Clone Beer Founder's Breakfast Stout Clone

My point was that if m00ps has a problem with processed chocolate because it contains the fats of cocoa butter then why are nibs ok?

hmm....I think they just have a lot less concentration of the cocoa butter. And since you don't grind or pulverize them, maybe the fats that are in the nibs stay retained inside them. I boil my nibs for a min or two and add the whole mixture to my fermentor. If a lot of fats were extracted, I'm guessing I'd see an oil layer form on top while the mixture is cooling.

I guess the goal is to minimize the fats however you can. Even cocoa powder has a tiny bit of fat if you check the nutrition facts.

m00ps...

Can you describe how you did the coffee & chocolate additions in the Founders?

Also what did you use? I've looked back through & read your comments but can't determine exactly what you did... Sorry if I overlooked a summary somewhere...

thanks

cantrell00 said:

m00ps...

Can you describe how you did the coffee & chocolate additions in the Founders?

Also what did you use? I've looked back through & read your comments but can't determine exactly what you did... Sorry if I overlooked a summary somewhere...

thanks

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No problem, here's the Founders Inspired Maple breakfast stout I did. It should have all the instructions in there....let me know if I missed anything. The key for me was whole bean coffee additions. I've found it works better for me than flameout or cold steeping and is easier
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/flapjack-breakfast-stout-chocolate-coffee-oatmeal-maple-imperial-stout-496504/

m00ps said:

hmm....I think they just have a lot less concentration of the cocoa butter. And since you don't grind or pulverize them, maybe the fats that are in the nibs stay retained inside them. I boil my nibs for a min or two and add the whole mixture to my fermentor. If a lot of fats were extracted, I'm guessing I'd see an oil layer form on top while the mixture is cooling.

I guess the goal is to minimize the fats however you can. Even cocoa powder has a tiny bit of fat if you check the nutrition facts.

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So I brewed something similar to this specially adding the chocolate to the last part of the boil and steeping the coffee. The flavor turned out pretty well not really any astringency from the coffee that's real noticeable but I did have issues with head retentioin from adding the chocolate, I did not use nibs I used bakers choc and semi sweetened bakers choc. When you mention baking nibs do u mean the regular choc nibs that most times get added to secondary? In this recipe did you add those to the boil? I plan on a rebrew of this but I think I'm going to add lactose during the boil, and then age it for a couple weeks on cocoa nibs and try the bean method I may use espresso beans just for a change.

I think those are the nibs. I get them by the pound from brewing sites. You can also find them in the grocery store in the organic / health food section.

I add the nibs into the primary. I boil them for a short period in a tiny bit of water along with some vanilla beans to extract flavor and sanitize. I add this mixture to the fermentor

m00ps said:

I think those are the nibs. I get them by the pound from brewing sites. You can also find them in the grocery store in the organic / health food section.

I add the nibs into the primary. I boil them for a short period in a tiny bit of water along with some vanilla beans to extract flavor and sanitize. I add this mixture to the fermentor

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Any idea on the amount of nibs (oz) / # of vanilla beans per 5 gallons?

m00ps said:

I think those are the nibs. I get them by the pound from brewing sites. You can also find them in the grocery store in the organic / health food section.

I add the nibs into the primary. I boil them for a short period in a tiny bit of water along with some vanilla beans to extract flavor and sanitize. I add this mixture to the fermentor

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Interesting so you add to primary instead of secondary? at what stage of fermentation do you add this mixture and do you use a hop sack? do you leave your beer in primary any longer due to the nibs or proceed as usual, for instance I always leave my beer in primary for 2 weeks would I wait longer with the nibs say 3 weeks before transferring?

And you've been able to taste chocolate in your beers with this method??

I've only done 3 secondaries in over 100 brews. Those were to add like pounds of fruit or for brett conditioning. I normally do all primary

For the coffee beans I toss them in without a bag, they are big enough to not clog anything. I was initially surprised at the huge amount of flavor that came through using whole beans. I figured you'd need to crack them to extract anything

I get a great chocolate flavor from the nibs and vanilla. The vanilla helps round out the flavor by contrasting the cocoa bitterness. Makes it more milk chocolatey. Sometimes I add 4oz cocoa powder at the end of the boil too if I want tons of chocolate. I dont use bags for this either, all the pieces seem to get buried down in the trub.

All of these I add within a week of bottling

Awesome thread here reading and learning

Hoping to brew this again tomorrow.

Had to change course today, will brew again soon though.

is everyone still using the recipe on page 1. about to order ingredients and don't have time to read 100+ pages. Thanks

2BeerSpeer said:

is everyone still using the recipe on page 1. about to order ingredients and don't have time to read 100+ pages. Thanks

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yes

Just kegged this yesterday. The sample tasted delicious. I did change it up a bit. I used 2.5 times the dark grains and cold stepped them for about 18 hours then added the extract from that to the last 5 minutes of the boil. It looked like motor oil. I also left out the coffee at kegging time. I think I also added a bit more chocolate as well. Going to try and let this sit for a couple months before drinking it.

Hey guys, I need an opinion. First time doing this beer, or any beer this size.

I brewed 12-29-14, OG @ 1.089
Racked to secondary 1-14-15 @ 1.029
Today, 2-9-15, its @ 1.023
That's ~2 weeks primary and ~3+ weeks secondary.

I would like to get it bottled this week or next. I will check FG again in a day or two. My local home brew store said if I go 6 weeks, I may need to pitch a small amount of fresh yeast at bottling to ensure carbonation. I am worried a fresh pitch, even small, could start another fermentation and make gushers of it. I have never had a beer finish high, but I think 1.023 is reasonable for this type of beer.

Am I over thinking it? Prime as usual & bottle? Or pitch, prime, & bottle?

Wait two days check Gravity again and if it's stable just bottle as normal. Two weeks primary with the correct amount of yeast pitched should've gotten this down to its FG so maybe something happened there and when u racked to secondary it roused the yeast and finished out more. It's prob at its FG but just recheck in 2-3 days.

sportpak said:

I am worried a fresh pitch, even small, could start another fermentation and make gushers of it.

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nope, this isn't a concern unless you pitch a (much) more attenuative yeast. but given that you're at about 9% alcohol, yeast won't be too happy in that environment.

after 6 weeks you should still have a few brave active cells in there. if you're willing to be patient, no additional yeast is needed. might take a month to carb, but this beer benefits from a little aging anyways.

also, prime low - 2.0 or 2.1 works well for this beer, IMO.

olotti said:

Wait two days check Gravity again and if it's stable just bottle as normal. Two weeks primary with the correct amount of yeast pitched should've gotten this down to its FG so maybe something happened there and when u racked to secondary it roused the yeast and finished out more. It's prob at its FG but just recheck in 2-3 days.

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sweetcell said:

nope, this isn't a concern unless you pitch a (much) more attenuative yeast. but given that you're at about 9% alcohol, yeast won't be too happy in that environment.

after 6 weeks you should still have a few brave active cells in there. if you're willing to be patient, no additional yeast is needed. might take a month to carb, but this beer benefits from a little aging anyways.

also, prime low - 2.0 or 2.1 works well for this beer, IMO.

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Thanks guys. I'll bottle it as usual. I was planning on giving it an initial 4-6 weeks in the bottle anyways.

Brewed this to be ready for New Years Eve... It was a solid hit. Complex chocolate-coffee nose, chocolate hit up front, coffee taste as the chocolate fades in the finish. Creamy lasting head. Really a nice beer, the first drinkable stout I've made, and one of my best batches to date.

I couldn't find nibs at my local stores, so I went with 4 oz of 100% Hershey's cacao powder just before flame out. Did the coffee additions as listed, cold-brewed the addition for the secondary in a sanitized french press covered in foil in my fridge overnight. Was nervous. Shouldn't have worried. Brew this if you like the commercial Founders brew, it's a must try.

Bottled yesterday, 1.085 OG, 1.030 FG ...

4 oz of coffee @ flameout & 4 oz of cocoa nibs in secondary for 2 weeks..

Fingers crossed. The hydrometer samples tasted great. We will see in a couple of weeks...

Coffee at flame out is the wrong approach. Still a really good beer but not in the same class as founders as far as smoothness

EDIT. Speaking of mine, not the recipe itself. Some of it could be poor execution on my part...

cantrell00 said:

Coffee at flame out is the wrong approach. Still a really good beer but not in the same class as founders as far as smoothness

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Can you elaborate? Coffee added some bitterness? Two weeks seems a bit long for the nibs.

Yeah. It did. Astringency mostly.

I didn't pick up all that much from the nibs. Mostly aroma, which was nice.

Some of the bite is due to youth also. Needs to mellow.

I am going to try a bottle a month a part & take notes.

Mine is still a very good beer but no where near as rounded as FBS
.
More carbonated too. Only used 2 oz of sugar in a 5 gal batch.

Last bottle of FBS I had , had hardly no head at all.

I've heard a lot of speculation about whole coffee beans (like dry hopping) being the best way for smooth coffee notes on multiple threads/sites. I'm going to try it for this beer next time I make itnn

brewski09 said:

I've heard a lot of speculation about whole coffee beans (like dry hopping) being the best way for smooth coffee notes on multiple threads/sites. I'm going to try it for this beer next time I make itnn

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That will be my next approach.. trying to find specifics of a ratio ? 3-4 oz of beans per 5 gallons maybe?

brewski09 said:

I've heard a lot of speculation about whole coffee beans (like dry hopping) being the best way for smooth coffee notes on multiple threads/sites.

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i wonder if that is because using whole beans is less efficient (you'll get more out of a pound of ground coffee than you will from a pound of whole beans). in other words, you're simply getting less coffee flavor.

I think that with a long soak, you could overcome the limitations of unground beans. Much like making cold brew coffee (which takes longer, but results in a much smoother brew, then tends also to be concentrated so you can heat and dilute to normal strength by adding hot water.) Also if you get beans in a vacuum bag, you can probably assume them to be sanitary. They typically roast to over 400° and then pack while still warm into those vac bags with CO2 vent. I doubt much oxygen if any is present in the bags since the freshly roasted beans give off co2 for a while after they've been roasted, and that should purge the bag. Probably they are all machine packed in bulk depending on what you've got.
Td

Hi all I'm new here and to brewing i got the ingredients from the list to make and extract kit for founders but i have a few questions. I'm going to just say sorry now because this is my 4th time ever brewing. So first the coffee do you just put the beens in the boil ground or unground or can you brew the coffee and add it. i have seen on the form where people cold brew beens and i have no idea what they mean on that can someone fill me in. Second if i add coffee to the secondary i have heard of people messing up the beer by introducing bacteria so how do i prevent that do i put the beens in a little vodka or brew the beens and add them. sorry for the crazy questions but i love this beer and i would love to make it myself and I'm really starting to like this new hobby. thanks for any help

mthenry87 said:

So first the coffee do you just put the beens in the boil ground or unground or can you brew the coffee and add it. i have seen on the form where people cold brew beens and i have no idea what they mean on that can someone fill me in.

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grind the beans as roughly (coarsely) as you can. cold brewing is when you add the ground coffee to room temp, or even cold, water and let it sit for 24 hours.

there is no one "correct" way to add coffee to a beer. different brewers use different techniques. i would suggest sticking with the instructions of this recipe, tasting the beer once it's ready, and modifying your technique once you've figured out what needs to be changed (needs more coffee flavor? tastes a little burned? too astringent? etc.)

if i can make one recommendation: dial back the coffee just a little. instead of 2 + 2 oz, i would use 1.5 + 1.5.

mthenry87 said:

Second if i add coffee to the secondary i have heard of people messing up the beer by introducing bacteria so how do i prevent that do i put the beens in a little vodka or brew the beens and add them

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don't worry about contamination. this is a big beer and you'll have plenty of alcohol to keep infection at bay. you can soak them in a little vodka if it makes you feel better.

As mentioned, there are many ways to add coffee to beer. My personal favorite is to steep the (course) grounds post boil at 203F for exactly 5 minutes. This is the optimum coffee brewing temperature and duration per the American Coffee Association website. If possible, use coffee types that are low acid and medium body.

I did the steep originally but for 20 min and the beer had the ugliest head the bubbles just dissipated it almost looked like pellicules. So next time i did 3oz whole beans and 2oz of coarse crushed low acid Sumatran beans in primary for 3 days and the coffee is spot on this time. Great nose and in fact I'd prob leave it a little longer in primary next time to get a little more Coffee in the taste but I won't steep again. Jmho.

olotti said:

I did the steep originally but for 20 min and the beer had the ugliest head the bubbles just dissipated it almost looked like pellicules. So next time i did 3oz whole beans and 2oz of coarse crushed low acid Sumatran beans in primary for 3 days and the coffee is spot on this time. Great nose and in fact I'd prob leave it a little longer in primary next time to get a little more Coffee in the taste but I won't steep again. Jmho.

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So whole & crushed were both Sumatran? At what point did you add to primary? End of fermentation or?

Thanks!

cantrell00 said:

So whole & crushed were both Sumatran? At what point did you add to primary? End of fermentation or?

Thanks!

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So I chose Sumatran because at my local farmers market they sell a lot of unique coffee beans and I wanted something original but I also wanted something with low acidity and the Sumatran description fit the bill for characteristics but it's a pretty popular bean, low acidity and earthy. So I took 3oz whole beans and coarse crushed 2 oz with a rolling pin in a plastic bag then put in a dish and soaked them in vodka to sterilize for 3 days. I used cheesecloth and made a hop sack strained out the vodka, tied it up with plain dental floss and put in primary prob around day 12, I "dry hopped" cocoa nibs before this so when I pulled the nibs I put in the coffee beans. Left for two days and pulled a sample to taste and my wife said whoa def taste coffee and I didn't want to overdo it so I pulled them after two days. In hindsight next batch I'll leave em maybe 1-2 days more. That's it. Great nose of coffee a little on the finish and no real tin or acidic taste at all very smooth coffee flavor. Hope this helps.

olotti said:

So I chose Sumatran because at my local farmers market they sell a lot of unique coffee beans and I wanted something original but I also wanted something with low acidity and the Sumatran description fit the bill for characteristics but it's a pretty popular bean, low acidity and earthy. So I took 3oz whole beans and coarse crushed 2 oz with a rolling pin in a plastic bag then put in a dish and soaked them in vodka to sterilize for 3 days. I used cheesecloth and made a hop sack strained out the vodka, tied it up with plain dental floss and put in primary prob around day 12, I "dry hopped" cocoa nibs before this so when I pulled the nibs I put in the coffee beans. Left for two days and pulled a sample to taste and my wife said whoa def taste coffee and I didn't want to overdo it so I pulled them after two days. In hindsight next batch I'll leave em maybe 1-2 days more. That's it. Great nose of coffee a little on the finish and no real tin or acidic taste at all very smooth coffee flavor. Hope this helps.

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Good man!

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Thanks!

olotti said:

So I chose Sumatran because at my local farmers market they sell a lot of unique coffee beans and I wanted something original but I also wanted something with low acidity and the Sumatran description fit the bill for characteristics but it's a pretty popular bean, low acidity and earthy. So I took 3oz whole beans and coarse crushed 2 oz with a rolling pin in a plastic bag then put in a dish and soaked them in vodka to sterilize for 3 days. I used cheesecloth and made a hop sack strained out the vodka, tied it up with plain dental floss and put in primary prob around day 12, I "dry hopped" cocoa nibs before this so when I pulled the nibs I put in the coffee beans. Left for two days and pulled a sample to taste and my wife said whoa def taste coffee and I didn't want to overdo it so I pulled them after two days. In hindsight next batch I'll leave em maybe 1-2 days more. That's it. Great nose of coffee a little on the finish and no real tin or acidic taste at all very smooth coffee flavor. Hope this helps.

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I bet you ended up with a great coffee vodka too

I plan on brewing this later tonight and have made it before. My last version was really astringent and some bottles have seemed to be amazing, while some others did not seem to age well. I still have a few bottles at probably a year and a half old now.

Anyways, to cut down on the astringency which I assume was from flameout and sitting on the coffee grinds for over a month, I plan on using whole beans this time. I plan on brewing this to bring to Burning Man, and it will probably sit in secondary in my fermentation chamber for a couple months before I can keg it.

How long can a beer sit in secondary with whole beans? How would the flavor be if it sat for 2 months wilth nibs, vanilla and coffee beans? I have had no problems sitting on nibs for a couple months in secondary, but have no clue on the coffee beans.

I am thinking I will probably add some hershey's cocoa tot he boil, but that would be the main addition from normal beer ingredients, everything else will be secondary.

The man burns in 162 days, so I have 5 months for this to mellow out. I may keg it after 2-3 months, but will be based on how many kegs i have available. I plan on seeing if I can bring all 8 kegs I have to Burning Man, and this will be one of my bigger beers.

Edit: BRewing is complete and i let it boil down to around 5.25 gallons from 9.25 gallons at 1.115 OG which is probably the highest I have had for any beer. At this point I might as well turn it into KBS, but will see how it plays out. Only 2 oz of hershey's cocoa powder in the boil. Nibs, coffee and vanilla beans, and possibly some bourbon soaked chips may get added to this.

Thinking about brewing this tomorrow.

As I put the recipe from the front page into Beersmith, I'm getting a total of about 20 and change of total grain bill, and an estimated OG of 1.102 at 82% mash efficiency at 5 gallons into fermenter. If I increase batch size to 5.5G, the estimated OG is more in the 1.093 range.

I know with bigger beers my mash efficiency drops a bit, but 22 points in gravity difference is quite a bit. What could I be doing wrong here, or am I missing something?

DonnieZ said:

Thinking about brewing this tomorrow.

As I put the recipe from the front page into Beersmith, I'm getting a total of about 20 and change of total grain bill, and an estimated OG of 1.102 at 82% mash efficiency at 5 gallons into fermenter. If I increase batch size to 5.5G, the estimated OG is more in the 1.093 range.

I know with bigger beers my mash efficiency drops a bit, but 22 points in gravity difference is quite a bit. What could I be doing wrong here, or am I missing something?

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I think you're looking at it wrong... 1.102 to 1.093 isn't 22 points - it's only 9.

And if you don't trust Beersmith, the simple formula C1V1 = C2V2 backs that up:

102 X 5.0 = C2 X 5.5
C2 = 102 (5.0/5.5)
C2 = 102 X 0.91
C2 = 93

I brewed this last night. By far the biggest grain bill I have used. OG was short by 3, which i was really happy with as i had no idea how effecient i was going to be with this much grain. Also I couldnt get cocoa nibs and i was already set up to brew so put in some 100% cocoa. Now just need to be patient and see how it turns out.