Wooo Coffee Stout Experiment

So I brewed an Oatmeal Stout about a month ago, and I'm finally getting around to bottling it. Couldn't have come at a better time either, since the weather's cold and my coffee maker just broke...breakfast beer anybody :rockin:? I plan on doing a cold brew, but since it's my first time adding coffee to beer I figured I'd better experiment a bit. I'm planning on adding a couple different kinds of local coffee, as well as adding different amounts to the bottles to compare and find out what I like best. I've read up a little bit on it, and it seems like my best bet is cold brewing about a 1/2 lb of each kind of coffee per 14-16 oz of water for about 24 hours. I'm planning on adding the coffee in increments of 5ml from 5ml up to 15-20ml? 20 sounds like it could be quite a bit, but why the hell experiment if you aren't really going to push the limits? I'm kind of worried about the oils in the coffee messing with head retention though. Any suggestions would be great...especially how to keep getting head when your beans produce too much oil.

I did a great Sumatran Imperial Stout this summer. I used One pot (10 cups)of double strength coffee for 5 gallons. Cooled and bottled. Check out donosborn.com. He has some good notes. Didn't find it till I brewed mine. I did come up short on carb. Went with 4oz of dextrose, should have used more. You are correct about it reducing carbonation.

Great find on the http://www.donosorn.com coffee stout. I plan on brewing one this afternoon and that really helped

Ok second time typing this since it signed me out. That website really helped me out. I realized I wasn't adding nearly enough coffee per bottle. I read from his 2007 brew log, and our recipes were really quite similar, except I used lower AA% hops. I ended up with about 4.75 gallons since I knew I would be adding coffee later. I figured he added about 1.4 ounces of coffee per bottle. I'll be brewing a quarter pound of each kind of coffee with 5 cups of water, so I'll end up with just a little over a half gallon of coffee, and it'll probably be a little bit stronger than his. I readjusted the experiment so I'll have 7 bottles with .5 oz of coffee, 7 with 1 oz of coffee, 7 with 1.5 oz of coffee, and 7 with 2 oz of coffee. I'll do this with each kind of coffee I have, and I should have a little coffee left over. My only concern now is that brewing the coffee with a french press could impart a bitter flavor, which is why I originally planned to cold brew.

I usually put around 4 shots per gallon. 5 if I want a little more pick me up. Never had a problem with the oil causing thin head. Always have a really thick head actually.