus I read on all of the coffee threads on this site seems to be cold press.

That much seems clear.

1). Now, after you cold press, do you just dump it into the bottling bucket with the priming sugar or do you add it to the bottling bucket with the priming sugar AND water?

In other words, do you count the water in the coffee toward the quantity of water you would add to the priming sugar, for dissolving it?

2). I imagine I would boil the coffee water first, sterilize the french press, and do my best to keep that stuff clean, but there's no way to make sterilized coffee beans without ruining coffee. Is the alcohol in the beer going to be enough to manage stopping any contamination?

3). I'm assuming that you don't want to stir or anything, correct?

Anything else any of you who have done this can tell me? I'm doing a 5 gallon batch of Irish stout, which I want to add a tiny bit of vanilla and a good dose of coffee to.

I'm all ears for suggestions.

For a coffee-cocoa nib stout based on this recipe:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/chocolate-coffee-stout-chocolate-jitterz-35562/

I did a room temp steep of coffee in its own vessel for about a day, then pasteurized that liquid before adding it to the bottling bucket. I liked the results but I didn't think it was as smooth as some coffee stouts I have had. I had a portion of this batch with just the nibs and that was a noticeably better beer. Regardless, the just coffee liquid I generated from the steep tasted great, but something about the beer in concert with it wasn't as nice. Perhaps the beer could of been sweeter to counteract the harshness of the coffee.

Next time I am going to try adding growths direct to a fermentor for 24 or 48 hours, cold crash the fermentor, and bottle that. Similar to dry hopping, I think that will produce a better flavor integration. It is a bit scary to do that, but if you don't like coffee, don't add coffee to your beer!

I'm a total coffee snob, so I'll be cool either way.

I am reading TONS of info on brewing (beer) and all, but I'm still very green... I've got my first brew just about ready to bottle.

What I've read has inclined me away from steeping coffee in the beer itself, because it can extract more oils and undesirable flavors. Most homebrewers that I have spoken to about doing coffee beer have told me it's trial and error, but their best results seem to come from cold pressing.

By contrast, Half Acre Brewing in Chicago had my favorite coffee shop (Star Lounge) brew 500 actual pour-overs of coffee to add to their Big Hugs imperial coffee stout. Big Hugs is the best (IMO) coffee stout ever. I love FBS, but Big Hugs is glorious. I just suspect that things don't scale the same from a 5 gallon batch, and plastic buckets to commercial brewing. So what works when you do a many many barrel batch may not work for a mini batch.

I suspect "anything" will be fine by me for the first try. But I do worry about bugs... I don't want a perfectly decent beer to get "wronged" in the bottle, when it could have been a good stout.

Is there anything I have to do to prevent contamination via non pasteurized coffee?

I will read your link immediately... just thought I'd respond while I have a second.

I brewed a similar recipe in early December. Cold steeped coffee beans provided in a gallon of room temperature water for a week and added to secondary. Sampled it after being in bottle for two weeks and the coffee flavor is PERFECT!

I recently did a cold steep. Took a half pound of coffee in 24 ounces of water, put it in a sterilized jar in the fridge for 24 hours. Then I added it when I racked to secondary. Haven't tasted it, but supposedly it should produce a smooth coffee flavor. You would get a harsh flavor if you added it to the boil. I never thought of steeping it in the beer itself, but then you have to wonder if you have the right ratio of beer to coffee, and then you have to worry about getting the coffee out of the beer.

For my house standard "Breakfast beer" (oatmeal milk stout with coffee), i make a double-strength pot of coffee and add it to the bottling bucket along with my priming sugar (in lieu of boiling the sugar). Works out quite well...