Coffee Porter

I'm going to combine my two favorite beverages, coffee and beer. I will be making a 5 gallon batch. Has anyone else done a coffee brew? How much coffee did you use? I saw 1/2 lbs. mentioned somewhere (or I may have dreamed it and convinced myself this is right). Should I add the coffee during the boil, at the end of the boil? Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

http://byo.com/feature/1020.html Several methods considered.

This is how I do it...

http://homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=27891

If you are making a porter you probably want to replace that roasted barley with black patent and/or chocolate. The problem is, the coffee is roasted so you'll end up with a roasted character no matter what you put in there. It'll end up being a "stout"...

I actually made the Java Stout from Midwest and it turned out to be my finest beer so far. The instructions were to boil a pot of organic coffee that comes with the kit and put it in the secondary. But since I don't usually use a secondary on ales I dumped it in with the wort and yeast. I let it sit for a month and man is it good !!! The coffee character is not overbearing , but it complements the roastiness of the stout nicely. Almost has a creamy taste to it. Since I'm down to my last four bottles I will have to plan another batch, but this time I'll create my own recipe.

Thanks guys. After I brew this stuff I'll let you know how it went.

I used the Goat Scrotum Ale recipe with 1/2 lbs of coffee. I crushed the coffee and steeped it with the grains then strained them before the boil.

+1 on one of the methods in the BYO article - the one used by Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee. They cold steep the coffee (I hear 24 hours is a good amount). The benefit is that you extract the flavor without all of the oils that affect head retention that is discussed in the article. I made a coffee porter once and did the cold steep as recommended by a homebrewer/Starbucks employee. Worked fine. Otherwise I would do like sirsloop and add late to minimize oil extraction.

Any Milwaukee folks know what kind of coffee Lakefront is using? The article says local coffee shop, so I am thinking something from Alterra.

Bearcat you are correct, the stout is brewed for the "fuel cafe" which uses Alterra.

I'm also going to recommend cold steeping coffee (about 1/2 lb. for 5 gallons, let sit in 2 quarts of water for 24 hours) you don't extract any oils this way and depending on what kind of coffee you use you get a much smoother, more chocolaty flavor from it.

whatever you do, don't boil the coffee, you'll totally ruin the flavor and you'll end up with a really harsh taste to it.

In making coffee with a French press, I've come to appreciate some finer points about coffee:
1. I prefer a lower strike temperature and a longer extraction (over a hotter strike temperature and a shorter extraction). It's less bitter, much smoother, and brings out the flavors of the coffee much better.
2. DEFINITELY keep water away from coffee when said water is >180°F.
3. Crush coffee beans with a burr mill grinder. Don't use a whirley-blade grinder or the coffee will be too bitter and the flavor won't be smooth. If you must, you'll be better off buying preground beans than using the wrong kind of grinder. Use crushed beans immediately.
4. If you want to see what character the coffee will contribute to your beer, make coffee the same way you will in your beer, and stick it in the refrigerator. If you don't like how it tastes cold, it won't taste good in your beer.
5. Search out the good stuff. There are few things I hate more than bad coffee beans. The best place to buy coffee in my opinion is directly from a local coffee roaster. The second best place to buy coffee is from a local coffee shop that has high bean turnover. Secondly, look for beans that have the character you want in your beer. You'll probably want smooth flavors and low acidity.
6. Never boil coffee, try to reheat it, or keep it warm. You drive off all the delicious aromatics and end up with a flavorless, bitter beverage. Which is disgusting.

So to answer your question, I would add the coffee a few days before bottling to taste. That way, you'll have the maximum amount of coffee aromatics present and you'll give the yeast a chance to ferment out the tiny sugar content you just added. I would add coffee prepared properly in a french press as opposed to beans because it allows you to control the amount of coffee flavor (impossible to over extract), ensures a good coffee flavor (as opposed to a bad coffee flavor), won't cloud your beer with bits of coffee grounds, and is probably the easiest way of doing it.

I make an excellent coffe porter, and find the best thing is to add coffee at different times during the process.

I put a tiny 1/4 to 1/2 a lb amount of coffee in my mash.
Then put some extra find coffe grounds in the primary, most of these settle out when I rack to secondary.
On brew day I put a good amount of coffe probably 3/4 of a pound into a mason jar with a cup or two of flavorless vodka and allow the vodka to absorb the coffee essence. I shake it every couple of days. I add that vodka coffe to the secondary leaving the grounds behind when I rack to secondary and leave it for a couple weeks.
On bottling day I make a half pot of strong coffee and use the hot coffee to disolve my priming sugar and add to my bottling bucket. If I am kegging I just dump a few shots of espresso into the keg.

It carries an amazing coffee flavor and aroma, and quite a kick both caffeine wise and alcohol wise.

Donasay, I'd be careful about putting coffee in pre-boil. When you make the brew you'll end up boiling that coffee for an hour. It'll turn bitter and literally taste like its been in the pot for an hour.

That is why I use a very tiny tiny amount, 1/4lb to a 10 gallon boil. Some people who don't know much about coffee actually equate that bitter taste with coffee. Plus the early addition adds color and allows you to eliminate some of the roasted grains off of your bill and replace them with sweeter caramel and chocolate malts.

I should have mentioned it was to a 10 gallon boil, I always forget that most people do 5 gallon batches.

what are the dangerous of infection when adding cold-steeped coffee during secondary/bottling?

I've been using the hot-steep method, but have had problems with head retention, and the cold method seems perfect, since it will not extract the oils creating the problem.

If I cold-steeped overnight in some bottled water, then added at bottling time, that should be safe enough?

I would cold steep overnight and add at the end of the boil. IDK... leave a pot of coffee open to the air for a couple days and see what happens. Its usually not pretty.

I was just about to ask some more specific questions about this myself. I'll toss in my own two cents here though.

I've bought a lot of coffee beers and I never ever liked them. I've made a couple of batches of a coffee porter that turned out to be the best coffee beers I've ever had. In both batches I used localy roasted coffee beans. Then, with a coffee grinder, gave about 8OZ a very rough grind, far less ground up then I would have used to brew a pot of joe. I put them in a fine grain bag then (at flame out) steeped for 10 minutes. The second time I steeped for 15 minutes and used a much more bold bean. It took a little longer to mellow out, but both batches where great. Lots of coffee flavor and not too bitter. Also, I do use roasted barley in my recipe, and IMHO it didn't really come off as a stout. I have plans to brew up another batch this weekend.

I filled my french press half-full of coarse coffee grounds, topped it off with hot but not boiling water, and let that steep for 30-40 minutes. That netted me about two cups of jet fuel which I added directly to the keg. As someone else previously mentioned, aromatic loss is a concern if you add the coffee too early or boil it out. I don't have experience using other methods but this one worked very well for me.

evermuse said:

I put them in a fine grain bag then (at flame out) steeped for 10 minutes. The second time I steeped for 15 minutes and used a much more bold bean.

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But did this ruin head retention by extracting to many oils from the coffee bean? (This has been my problem when doing the flame-out coffee method).

I'm still planning on using the cold-extract method, to add at bottling time with the dextrin. (as my stout is already in the primary). However, to be safe, I'll think I'll warm up the cold-brewed coffee up to 160 degrees for 10 minutes just to be safe.

This will be AFTER I've filtered out the coffee grounds, so none of the oils could be extracted as they have already been removed. Seems to be the best compromise.

nick

I ended steeping 1/2 lbs crushed coffee (not ground). It was a local roast, light roast. I then strained the beans with my grains and proceeded to the boil. When bottling I ground about 1 oz more, dark roast this time, steeped this with my priming sugar and added it to my bottling bucket. After 2 weeks the beer was still very bitter but after another week it was wonderful. I've had to hide some bottles so I can let it age longer or else I would drink it all too fast. Good reviews from my friends too. I'd give the beer a low 4 out of 5 on head retention.

HP_Lovecraft said:

what are the dangerous of infection when adding cold-steeped coffee during secondary/bottling?

I've been using the hot-steep method, but have had problems with head retention, and the cold method seems perfect, since it will not extract the oils creating the problem.

If I cold-steeped overnight in some bottled water, then added at bottling time, that should be safe enough?

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I hope it's OK to bring this post back from history. I'm looking to brew a coffee porter this weekend and I would also like to know about the risks of cold seeping the coffee. How do you keep it bacteria free?

erikrocks said:

I hope it's OK to bring this post back from history. I'm looking to brew a coffee porter this weekend and I would also like to know about the risks of cold seeping the coffee. How do you keep it bacteria free?

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I forget the exact numbers but to be safe, you need to follow a scaling time/temperature chart. It's something like 5 minutes at 180*f, 10 minutes at 170*f, 30 minutes at 160*f, etc.

Or if you could lower the pH of the coffee significantly, that would also deter and possibly destroy any bacteria that happened to be in there.

Otherwise, if you're putting the coffee directly into a cold keg and plan to keep the keg cold for the lifetime of the beer, you probably don't have to worry too much about doing a cold steep. You'll get some bacteria in there but it's not going to be a great environment for them to grow.

So do you do the cold steep for 24 hours, then boil the coffee water (then cool it before you add it to the primary)?

Sorry for the amature questions!

erikrocks said:

So do you do the cold steep for 24 hours, then boil the coffee water (then cool it before you add it to the primary)?

Sorry for the amature questions!

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No problem at all. The hotter you get your coffee, the more aromas you'll release. Boiling will blow off a ton of aromatic compounds.

After doing a little more research on cold coffee extraction and the Toddy method, apparently cold steeping doesn't extract the same oils as typical coffee making. Those oils are the primary foothold for spoilage bacteria. People report the cold coffee lasting for weeks without growing mold like typical drip coffee would in days.

If you're not going to bottle, I think it would probably work to put this directly in the keg, especially if you keep it cold. If you are going to bottle, you should probably bring the cold coffee up to 170*f for 10 minutes to sanitize it then cover, cool, and add it to your fermenter or bottling bucket. No one likes bottle bombs.

Awesome, thanks. I read about the benefits of cold steeping the coffee last night, and it makes a lot of sense.

I think I'm going to order a brown porter kit and add the cold coffee to that.

This is my cold brewed coffee method.

Eric

I hear lots about putting brewed coffee into the secondary fermenter and letting that be the only addition..

Timely that this came up. I brewed a coffee porter a couple of weeks ago that was from a recipe I found. Since I brewed it, I've done some more poking around and no other recipes seem to call for the same method. I added 16oz of brewed espresso at flameout. Kid at a local drive-up coffee-kiosk charged me the equivalent of a Medium coffee ($1.84) for it! It tasted pretty good going into the secondary, and I plan to age it for a couple of months, but I'm curious if anyone has used a similar method?

khanti said:

Timely that this came up. I brewed a coffee porter a couple of weeks ago that was from a recipe I found. Since I brewed it, I've done some more poking around and no other recipes seem to call for the same method. I added 16oz of brewed espresso at flameout. Kid at a local drive-up coffee-kiosk charged me the equivalent of a Medium coffee ($1.84) for it! It tasted pretty good going into the secondary, and I plan to age it for a couple of months, but I'm curious if anyone has used a similar method?

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I've made two espresso stouts and one espresso porter using this method (same volume of espresso even), except I add the 16 oz. of espresso to the chilled wort right before pitching the yeast instead of flameout. I've been very happy with the results of those 3 batches, so I'm sure you'll be pleased.

I'm going to do a 10 gallon batch next time so I can do a side-by-side 5 gallon comparison of brewed espresso versus the same beans cold steeped so I can get a true feel for how the two different methods compare. I'll be sure to come back and post the results but it won't be for months.

moti_mo said:

I've made two espresso stouts and one espresso porter using this method (same volume of espresso even), except I add the 16 oz. of espresso to the chilled wort right before pitching the yeast instead of flameout. I've been very happy with the results of those 3 batches, so I'm sure you'll be pleased.

I'm going to do a 10 gallon batch next time so I can do a side-by-side 5 gallon comparison of brewed espresso versus the same beans cold steeped so I can get a true feel for how the two different methods compare. I'll be sure to come back and post the results but it won't be for months.

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Excellent, thanks! Glad to hear I didn't go off on some weird experiment. There will be plenty of time for that after I have a few more brews under my belt.

I am bottling my Coffee Porter tonight. Here is what I did.
I took two cups of Starbucks Italian whole bean coffee, coarse grinded it, cold pressed it in a French press for 24 hours in the fridge and added the coffee to secondary.
Smells amazing, i cant wait to taste it!