Making Coffee Porter

I have a True Brew Porter ingredient kit and was wanting to sort of modify it. I was wanting to make a coffee porter out of it. I have read that some people put coffee beans in during the boil and some brew the coffee and add it that way. Any thoughts either way?

I would NOT boil the beans in your wort - doing so would likely create an excessive amount of bitterness in your beer. The consensus is that cold-brewing your coffee, and adding it at bottling or when racking to a secondary, will result in a smoother coffee flavor in your beer.

I can share with you what I did. Just a note of warning, I only added coffee to half (1/2) the batch. After the first half was bottled I added the coffee to the bottling bucket so only half my bottles would have coffee-porter in them.

I made a porter that was bottled on 07Feb2012, I'll add the ingredients at the bottom to give you a feel of the porter I made. Anywho, I experimented with different cold-brewing techniques (which I found, through reading, is the best way to add coffee at bottling) to get a good coffee flavor, and this is the one I used.

Buy whole roasted coffee beans, I used a Colombian kind with no additional flavors, 12oz bag. The day (or two) before bottling the beer I made the coffee. (you can also use espresso, which I tried but not with beer yet)

1. Grind 3 cups of beans to a coarse consistency, in a coffee grinder
2. Place all the beans is a suitable pitcher/container that can be closed with a lid
3. Add 3 cups of filtered/clean water to beans, close container
4. Place container in fridge or other cold area
5. Let bean mixture infuse for 1-2 days (I did two days when I bottled)

Bottling time, I added corn sugar and bottled half the batch as normal, after the first case was finished

6. Strain and filter (with a coffee filter) the bean mixture, now you have cold brewed coffee
7. Put the coffee in a pot and boil to sterilize, then cool to room temperature
8 Slowly pour some coffee into remaining half of Porter, stir with a sterile spoon
9. Repeat step 8. adding coffee until it tastes right to you. I added all of mine, I love the taste coffee

NOTES: when the final coffee is strained from the beans only half the original amount of liquid was obtained, so I started with 3 cups of whole beans and 3 cups of water, and I obtained 1.5 cups of coffee.

As of 14Feb2012 I've only tried one bottle of porter and one coffee-porter, they are still a little too green/bitter and need more time to mellow out in the bottle but both were good. The coffee-porter tastes like I am drinking black coffee, but not to an overwhelming degree, they both taste very roasted, which is what I wanted, and very rich compared to my first beer. I might cut down on the black patent if I brew this again, and maybe add a hint of vanilla to the coffee-porter bottles, and change the hop type to just one basic English hop.

Here's what I used to make the porter, based off of John Palmers recipe in "how to brew", which I also used to calculate all the mathematical parts. Also, those were the hops I had on hand, that's the only reason I used Columbus and Cascade.

OG: 1.053 IBU: 39.3
FG: 1.008 BU:GU: 39.3:1.053 = ~0.8
ABV: ~5.7%
Yeast: Fermentis Safale US-05

Ingredients
6# Pale Malt Liquid Extract ~30ppg 5.5gal, OG=1.053
1/2# Chocolate Malt
1/2# Crystal 60L
1/4# Black Patent Malt Together grains added ~7 GU
1oz Columbus 13.9% 45min boil
1/2oz Cascade 6% 25min boil

Steeped grains for 30 min, @150F
Boiled ingredients in 3 gallons of H2O, mixed to 5.5 gallons total
Primary 25 days (due to my schedule)

Hop Utilization BG of 3gallons = @1.078
45min 13.9% x 0.162 x 75/5= 33.8
25min 3 % x 0.122 x 75/5= 5.5
Total= 39.3 IBU



CHEERS !

I added two oz of Starbucks Cafe Cielo cracked hole beans in the secondary for a week prior to bottling a stout recently. Might have been a big mistake if the flavor doesn't mellow a bit over time. So far the coffee taste is very overwhelming. Learn from my fail.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/how-add-coffee-274446/

Established thread with 31 posts on how to add coffee. Enjoy the reading and i hope your brew turns out yummy. My response is in the posts. I added a bourbon-coffee mixture that turned out very good.

I made a coffee-choc chili stout using a Coopers stout can as the base. I cold brewed about4-5 scoops of fresh ground coffee in just enough water to cover it and left it over night in a french press. When I was brewing the beer I strained the coffee and added it to the boil for maybe ten mins. The coffee taste from doing this was nice and smooth and I'd do it again. However the beer is very harsh and roasty (smoothing out over time) but more from the stout kit and the 1kg of dark DME. Way too much - now I'd go for a pale base with roasted grains added, but I'd still add the coffee this way.

ArtimusBeerimus said:

I would NOT boil the beans in your wort - doing so would likely create an excessive amount of bitterness in your beer. The consensus is that cold-brewing your coffee, and adding it at bottling or when racking to a secondary, will result in a smoother coffee flavor in your beer.

Click to expand...

This

I have made an espresso stout 4 times. 2 good, 2 bad...
Two good ones: used "Larry's Secret Espresso Blend #17".
Good #1: used 24 shots of espresso in the secondary
*it was a bit too much
Good #2: used 12 shots
*it was just about right
Both of these got good revues at Southern Brewer's Festival in Chattanooga, TN.

bad ones: used Sam's Club brand espresso beans. I used 12 shots in secondary.
*just has a very harsh/bitterness.
Brewed back in October 2011, and it hasn't mellowed yet. Honestly I think it has gotten worse.

As mentioned previously, cold steeped coffee added to bottling bucket to taste seems to be the best method.