Adding coffee flavor to beer?

[Allekornbrauer]

Hello I am wanting to add coffee to my 3.5gal batch of milk stout but I don’t know how many ounces of coffee beans to add an if I should add the coffee beans whole or lightly crush I know I should bag the coffee. An also once one add the coffee bean’s what temp should I dry-bean at for the best coffee aroma/flavor??.

 

[Toxxyc]

I made espresso. Two runs, two cups full in total. 8 shots. Added this to the fermenting milk stout I made (in my profile picture). It added slight bitterness, a slight "dry" mouthfeel and a good nose and a taste of coffee in a 5-gallon batch. I'll DEFINITELY do it again, this stout ended up simply amazing.

 

[Dgallo]

Over the years I’ve tried many many methods to add coffee in beer. By far, the way to add the most true coffee flavor without adding any acidity from coffee its self is to “drybean” it. Add about .75-1.5 oz per gallon depending on how much coffee you want and add the whole beans loose 3-5 days before racking into the keg or bottling. I did a RIS with coffee in March this way and anyone who tried it couldn’t get over how much coffee was on the nose and in the flavor. They loved it. I will never add it any other way.

 

[Jtvann]

I use a cold brew coffee maker. The kind that is like a pitcher with an infuser inside, that you put in the fridge.

Fill the infuser with whatever amount of coffee that you want. Experiment with grind and amount. I keg most of my beers. After kegging, I just pour beer directly from the tap into the coffee maker, using beer instead of water. Let it sit over night in the fridge, exactly like you would as if making cold coffee. When done, just pour the pitcher directly back into the keg.

Best advice I can give is to not grind and use the beans in the boil or on the hot side at all. Lots of techniques, but stick to adding on the cold side.

 

[SouthForkBrew]

The process that's given me the most success is using any quality city roast coffee. (The reason I use city roast is to prevent too much of the oil from the coffee messing up my head retention, but beware it will add a bit more acidity than a dark or espresso roast.)

I grind the coffee and essentially make cold brew. (1lb of coffee to one 1gal of distilled water soaked overnight). This pulls a TON of coffee flavor out without the oils. Once it's in liquid form you can add that to a keg or secondary in small increments until you get the coffee note you desire in your beer. Hope that helps!

 

[CarolinaMatt]

I recently added 4oz of uncrushed beans to my american blonde ale for 48 hours. Tossed them in without a bag and it has a truly amazing coffee nose and wonderful coffee undertones like I was looking for. I added mine during the cold crash and after 48 hours kegged it up.

Do you have temp control? What ABV is the brew? Do you plan to bottle or keg? I'd suggest maybe a little testing first in two different manners. . . make a small batch of cold brew and pull a couple ounces of the beer after fermentation. Add a couple drops of cold brew to the beer and see how you like it as you continue to add. Secondly you can toss a couple coffee beans in the second sample and let it sit a while to figure out what you like the most. If you go the cold brew route either put into the keg and rack on top of that or into the bottling bucket and rack on top of that. If looking to dry bean just put in the fermenter after fermentation has stopped.

 

[Dgallo]

I recently added 4oz of uncrushed beans to my american blonde ale for 48 hours. Tossed them in without a bag and it has a truly amazing coffee nose and wonderful coffee undertones like I was looking for. I added mine during the cold crash and after 48 hours kegged it up.

Do you have temp control? What ABV is the brew? Do you plan to bottle or keg? I'd suggest maybe a little testing first in two different manners. . . make a small batch of cold brew and pull a couple ounces of the beer after fermentation. Add a couple drops of cold brew to the beer and see how you like it as you continue to add. Secondly you can toss a couple coffee beans in the second sample and let it sit a while to figure out what you like the most. If you go the cold brew route either put into the keg and rack on top of that or into the bottling bucket and rack on top of that. If looking to dry bean just put in the fermenter after fermentation has stopped.

Drybeaning with whole beans is def the way to go. All other ways allow for oxidation and by crushing or grinding the bean your allowing for acidity to also get extracted at a higher rate.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Drybeaning with whole beans is def the way to go. All other ways allow for oxidation and by crushing or grinding the bean your allowing for acidity to also get extracted at a higher rate.

Using cold brew seems very popular...but yeah...the best coffee homebrew I have had the guy said he just added 4oz of whole coffee beans to the fermenter.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I've had two methods i like. I'll either take cold brew, then boil it to concentrate it and blend to taste (it's been a while but I want to say a starting gallon of cold brew boiled down to a quart or so was a good working dosage rate for 5 gals). Also handy to add other components at the same time.

The other is fresh ground coffee in the mash (you need quite a bit though).

I don't like the character of coffee in the boil, and I've never tried adding beans/grounds to the fermenter.

 

[applescrap]

Over the years I’ve tried many many methods to add coffee in beer. By far, the way to add the most true coffee flavor without adding any acidity from coffee its self is to “drybean” it. Add about .75-1.5 oz per gallon depending on how much coffee you want and add the whole beans loose 3-5 days before racking into the keg or bottling. I did a RIS with coffee in March this way and anyone who tried it couldn’t get over how much coffee was on the nose and in the flavor. They loved it. I will never add it any other way.

Essentially cold brew?

I reccomend adding cold brew at kegging, but I like this method too. Once I bought a 16 oz cup of cold brew at Starbucks and added it because I was lazy. Imo and this is just mo, coffee gives up its flavor quickly and in a variety of ways. I like the espresso idea. What coffee you are using is important as well. The 3 to 5 days is key as the coffee will get bitter, iirc, if it sits to long. Adding it to the boil didn't work for me. So bottom line cold brew or adding whole beans 3 days before are solid ideas.

 

[Dgallo]

Essentially cold brew?

Yes. By tossing the beans into you’re FV you are essentially making a cold brew with you’re beer.

But why using the whole beans this way helps to increase the coffee aroma and flavor is because of the limited oxygen contact.

If you check through the coffee roasting threads on here, the guys in there preach about always grinding the grains right before using them because they can oxidize and stale quickly. Now if you added ground coffee to your beer, the grounds will trap air in then that will make it into your beer where whole beans would not. Also if you were to make cold brew in a container or a press, the water used for the cold brew will have some level of dissolved oxygen in it. Also as it’s sits out coldbrewing air will come in contact with it and oxidize some of the compounds. Then after that you still need to pour the cold brew in the keg or the bottling bucket, which is one more chance for the compounds to oxidize.

By using whole beans as a dryhop and putting them in your FV you can eliminate all of these chances for o2 pickup

 

[couchsending]

1: Use Good coffee
- Starbucks is not good coffee
- Find a good local roaster (sometimes as hard as finding a good locaL brewery but I digress)

2: crack the beans, no grinding needed

3: Add to cold beer for no more than 36 hours. That’s all it takes for extraction and you run the risk of green pepper notes with extended contact.

I transfer to a keg, cold condition for a few days, bag the beans, tie with dental floss, add beans to the keg while sending Co2 into the headspace, suspend the beans with the dental floss. Pull after 24-36 again while sending Co2 into the headspace.