Coffee with Creme Stout

[Zenzi09]

Putting together a recipe for a coffee stout, any thoughts?

OG: 1.078
FG: 1.021
Est ABV: 7.21
Color: 82.5 SRM

10lbs pale 2 row
2lbs roasted barley
1lbs chocolate
2lbs 160l crystal
1lbs coffee malt
1lbs lactose

1oz Hallertau 60m
.5oz Hallertau 45m
.25oz Cascade 30m
.25oz Cascade 15m
.5oz Cascade 0m

yeast: California Ale V

Cold brew coffee added at bottling/keg to taste.


Since this is the first batch of this recipe I tried to keep the measurements simple and will tweak from there next time, but I'm open to suggestion.

 

[Francis]

I just brewed an imperial stout with 1.5lbs roasted barley and it has a lot of roast malt flavor. Not excessive but I wouldn't do more on my next batch. 2lbs of rb and 2lbs of 160l seems like a lot.

 

[Zenzi09]

Thanks for the insight, I'll try
1lbs RB
.5lbs 160

And up the 2-row up to 12lbs to maintain ABV

 

[Francis]

You'll definitely get plenty of good roasted flavor with 1lb. I bet it'll turn out really good. I've never used coffee malt but it sounds delicious!

 

[fermentology]

If you want the most coffee aroma and flavor I recommend "dry-beaning" in your keg or to secondary if you're bottling. Taste it after 24 hours to see if its where you want it.

 

[scottballz]

How much cold brew coffee are you going to add when kegging/bottling?

 

[eadavis80]

My local home brew store said you don't need to cold brew coffee. I asked about adding coffee to an oatmeal stout yesterday and they said just go ahead and make coffee like I normally would, with my regular Mr. Coffee coffee maker, let it cool and add at bottling to taste. Sounds easy enough.

 

[Zenzi09]

I was thinking about filling a couple one quart mason jar with the coffee and adding in a fourth at a time to desired taste. I'd like a noticeable flavor of it but not overpowering.

 

[Zenzi09]

Dry beaning? Just put the beans directly in, I've heard of putting grounds in before too. Might be a good option, just don't want to go overboard and not be able to go back.

 

[C-Rider]

How much cold brew coffee are you going to add when kegging/bottling?

I use 8 oz in a 2 gallon brew.

 

[C-Rider]

Dry beaning? Just put the beans directly in, I've heard of putting grounds in before too. Might be a good option, just don't want to go overboard and not be able to go back.

That's the problem when not doing it in the bottling bucket. This way you add a little, taste it and leave or add more. If it's in the boil pot you can't take any away.

 

[mkeckjr]

My local home brew store said you don't need to cold brew coffee. I asked about adding coffee to an oatmeal stout yesterday and they said just go ahead and make coffee like I normally would, with my regular Mr. Coffee coffee maker, let it cool and add at bottling to taste. Sounds easy enough.

I think there is some debate over this practice. I was discussing this recently with a friend who is a pro brewer and is currently experimenting with a specialty coffee release. What he has determined, both through research and experimentation, is that cold brewed coffee performs better in his beers.

The reasoning, as he explained it to me, and I later verified, is that coffee has a lot of volatile and non-volatile solubles (e.g. oils), and that these compounds are extracted at a much faster rate with higher temperatures. This is why hot-brewed coffee may come off as more robust and complex that a cold brew of the same set of beans. However, the flip side of that coin is that this heating process will cause these compounds to oxidize much quicker as well, meaning all of those oils you extract are going to go rancid very quickly. Thus, adding hot brewed coffee in beer, while it may taste great for a week, will begin to oxidize your beer at a fairly fast rate. This is what my friend experienced.

Cold-brewed coffee, on the other hand, while it doesn't extract nearly the same amount of solubles (this is why you generally double the amount of grounds to liquid when brewing), is a much more stable (non-volatile) product, and your beer should last much longer. Thus, I would suggest to anyone adding coffee to beer to not add it to the boil, and to not hot brew it. Dry beaning is fine, and cold brewing is also good. While I don't personally have results yet, I just used this method in a KBS Clone; I added the coffee a few days ago and hope to have some results in a couple of months.

 

[eadavis80]

Well, I only got 8 bottles out of the batch, so I guess given your post, I'd be best to down 'em within a week or two - not going to be a problem if they taste okay and if they taste bad, I'm not probably going to drink them anyhow. Maybe as an experiment, I'll just put one aside and taste it in a few months just to see if I notice the difference. I only put in a 1/4 cup or so at bottling. We'll see. IT was a total experimental batch and that's the only real way to learn anyhow - do it yourself. You can read forums and get feedback from others all day long, but until you do it yourself, you'll never really know what works for you. Thanks for the advice regardless.