Coffee Vanilla Pyment

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Atek

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20lb honey
1 packet K1-v1116 (71b also yeilds great results)
10 Cups Red Grapes
5 tsp cocoa powder
5 tbsp coffee
15 Whole Cloves
5oz vanilla extract
2 vanilla beans
5tsp nutrient (add 2 tsp at initial fermentation and 1 tsp every day for 3 days after that while oxygenating)

Heat water to 150, add 15 lb honey. Add crushed grapes, cocoa powder, and coffee.* Hold at 150 for 20 minutes to pasteurize. Keep Lid on. Remove from heat, allow to cool to 100 degrees and strain into primary.

Set for 3 weeks, take gravity reading. When SG is less than or equal to 1. Add 5lb honey. Wait for fermentation to complete, then rack and add cloves. Let sit to taste up to 1 month. Then rack again onto campden and the Vanilla, let sit to taste again and rack again. (This was done this way so as to get a better balance of clove and vanilla, racking onto both at the same time would possibly lead one to leave it on the cloves to long in attempt to get more vanilla flavor.) Use clarifying agent or wait until clear. F.G. should be 1.000

* - This came out with very little compliment from the grapes, though I can tell of no detriment from them either. I used standard table grapes from walmart. I would suggest real concord grapes, or even better possibly a reisling, the possibilities with this are very broad. I also recommend getting good quality coffee, what that means I'm not sure... Just be sure and get the kind you enjoy the best. A helpful hint would be to place the grounds in a paper teabag for easier removal. I have found not doing this leaves minor amounts of coffee grains left in the must and can lead this to be overly strong on the coffee.

Try it, let us know if any changes you've made and the results :)
 
Sorry about that, I've updated the original post now. :)
 
What is the total volume that this recipe yields?

Pretty close to the batch size, in fact spot on since you have to top up anyway. I suggest bulk aging this for 2-4 months before bottling.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: K1V-1116
Yeast Starter: none
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.113
Final Gravity: ???
Boiling Time (Minutes): 20
Color: Deep Gold
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 3 weeks
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 1mo or more
Tasting Notes: This is very sweet, the coffee comes in strong with hints of clove and vanilla.
 
Just read this excerpt about coffee and Mead. It seems cold steeping the grounds will help minimize the oils and bitter compounds that come with heat brewing. I think the next time I make this I will take the 5tbs coffee grounds and place in a qt of water in the fridge and leave it for at least 24 hours. Then add that to the must.
 
Some quick pictures :)

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This looks so good!!! I will so have to give this a try!! Thanks so much for posting!! :D
 
Mupo said:
This looks so good!!! I will so have to give this a try!! Thanks so much for posting!! :D

It is amazing! Let me know how it turns out for you. :)
 
I know this thread hasn't been touched in awhile but I want to try my hand at a mead. I've been brewing beer for a few years and I'm really interested. Couple questions. I'm making a 1 gallon batch since I've never had any variation of mead before. I have no comparison but if its similar to a wine, I would like my mead to be more dry than sweet. I would scale your recipe down by a fifth to achieve 1 gallon yield.

To achieve a rather dry product I wouldn't back sweeten the mead. I would just add all the honey (4#) in the initial heating. Also I was going to use champagne yeast to dry it out. Would I use a while pack for a 1 gallon batch? I don't know if over pitching is a concern here.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers.
 
I know this thread hasn't been touched in awhile but I want to try my hand at a mead. I've been brewing beer for a few years and I'm really interested. Couple questions. I'm making a 1 gallon batch since I've never had any variation of mead before. I have no comparison but if its similar to a wine, I would like my mead to be more dry than sweet. I would scale your recipe down by a fifth to achieve 1 gallon yield.

To achieve a rather dry product I wouldn't back sweeten the mead. I would just add all the honey (4#) in the initial heating. Also I was going to use champagne yeast to dry it out. Would I use a while pack for a 1 gallon batch? I don't know if over pitching is a concern here.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

You would indeed use a whole packet, be picky about your grapes too, the more flavorful the better, and don't skimp on the quality of the coffee lol. Drying it out sounds good and is also my plan when I get around to making this again. Let us know how it turns out! :mug:
 
Do you think it would be ok to just leave the grapes out, or are they necessary in some way?
 
kschrodt said:
Do you think it would be ok to just leave the grapes out, or are they necessary in some way?

It would probably be good without it, but I do believe the grapes will help balance the acids a bit.
 
Do I need to use this yeast type or could I use a yeast from another beer that I already have on.
 
Maverick969 said:
Do I need to use this yeast type or could I use a yeast from another beer that I already have on.

You'll need to use a wine yeast, the step feeding of this makes the alcohol content pretty high, far higher than most beer yeasts can handle so this would come out far too sweet using beer yeast. Wine yeasts are pretty cheap if you have a brew shop near you. :)
 
Atec, I am also interested in this as I LOVE the fresh Brewed flavor of Starbucks French Roast. (I used to get a free pound every 2 weeks from my Barista Daughter). So you think that using the coffee cold brewed would give a less bitter flavor?
Also I have a question on the Grapes, you crushed them, I wonder how running the grapes through a juicer, then putting the skins and juice into the batch would work?
I have never made a mead before, and am thinking of making 5 - 1 gallon batches of various flavors,and also 1 5 gal batch of this.:mug:

OldYamaha
 
Hey oldyamaha, I have an old Yamaha myself, I ride a 78 dt400e just got her all street legal, almost all original parts, had to get aftermarket mirrors but other than that. I love it, thing is unstoppable. :)

Anyway back to your question. I do believe cold brewed coffee of high quality would give a less bitter result. However I have begun to wonder if the bitter isn't a good thing. It seems to balance with the sweetness of this.

The grapes has also been an area of interest. I have yet to try but using wine grapes I do believe would be awesome. I did crush the grapes yes and they are put in the heated must. That brings up another area of change perhaps. That is to make the coffee and cold sterilize the rest of the ingredients instead of heating as the recipe suggests, this would also be ideal for wine grapes. I can't recall if I fermented on the grapes or not (edit: I checked my log again and did not ferment on the grapes) but after my training (one internship away from my viticulture&enology certificate) I would suggest juicing the grapes by pressing and if red grapes leave the skins for 5 - 10 days. If white just juice, no skins. All that being said I have not made this in a while sadly, I have 1 bottle left fe 2011 I'm hanging on to for dear life as well. I have been focusing my efforts on perfecting a straight mead, not a show mead as I feel strongly that acid and tannins are required to make mead as good as it can be. When I feel more confident with a plain mead, the hardest to get consistently good or so I've been reading and experience seems to corroborate.

Please let us know what you end up doing!
 
I had an 87 750 virago, and now ride a 91 1100 virago, but will soon leave the Yamaha behind and move on to a Harley trike. My last ride was to my nephew's in Arkansas and I grew so tired that I pulled off to ask where the closest gas was, and dumped it, almost broke my ankle and had to have help lifting it off me. 550 miles in 1 day was a bit too much for this old ... man. Have a kit Black Raspberry/Merlot in the bottle fermenting, and the honey waiting to get mixed. Will try to keep up this discussion.

Harry
OldYamaha
 
This sounds fantastic. when it comes to the coffee you mentioned putting it in a qt of water in the fridge for 24 hours then dumping in the must. You also stated earlier that you would put it in a tea bag instead of directly into the must. So would you cold steep then dump through a tea bag and catch the grounds in the tea bag and add the tea bag then? I am just trying to get your process down!!

Thanks!

ps sorry to bring this back from the dead!
 
Dude, no worries! Glad to see there's interest. So those notes before were merely possible suggestions. I have been experimenting with other stuff so I have not yet gotten back to making this again... yet :)

to clarify the method used originally in the recipe is just to place the coffee in the must as its heating... I'm kind of fond of the no heat method these days though so I would get all the ingredients together and toss them in, adding the coffee grounds cold and leaving them in the must, preferably in some sort of a removable bag but that's not entirely necessary. Taste it when its ready to go in secondary (remember this uses staggered sugar additions) and add more coffee if needed, go small, more can always be added! For the grapes, red table grapes will give a good result but for some more interesting characterstics I'd go with a fairly mild red wine grape (perhaps syrah?), as long as its not overly acidic you'll be good! However you decided to do it all of these flavors mesh extremely well and this is an AMAZING winter warming mead. :)
 
Hey Atek,

I have a question for you. When I started this on 11/24 and it hit 1.000 on 12/4. It was nearly clear when I racked. I did happen to give it a little taste and it seemed kinda watery. I used 4 LBS, 2 cups red grapes, 1 tsp cocoa powder, 1 tbsp coffee and 1 gallon of water. Did I do something wrong or is this supposed to taste watery at this stage? It has been in the secondary for around 9 days now. I added a vanilla bean just the other day. I was hoping to get some input from you on this.

Thanks
 
Hey man, sorry I see it's been some time since you posted this. I have been Mia for a while. Did you do the secondary feeding? It was not watery to me at the time.
 
I found your issue,

the recipe calls for 20# total. from your description you used 4# total and doesn't seem to be a secondary feeding, either. I believe this is where your issue is.
 
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