Coffee grounds

[Corriveau]

Hey everyone. A friend that knows I enjoy homebrewing, sent me a link about fermenting coffee grounds. I was wondering if anyone has ever heard about this idea or has tried it. I am going to go down this rabbit hole, I will keep everyone posted. Here is a link from what my friend sent me. I am having trouble deciding what coffee to water ratio to use.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/sma...used-coffee-grounds-into-booze/#ixzz2fklU9RvM

 

[Zuljin]

I'm in too. Lets do it.

Even if all they did was ferment coffee sugar water, it's a cool idea to try at home. I won't be distilling it though.

So, you gonna use regular coffee or flavored? We've lots of flavored whole bean in the pantry. And are you going to use used grounds or use your brewed coffee as part of the wort with the once, well, used grounds? Okay, I mean, not twice brewed grounds.

Do we even have to put grounds in the wort?

 

[Zuljin]

Two ideas. Brain storming on the crazy. Where's Creamy?

If we use the grounds in the wort, they should go in a muslin bag.

Instead of stirring in sugar, make a simple syrup to stir in. Use brown sugar.

 

[ChefRex]

I'm game, my dehydrator has been running almost nonstop drying produce from the garden. Tomorrow's grounds are going in!
What sugar to use as the coffee is only going to be a flavoring.

"brewed coffee as part of the wort"
From what i read no.

"Plus, the potentially dangerous mix of caffeine and alcohol that gives boozy energy drinks a bad rap should be absent here: most of the caffeine, says Giridharan, “disappears in the brewing process.”"
But then rereading, the caffeine disappears in the fermentation process? not sure.

 

[ChefRex]

If we use the grounds in the wort, they should go in a muslin bag.

Or just filter the runoff, coffee filter or cheesecloth.

 

[glick]

Couldn't you just brew another pot with the once used grounds then add the sugar to the resulting weak coffee? That seems much easier then trying to devise a new filtering mechanism when the coffee pot comes with such a great one that is already used for that purpose.

 

[ChefRex]

Couldn't you just brew another pot with the once used grounds then add the sugar to the resulting weak coffee? That seems much easier then trying to devise a new filtering mechanism when the coffee pot comes with such a great one that is already used for that purpose.

"The scientists first collected [used coffee grounds] from a Portuguese coffee roasting company and dried it. Then they heated the powder in water at 163°C for 45 minutes"

 

[Zuljin]

325.4°F I wonder why. That's a lot hotter than they'd need to boil it at any probable elevation. Were they extracting something particular? And I wonder if they first dried out the grounds to prevent mold or make them easier to transport.

 

[ChefRex]

Missed the celsius, a pressure cooker will only do about 250F. if 325F is required i'm not to sure it would be able to be done especially if they are distilling.

 

[Inkdrop]

It would have to be one bad pressure cooker, that is for sure. Maybe the °C was a typo

 

[LabRatBrewer]

Leadgolem did a coffee wine recently. I dont have the link.

 

[Leadgolem]

Leadgolem did a coffee wine recently. I dont have the link.

But I do.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f79/coffee-wine-421497/

I found making coffee wine with ground coffee produced something that is really more bitter then I liked. So I use cold brewed coffee. Less pseudo tannin extraction that way.

EDIT: Oh, there is definitely caffeine in the finished product. Some of it may break down during fermentation, but not all of it.

 

[Zuljin]

Leadgolem did a coffee wine recently. I dont have the link.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f79/coffee-wine-421497/

Thanks! Googled it.

Corriveau needs to get his butt back in here. I've got a gallon in a glass jug already. Had no idea of what Leadgolem had done. I can see his way working for coffee flavor that is less bitter or "without a bite." He also used a lot more sugar. I'm okay if this comes in lower than 14% but, back sweetening may be a good idea still.

8 oz dark roast ground coffee, by weight. Community New Orleans blend. Decided not to use the flavored on the first run.
2 cups of granulated turbinado sugar made into simple syrup.

I brewed 12 cups of coffee in a percolator. It was that or the Keurig. Made my simple syrup. Poured it all into a gallon glass jug. It came to about 14 cups. Two short of a gallon. It's cooling on its own now.

 

[ChuckO]

I'm not certain about brewing beer with coffee grounds, but I have a mushroom growing kit that uses coffee grounds as a media for the mycelium. Works very well. I suppose that mushrooms are a better fungus for using nutrients from coffee grounds than are yeast.

 

[DrunkleJon]

I do a coffee ground "hop stand" with my breakfast stout, then dry coffee ground with it as well. I definitely get caffiene from it so my guess would be that you really do not lose much from the process. I am sure some degrades while the yeast are hopped up on caffiene, not to mention that much of it would be removed already when the coffee itself was first brewed.

I think by "Plus, the potentially dangerous mix of caffeine and alcohol that gives boozy energy drinks a bad rap should be absent here: most of the caffeine, says Giridharan, “disappears in the brewing process." they mean that the majority of the caffiene is removed in the process of brewing the coffee before the grounds are dried/reused.

Also, wouldnt partigyle brewing the pre-used grounds that hot will make for a really bitter brew.

 

[Zuljin]

Mine has cooled to room temp of 76°F and that's where it'll ferment at with Safale US-05. OG is only 1.044. No need for champagne or wine yeast when this will be 3-4% ABV. Unless I add more sugar as I go. Half tempted to add a cup right now. There won't me much empty space if I do.

Right now it tastes like what it is, sweet black coffee.

 

[Zuljin]

Another 3/4 cup of simple syrup (1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar) and corrected for temperature, OG is 1.052. Bubbling away.

 

[TxBrew]

My life is complete.

 

[Goofynewfie]

I have a recipe for coffee wine, I will check to see how its done

 

[Zuljin]

My life is complete.

.

 

[BrewLocal365]

So the process appears to be:

1. Make Coffee
2. Dry / dehydrate the grounds
3. Perform a second brew at an extreme temp for an extended period of time
4. Add sugar and yeast
5. Ferment
6. Distill

Entirely doable at home for me except for Step 3. I'd love to try it. I'm not sure how one could get the temperature of the liquid so high. Even in an oven set much higher, it will still boil only at 212. As mentioned above you can beat that with a pressurized vessel but I still think it's impossible to get it that high at home. Do we think this is a typo (F to C) or some specialized lab equipment at work?

I also make cold brew coffee once/week from 1 lb of beans. It has lower a caffeine and acid content because no heat is applied. That would leave more in the grounds, meaning the potential for more caffeine, although the extra acid and tannins left in there might work against a cold brew formulation.

 

[Corriveau]

Sorry it took me so long to get back in here guys. Just bottle UpstateMikes caramel apple cider. I am debating doing a trial run of a gallon or just get serious and do a 5 gallon batch of my coffee ground run. I can see it being pretty good with some baileys or something like that. I have a friend that works at Starbucks and he is saving coffee grounds for me.

 

[Inkdrop]

What if you used some type of steamer. You could put the water in a steam kettle and put the grounds above it on a screen where the steam would rise directly up through it. I think (not positive) for 325° F that would be about 96 PSI pressure on a steamer. Most pressure cooker only go to 15 PSI (250°), but lots of steamers go higher than that.

EDIT- An autoclave would work.

 

[Leadgolem]

What if you used some type of steamer. You could put the water in a steam kettle and put the grounds above it on a screen where the steam would rise directly up through it. I think (not positive) for 325° F that would be about 96 PSI pressure on a steamer. Most pressure cooker only go to 15 PSI (250°), but lots of steamers go higher than that.

EDIT- An autoclave would work.

A boiling point of 325f would require 96 PSI. One atmosphere is 14.69 PSI in standard engineering calculations. So 15 PSI over atmosphere in a pressure cooker is more like 30 PSI, or a 250f boiling point.

This is helpful.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/boiling-point-water-d_926.html

I didn't realize a steamer would take something like 82 PSI.

 

[Leadgolem]

I really think that 163c is likely to be a scale error. IMO, 163f would make more sense. The comment about the caffeine disappearing also seems more like something that would happen during the "concentration" of the concoction. It's pretty clear they are talking about distillation, and that leaves a lot of compounds behind....In fact, it's possible that whomever wrote that didn't understand the process and mixed up where in the process you wanted 163. 163-173f is typical for the temperature that the still would have been run at, rather then the brewing of the coffee.

Moderators, please note that I'm not advocating distillation. Merely pointing out that the author of the article seems to have made an error.

 

[BrewLocal365]

Most of the caffeine would be extracted during the initial brewing (since these are used grounds).

Actually, that got me thinking that it would probably be a more interesting beverage using fresh grounds… definitely more of a caffeine kick! Then again, there are so many volatile compounds and tannins in coffee that it could be horrible.

I think they did it with used grounds simply so that there would be a "reduce-reuse-recycle" (garbage) aspect to the study / story. Remember this was an academic study, not someone trying to bring a real product to market. In the end it's about the press it gets and not ultimately about the actual product.

 

[Zuljin]

I think they did it with used grounds simply so that there would be a "reduce-reuse-recycle" (garbage) aspect to the study / story.

That what I was thinking. They wanted to show what could be done with used grounds. We throw ours in the gardens.

 

[TxBrew]

.

My feet really are that big in real life.

 

[Leadgolem]

Most of the caffeine would be extracted during the initial brewing (since these are used grounds).

Actually, that got me thinking that it would probably be a more interesting beverage using fresh grounds… definitely more of a caffeine kick! Then again, there are so many volatile compounds and tannins in coffee that it could be horrible.

I think they did it with used grounds simply so that there would be a "reduce-reuse-recycle" (garbage) aspect to the study / story. Remember this was an academic study, not someone trying to bring a real product to market. In the end it's about the press it gets and not ultimately about the actual product.

That's why I cold brew for coffee wine.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Just an idea here, but coffee is a bean. Don't most beans naturally contain some amount of sugar? What if instead of roasting coffee, which most likely removes sugar, the unroasted beans were milled & mashed with either some 2 row or even amylase enzyme?

Not sure if this is possible, but what if unroasted coffee beans were sprouted/malted? I'm just bouncing some ideas here, but it seems to me that using spent coffee grounds to brew is like using spent grain to brew.
Regards, GF.

 

[Leadgolem]

Just an idea here, but coffee is a bean. Don't most beans naturally contain some amount of sugar? What if instead of roasting coffee, which most likely removes sugar, the unroasted beans were milled & mashed with either some 2 row or even amylase enzyme?

Not sure if this is possible, but what if unroasted coffee beans were sprouted/malted? I'm just bouncing some ideas here, but it seems to me that using spent coffee grounds to brew is like using spent grain to brew.
Regards, GF.

Coffee beans, despite the name, are not beans. They are drupes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupe
The coffee berry is actually discarded during processing. You are brewing coffee with the seed.

...they are sorted by ripeness and color and most often the flesh of the berry is removed, usually by machine, and the seeds are fermented to remove the slimy layer of mucilage still present on the seed. When the fermentation is finished, the seeds are washed with large quantities of fresh water to remove the fermentation residue, which generates massive amounts of coffee wastewater. Finally, the seeds are dried...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee

 

[DrunkleJon]

Coffee beans, despite the name, are not beans. They are drupes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupe
The coffee berry is actually discarded during processing. You are brewing coffee with the seed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee

Then maybe it is time to read up more in the Gluten Free forum. I bet you could still get something fermentable out of the coffee 'seed'. I wonder with the other alkaloids in coffee would do for fermentibility/flavor/color/toxicity.