Coffee

When would I add it? Mash? Boil? Should it be ground/crushed? I plan to do a couple stouts with some nice coffee in them in the near future. Thanks for any help.

I cold steep about 1/4 cup of fresh grounds in 1 qt of water in the back of the fridge for about a week then add that to my stouts.

cold steeping prevents the release of the bitter tannins that could ruin your brew!

Conventional brewing and boiling of coffee grounds produces bitter tannins.

I searched here but not google. Found a BYO article. According to them, you can do it at any time and any way. Hmm, not sure which I should try first.

http://***********/stories/recipes/article/indices/38-ingredients/318-brewing-with-coffee

I brewed up a batch of Tuck's "Chocolate Espresso Stout" a couple of months ago, and kegged it a month ago. This stuff is over the top! It's like a chocolate milkshake in a glass.

I took a "handful" of sumatra espresso beans, and dumped them into the secondary carboy. Just dropped them in whole. They sank over a few days, and the coffee flavor is spot on.

This stout is getting better as it ages, the chocolate bitter taste is melding into a smoother espresso mouth feel.

The only problem is that too many people know that this in now on tap, and it's a very special stout that needs to be savored and appreciated.

Sorry for the ramble... just dump them into the secondary... Good luck.

I haven't done it yet but I am keenly interested in the best way to pull it off. The general rule, from the coffee snob POV, is cold coffee should be cold brewed as described above.

Adding beans to the secondary? hmm...

WenValley said:

This stout is getting better as it ages, the chocolate bitter taste is melding into a smoother espresso mouth feel.

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You added chocolate as well?

I am finishing up a Coffee Stout batch that was absolute heaven. I brewed my beans very strong and added them to the bottling bucket for more coffee taste. Then I took one bean and place it in each bottle. This turned out very coffee flavored as I intended, but it has ZERO head retention because of the oils in the coffee beans. Tastes great (if you like strong coffee) but no head retention.

On a side note, the other thing I would do differently is the brewing of the coffee. The cold brew would end up being less bitter coffee flavor for a more balanced beer. Some non coffee drinkers did not like this beer because of this. My old Navy friends however, loved it.

I added 4 oz of Sumatran ground coarse at flame out and then 4 oz of Kona as a Dry Hop.

Worked awesome. No problems with head retention - maybe the 1 lb of oatmeal helped? I also had 2 different chocolates mixed in,

I plan on "dry hopping" my ground beans. This was suggested by the head brewer at Terrapin since its what they do thier Wake N' Bake Coffee Oatmeal RIS.

WenValley said:

I took a "handful" of sumatra espresso beans,
luck.

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You took Sumatran beans to an espresso roast? The horror! People think darker roasted coffee is stronger. No, its just burned.

Thanks for all the info.

Grinder12000 said:

I added 4 oz of Sumatran ground coarse at flame out and then 4 oz of Kona as a Dry Hop.

Worked awesome. No problems with head retention - maybe the 1 lb of oatmeal helped? I also had 2 different chocolates mixed in,

Click to expand...

How intense was the coffee flavors with 8oz?

ODaniel said:

Found a BYO article. According to them, you can do it at any time and any way.

Click to expand...

I read this article, too. Then I just said...eff it...and brewed espresso on the stovetop and dumped it in with the primary. The beer came out very nice.

I'd like to try some of the other methods some time, but I'd say in general, the simple coffee + beer combo tends to come out nice if you respect the ingredient and avoid the pitfalls (overbrewing, bad ratios, etc.).