Adding coffee to homebrew

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ikaris

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After recently trying Stone's Mocha IPA, I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it. I'm usually not into flavored beer but this worked for me. Then I tried another local brewery's coffee IPA and it was amazing. From Second Chance Brewing also in Escondido, CA their Seize the Day Coffee IPA inspired me to brew my own craft Coffee IPA.

My question. I plan on cold brewing the coffee and adding it in the secondary but will I have a good chance of infecting the beer?
 
We've done cold brew, espresso and regular drip coffee to add into beer. Best way we've found to add coffee flavor is to dry hop with whole beans. It gives such a nice representation of the bean

have fun!
 
I used to work in a craft brewery. The way we made the Coffee Oatmeal stout was...
After fermentation was complete (60bbl) we'd remove 2bbls to a propagator with a ton (not actual weight) of fresh ground local coffee.
It steeped for 48 hours then put back in the fermenter.
Then it was transferred to the bright tank for carbonation.
 
We've done cold brew, espresso and regular drip coffee to add into beer. Best way we've found to add coffee flavor is to dry hop with whole beans. It gives such a nice representation of the bean

have fun!

boiling the ground beans (as in drip coffee) will generate bitter, acridic taste, which is why cold-brewed coffee or just adding coffee beans "dryhopping" style is best. I prefer cold-brew I make myself (use sanitize container and keep in the fridge for 24 hours letting the grounds soak). The cold-brew has advantage of working faster and you are can dial in flavor by tasting result immediately. The dry-hopping with beans takes time I presume since the area of contact with beer is much smaller than with grounds.
 
boiling the ground beans (as in drip coffee) will generate bitter, acridic taste, which is why cold-brewed coffee or just adding coffee beans "dryhopping" style is best. I prefer cold-brew I make myself (use sanitize container and keep in the fridge for 24 hours letting the grounds soak). The cold-brew has advantage of working faster and you are can dial in flavor by tasting result immediately. The dry-hopping with beans takes time I presume since the area of contact with beer is much smaller than with grounds.



I'm not sure of any drip method where you boil ground coffee beans, a percolator does that...but that's a different method than drip.

Pour over, drip, doesn't make a bad cup of coffee. This is probably my preferred method for every day coffee. When we do a cold drip we use an absinthe fountain, it works really good. Dry hopping whole beans will certainly take more time...but I found the flavor you get from whole bean dry hopping was well worth it.

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How much whole beans should I use if dry hopping them? For a 5 gal batch ipa?
 
I'm not sure of any drip method where you boil ground coffee beans, a percolator does that...but that's a different method than drip.

Pour over, drip, doesn't make a bad cup of coffee. This is probably my preferred method for every day coffee. When we do a cold drip we use an absinthe fountain, it works really good. Dry hopping whole beans will certainly take more time...but I found the flavor you get from whole bean dry hopping was well worth it.

Perhaps it's just nomenclature, which could be regional, like soda vs. pop.

When I hear "drip coffee" I think of traditional "drip coffee maker". Google it and it's the standard boiled pot of crappy coffee that is in every office in US.

I think we are in agreement - no hot water extraction of coffee flavors.

FYI - this post reminded me I need to make more cold brew for my next batch. I went with cold-brewed version rather than dry-hopped coffee beans in the keg. Faster and extracts flavors more reliably.
 
Another thought would be: What if I added the cold brew straight into the keg before force carbonation? If you're adding cold brew liquid, is it even necessary to put it in the primary/secondary fermentor?
 
I make a pot of coffee every morning and there's always some left when I leave for work. I just shut off the coffee maker, and when I get home, I pull a stout or porter out of the fridge, pour a shot of coffee into a glass and add some beer. Not enough coffee flavor? I add some more. I'm a lazy @ss brewer, I know, but keeping things simple leaves me time for other things, like drinking more beer. :mug:
 

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