Flavored Coffee?

Has anyone have tried using flavored coffee in their Coffee Stouts? I am a new brewer and was looking to brewing a coffee stout and because I love flavored coffee (banana nut, blueberry, etc.) I was thinking of throwing in a few cups of flavored coffee into the boil? Any suggesstions? Any good extract recipes for coffee stouts?

Generally, you want to brew the coffee very strong, and you want to add it after fermentation to the bottling bucket - slowly - so that you can add it to the correct taste level.

Others have used coffee in the mash, in the boil, in the primary, everywhere you can think of.

I do not know specifically re: flavored, but I am sure that many flavored coffees would work well! Certain flavors, especially very artificial tasting ones, though, may not work as well but I think that experimentation is the only way to find out!

Good luck with this, I may try a few trial runs of my own!!

You seem to have a like-minded brewer competing for attention, here's the other active post on this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=53113 .... also, search for "Coffee stout" at the top of the page and you will get ample results. Many good recipes out there.

coffee has oil in it, so it tends to kill the beer head a bit.

flavored coffees are usually flavored with an oil, so you'll probably destroy the head if you use it.

cold brewing is generally a good way to get coffee flavor with less oil.

malkore said:

coffee has oil in it, so it tends to kill the beer head a bit.

flavored coffees are usually flavored with an oil, so you'll probably destroy the head if you use it.

cold brewing is generally a good way to get coffee flavor with less oil.

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Expresso does not kill the head on the brew... I put a pound in a 5 gallon batch and the head is tan, fluffy, and MASSIVE.

I'm going to try cold brewing on my next batch.

If that does happen, I used 1/2 lb of red wheat malt in my Scottish to counteract the 1/2 lb of Pecans, which are also very oily. Worked fantastically, great pillowy tan head that dissipates after about 90 sec.

I added 24 cups of flavored coffee to a brew of mine (5 Gallon batch) and it was fine. I force carbonate with co2 so i dont know if that makes a difference. Head retention was fine.

I used 32oz in a 5 Gallon Stout secondary and wow it tasted like coffee going into the bottle. It's also Black..not dark not brown BLACK like Crude can't see any light through it.

We'll see how it is next week.

But what we did was 24hrs with enough Coffee grounds to make 8 cups sitting in the 32oz of water in my fridge, with 3oz Jameson and 3oz Bailey's. Came out a light color so I can that mixture through my coffee maker...still kinda light. Added to my secondary started to add the beer from the primary and it got lighter....then turned all black again. I figured that wasn't going to add any real flavor, so it sat for 2 weeks in secondary. When we opened it, wow yeah coffee, but not bitter. Not much from the Whiskey a very little of the Irish Cream.

Anyway figured I'd relate our experience.

Will I try it again Sure, less coffee or just go with the coild brew and not mess with it.

BTW Used Sumatra Coffee so it is a bold flavor to begin with.

Guigsy said:

24 cups?!?! I've seen recipes for like 3 cups! What flavor did you use?

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I used Kona Macadamia Nut Coffee.

Each 12oz beer had 34mg of caffeine.

I thought the beer tasted "sweet" due to the coffee flavor. Everyone but me loved it. Go figure.

34mg is the same amount as drinking a 12oz Coke. A normal cup of coffee has roughly 4 times the caffeine as that, and expresso (per 12oz) has 12 times the caffeine.

sirsloop said:

34mg is the same amount as drinking a 12oz Coke. A normal cup of coffee has roughly 4 times the caffeine as that, and expresso (per 12oz) has 12 times the caffeine.

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i did my calculations when i was adding coffee to achieve the same caffeine as a coke. You can drink these all night, literally, b/c you're not sleeping.

sirsloop said:

34mg is the same amount as drinking a 12oz Coke. A normal cup of coffee has roughly 4 times the caffeine as that, and expresso (per 12oz) has 12 times the caffeine.

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Just to clarify, espresso drinks only have 2oz of espresso in them. A latte or cappucino have slightly less caffeine than the equivalent amount of coffee. I always cracks me up when people think their cappucino wakes them up better than coffee.

Now a red-eye is a shot of espresso dropped into a cup of coffee, and that does have more caffeine...

And the beer tasting sweet isn't totally unexpected, Kona coffee is definitly sweeter than many other coffees. And since that sweetness isn't sugar, it probably didnt ferment away.