using coffee in a secondary

Hey y'all, I'm wanting to use ground coffee beans in a secondary fermenter and I was just wondering if anyone had any input on how to do this and keep everything sanitary. I just don't want to screw up 10 gallons of brew by doing this the wrong way. Thanks in advance for any advice! Cheers

 

My advice is to brew a very strong coffee and to add that. If you just add the grounds, you'll be drinking them with every pint. I cold brewed coffee and added it to my secondary, strained and everything, and still had a few grounds.

 

Well I had planned on putting the coffee in a muslin bag and just cracking the beans, so I guess I don't plan using "ground" coffee. I'm not looking for brewed coffee flavor, I just want a slight coffee essence. Thanks for the advice though.

 

Are you an AHA member? There's a great article on the subject in this months issue of Zymurgy.

If you use ground, rather than cracked or crushed, you won't need to use as much, but you might have to deal with leaving grounds behind. It seems a lot of people make a toddy (cold brewed coffee) and just add that to the secondary. You could hot-brew the coffee, too, or just add the beans directly. If you're worried about sanitation, boil some water, put the beans in your muslin bag, and drop the bag in the water for a minute. I don't think it's necessary, but this will kill anything on the outside of the beans.

 

One of the main advantages to adding coffee rather than grounds is that you have much more control of how much coffee flavor gets into your beer. Cold brew some very strong coffee, and then take a measured amount of beer - say ten ounces to make the math easy - and add coffee to it until it tastes the way you want. Do the math from there and you will know exactly how much coffe to add. There is no reason to let it sit in the secondary either, just add it at bottling or kegging. I have done this before with great results.

 

i cold brewed coffee in a steralized mason jar and added it directly to the beer, in secondary. i used a quart size mason jar about 1/3 full of ground coffee and filled with sterile water and shook it everytime i walked by the refrigerator. i did that for a couple days and then used a french press to separate the grounds from the coffee.

actually, here are my notes.....

i cold brewed (36 hours) about 5.5 cups of water with about 7 ounces of coarsely crushed super fresh mockhorn island shade tree coffee, bird friendly and whatnot, etc... yield was 32 ounces of pure coffee goodness. total yield was just under 5 gallons after losing over a gallon through the blow-off tube.

 

Thank you all for the reply's, I'd say I have a good base to go off of now. I think I am still going to use beans but maybe down the road I'll use brewed coffee instead. Thanks again for the input. Cheers

 

OMG!! LOL … I tried making a coffee porter once. I put 1# Starbuck whole beans, coarse ground in a hop bag and steeped it in the boil pot for 10 minutes after at the end of the boil of a 10 gallon batch. After fermentation and bottling, I let it set for a month and opened the first bottle. It was like this coffee hand leapt out of the bottle and grabbed me by the nose. 2 month later, same thing. 2 more months, tempered but still pretty strong. 8 months after I brewed it, the coffee porter had matured into a taste beer. My advice to anyone interested in using coffee in a brew is to go easy, a little bit goes a long way.

 

What about just adding toddy to your beer and mixing on bottling day?

 

Sorry, already posted

 

I added ground coffee to a stout and it worked out well.
They all settled into the trub (ok 99% settled, maybe the beer might have had like 2 particles per bottle).
The coffee taste was a bit strong at first, but after 2 months was excellent.

I have tried stout with liquid coffee added and it tasted watery. But maybe with a little less water in the fermentor, it would have been better.

 

Ground coffee in a muslim bag is the way to go. I did this with a breakfast stout and it turned out fantastic. I did 3 oz (6oz in your case) of a course grind Sumatra into the secondary. You will still have some grounds that slip out of the bag but for the most part you won't notice. I agree with a previous post that says brewing coffee and adding it will taste watery. Also the flavor will disopate over time. The cold steep in the secondary won't do that. Especially important if you are brewing a big beer that needs time to age. No need to sanitize the beans if adding to secondary as long as the beans are fresh, the alcohol should be high enough to kill the bad guys in secondary.

 

I added 4 ounces of fresh coarsely ground vanilla coffee beans (8:00 Coffee) to a five gallon batch of my Black Pearl Porter. Threw them into the bucket in a paint strainer bag with some marbles. Gave them about 7 days. Unbelievable delicious.

 

French Press is your friend.

I suggest getting one. Great for coffee, fruit teas, and I even use it to jack up my IPA's by infusing hops with it. Fun tool to have when brewing.

 

This is what I did on my last coffee porter, I cold steeped 4oz (by weight) in 12 oz of water and added at bottling. It has been 2 months and it is delicious.

 

Thank you for the advice, this is exactly what I was wanting to hear. I had figured that there would be enough alcohol present in the secondary to kill anything on the beans but I just wanted to be sure. I have a bur mill so coarse grind is right up my alley, would you suggest giving the grinder parts a washing in some star san before grinding? Thank you also to everyone for their input, I never thought I could get so much advice from this thread. Cheers to all!

 

I also have a French press, how do you go about infusing hops with? I'm intrigued as IPA's are my favorite. Actually even through the winter I do an IPA about every other brew. I actually plan on using these coffee ideas in an IPA, sounds weird I know, but I went to a craft beer tasting and elevator brewing had a cask conditioned coffee IPA that was FANFRIGGINTASTIC, I talked to the guy that brewed it and got the recipe for it, only thing he wouldn't fully divulge was how he did the coffee, thus the reason for this thread. Cheers

 

When you say marbles do you literally mean marbles? Is this to weigh the bag down? Also, I must confess, I've stolen tons of your ideas in the past off of other posts so...thanks man!

 

I do think that's a good idea (starsan grinder). Good luck with it! Let me know how it turns out! Cheers

 

Oh I will, I'm hoping to get it going soon. Thanks again.

 

never thought of this. will be doing it tonight.

 

Yep... just plain old marbles from my kid days.

 

I hot brewed a triple strong pot and dumped it straight into a carbed keg. Vastly improved the beer, which was a strong hoppy stout to begin with, so bitterness or harshness may have been masked.

 

Awesome, I never would've thought of that!

 

I used a live woodchuck to weight mine down, but he was a PITA to sanitize.

 

That's awesome, I imagine sanitizing a woodchuck would be hard!

 

Nah, maybe a little more work than marbles, it is fitting them with the scuba gear and training them to sit still that takes the real work. That and fitting a full grown woodchuck in scuba gear through the mouth of a carboy......

 

What's awesome is I can envision a woodchuck in scuba gear chilling in a carboy!

 

Has anybody ever used this stuff?

http://www.kohanacoffee.com/collections/cold-brew

I'm thinking of using it in an upcoming breakfast stout, either pouring it into the secondary or the keg. Seems pretty ideal: cold brewed, so no worries about too much bitterness. Concentrated so you wouldn't have to add as much and make your beer watery. And it should be pretty sanitary, so you could just crack one open and pour it in. What do you think?