Sanitize for Adding Ingredients to Secondary

I have a stout that I want to add coffee grounds to on secondary. Should I boil them in water to sanitize or just throw them in? My guess is that the alcohol content is high enough that I don't have to worry about it. I was just wondering what the common practice is.

Soak them in iodine Just kidding.... good question, would like to see an answer.

my personal preference for handling coffee in a brew is to brew it up at a very high strength. it will gert hot enough in your coffee maker to sanitize it, but that's probably not terribly important since, as you said, the beer will already be antiseptic enough to kill the random nasty.

Oh... and I add the brewed coffee at bottling time until it suits my tastes.

whatever you do, do NOT boil it. it'll taste terrible.

Boil the water (1 or 2 cups depending on how much coffee you're trying to add) WITHOUT the grounds, cool it to about 180 degrees F, add the grounds, and steep for about 10 minutes. You'll be brewing coffee and pasteurizing at the same time.

If they're whole beans, what about running them through the microwave for one minute before adding them into the carboy?

I don't know the answers either, but have a few questions about the practice...

1) wouldn't the oil from the coffee beans affect the brew?

2) did you compensate for the bitterness by making the brew sweeter than normal (underhopping)? In other words, is the brew already underhopped or overhopped?

3) wouldn't brewing the coffee add tannins/astringency to the brew?