Coffee-ing a PM Porter...

I just got a PM porter in the primary last night, and though I wish I could give the recipe here, the guy who wrote it has some pretty serious cursive. Not sure it would matter for my question though:

I want to make this a coffee porter, and am wondering about the best way to add coffee, and how much. I'm obviously past the point of a flame out addition, so I was thinking about brewing up a batch for the secondary. Is this a good idea? Bad idea?

I also don't want to overpower it, so about how many cups ought I to brew for the brew.

Any and all help is appreciated.

P.S. This will be the last PM batch, I'm goin' AG!

I like to steep the coffee in vodka or directly into the secondary. How long and the amount of coarsely ground beans depends on the alcohol and batch size.

I did a coffee stout where i added brewed coffee directly. I did not like the results for a few reasons. I thought it watered down the beer a little. It had the coffee bitterness, when I was just looking for the aroma. This could have all been mistakes on my part, but I feel you're least prone to error with all the aroma and flavor through secondary steeping. Just put it in a hop bag and have a rope long enough to pull out the beans.

You never want to have coffee in the boil anyway.

Wait until after fermentation is done. Cold steep some of your favorite grounds overnight, filter and add. The cold steeping avoids the harshness/astringency of "regular" brewing.

I just bottled my coffee porter a week ago, and All I did was throw 4 oz. of grounds in the fermenter a couple days before bottling. The beer had a big coffee aroma, but the sample I tasted didn't have a whole lot of coffee in the flavor. YMMV, but I think the best way is to add it cold (either add beans/grounds in secondary or cold steep some and add the liquid after filtering). Also, adding the grounds you buy at the store make siphoning a PITA. I wrapped the end of my siphon in cheesecloth to act as a filter and it worked ok, but the flow was a little slow. Good Luck!

I have not tried the method I'm about to suggest, but I'm going to throw it out there anyways incase other brewers have tried it.

I'm think you could cold press or let it soak overnight and then boil down the cold coffee to concentrate the flavors and aromas without watering down the beer.

I have done cold steeping and the results were excellent. I just added the coffee to water in a French press and allowed it to sit in the refrigerator.

November said:

I have done cold steeping and the results were excellent. I just added the coffee to water in a French press and allowed it to sit in the refrigerator.

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+1 more for the cold steeping. Cold steeping usually gives a very strong coffee and cuts down on the bitterness dramatically. Shouldn't add much of a watery taste at all.

Sweet, I think I'll do a cold-press as suggested. Perfect that I just got myself a nice big 12 cup french press! Aaaaand 5 lbs. of my favorite coffee!

The boiling down method is interesting indeed, do you think it could potentially add bitterness though? Or would that not be an issue since the grounds would already be filtered out?

btw, cafemam.com for the bestest most delicious insanely good deals on amazing shade grown organic coffee. (no, I'm not a rep, not officially that is...)

Alright, I cold-pressed the magic beans and then boiled it down as was suggested. I didn't get to steep it as long as I would have liked to, and thus was my inspiration to boil it down a little.

Now, it's been 7 days in the primary, and 4 in the secondary (with the coffee). My (it's) gravity readings were already at target FG (1.012, down from 1.062) after one week in the primary. My LHBS suggested 2 weeks in the secondary with this recipe, and what I'm wondering is, can I bottle it say this weekend? I know lots of people suggest 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, but is this for more reasons than to reach full conversion? Mellow out the hops? Will the hops not also mellow out in the bottles whilst carbonating, or is it different from when they're in the fermentor?

I have a recipe that calls for drawing a liter or two from the primary (or secondary) doing a 24-hour cold extraction of the coffee and then straining it back in.

that's an interesting approach, I'll try that nest time...

Strangebird said:

I have a recipe that calls for drawing a liter or two from the primary (or secondary) doing a 24-hour cold extraction of the coffee and then straining it back in.

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+1...This is how Surly makes their coffee bender.

Cold extraction using the beer instead of water sounds really cool. I made a batch using a cold extraction method I found on hbt, and was very impressed with the results.

All the coffee porters I have tasted were overpowered by the coffee flavor. Pretty much alcolholic coffee drinks rather then a porter with coffee undertones. So I am going a different route to make a coffee porter tomorrow. I am just adding 1/2 lb of Franco-Belges kiln coffee malt to my grain bill. I don't know if it is too much or too little to get the result I want, but I will let you know in about two months!

I just finished bottling the Founders Breakfast Stout that's in the recipes section. It calls for two coffee additions, 2 oz. grounds in the boil pot at flameout, and then some cold steeped in the secondary. I was concerned about overdoing it, so I only did the first addition. From tasting the beer at bottling, the results were great. This beer also uses a healthy chocolate addition, and both coffee and chocolate tastes were there, nice but very balanced.

Since you're doing a porter, it should also be noted that this FBS clone is a BIG beer, with 21 pounds of fermentables, including 22 oz. of flaked oats, which may help to balance the coffee & chocolate. For the coffee, I used a strong dark roast (Papanicholas French Roast), grinding the beans fresh just before dumping them into the boil.

If I remember, I'll come back & do a report (probably in the FBS thread in Recipes) after this batch conditions.