alternative bittering

[maztec]

Google is our friend:

From HomeBrewTalk Forums: Chocolate Espresso Stout and Same Recipe More Information; Hoppage: Chinook .5oz@60min, 1oz@20min, Saaz 1oz@5min. He estimated 50 IBU.
Brewery.org: Espresso Stout; Hoppage: Northern Brewer 7.2% .5oz@60min, .5oz@15min. Estimated IBU: 19.95.
ineedcoffee.com: Espresso Stout; Hoppage: N.Brewer 1.5oz@60min, 0.5oz@5min, Willamette 0.5oz@5min. Estimated IBU: 45.39.
beeradvocate.com: Double Chocolate Espresso Stout; Hoppage: N.Brewer 1.5oz@60min, 0.5oz@15min. Estimated IBU: 53.92.
whitelabs.com: White Labs Espresso Stout; Hoppage: Fuggle 1oz@75min, Centennial 0.4oz@75min. Estimated IBU: 31.53.

So, if your wife does not like hoppy bitterness, my vote would be for the Brewery.org Espresso Stout. That and it looked like a good tasting recipe to me. On the other hand, I have no idea how good its grain bill or anything else looks, you would have to check with others.

Either way, there you go, a lot of recipes to pick and choose from. If you boiled the coffee in the wort (I would consider last 5min, maybe longer), you would definitely get its bitterness. If you put it the secondary, you will get its flavoring (cold brew coffee), but not as much bitterness. Which way to go? Well, if you made a low hopped beer, I would consider putting it in the wort and possibly also in the secondary. If you made a high hopped beer, I would just put it in the secondary as a flavoring.

Again, no idea, I'm making this up as I go here and am just as curious as you about what would work. If I destroy your beer, blame yourself, but let me know if it is good!

On that note. For adding to your current beer? From looking at those recipes, I would go with between 20oz and 32oz brewed espresso or coffee into the secondary. How much depends on just how bitter the beer is already and what other flavors you are trying to overpower. Never hurts to put less in, taste, put more in the next day - as long as you keep things sanitary.

From INeedCoffee, I would trust their advice:

For this recipe, we will brew 16 shots, or 16 oz of espresso. Add this to the wort. I should mention the importance of the brewing of the espresso. I used a Starbucks Barista Home Espresso machine to make espresso. I firmly believe that attempting to use espresso prepared by a steam driven machine will not give you good results. Some recipes for so-called 'espresso' stouts call for adding cracked coffee into the boil, or even into the carboy during fermentation. These beers usually end up having a taste of over-extracted coffee. Brewing espresso properly, however, preserves the integrity of the espresso flavor even after weeks in the bottle.

However, I cannot see why you can't add the shots to the secondary, if you sterilize them (which they should be, it's boiled water).

 

[nutcase]

just tell her that you are the man and she will like what you tell her to like

 

[dwarven_stout]

just tell her that you are the man and she will like what you tell her to like

Then spill it on the floor and tell to to "mop it up, and then make me something delicious!"

 

[Gildog]

Then spill it on the floor and tell to to "mop it up, and then make me something delicious!"

yeah and then i can come home from work to see her putting out the brewkit fire she made with all my homebrew

 

[Gildog]

Google is our friend:

onn that note. For adding to your current beer? From looking at those recipes, I would go with between 20oz and 32oz brewed espresso or coffee into the secondary. How much depends on just how bitter the beer is already and what other flavors you are trying to overpower. Never hurts to put less in, taste, put more in the next day - as long as you keep things sanitary.

From INeedCoffee, I would trust their advice:


However, I cannot see why you can't add the shots to the secondary, if you sterilize them (which they should be, it's boiled water).

im going to treat the coffe as hops here i think, boil some to start for its bittering, and then add espresso from my espresso machine in secondary for flavor. I think im going to omit all hops in this one and see where it goes. ill post my recipe later

hmmmm adding steamed milk and make a cappucino stout?

 

[SkewedBrewing]

Heather is another alternative to hops you could use. Its been tossed around on here more than once and has been done in the UK for a long time.

 

[maztec]

Good to hear, I really want to see what happens if you use it for bittering in place of the hops. Could be really good. There is a test you could do to get an idea of how it would compare on the tongue -:
Take two normal pots, put a pint of water in each.
In one put 1oz coffee grounds. [Maybe more, I would try 1 cup actually].
In the other put 1oz hops.

Boil like crazy. Take tasting samples every 15 minutes. You should be able to calibrate by taste how bitter things get, and have a good idea of how much coffee you want to use.

Could even do a couple different pots of coffee & water, to calibrate how much coffee is equivalent to that much hops for bittering effect.

Now, the warning, hops is a preservative, by using coffee instead you lose this preservative, this means your brew will go bad sooner. If I was you, I would consider using a low acid hop as a preserving agent, but just a small amount of it, something that the coffee would overpower in flavor. Maybe 0.5oz Hallertau or something. Yah, Hallertau is expensive, I am sure someone can come up with a better option than that.

Alternatively, add make a preservative gruet, but that is going to really change your flavor profile.

-----

Now, for the cappuccino stout. You could make a cloudy beer, something with a nice milky cloudiness on pour, so it'd look more like cappuccino. Or maybe a cream stout: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/just-tapped-my-oatmeal-cream-stout-recipe-inside-20446/ ...

The problem with adding milk later is that most beers will curdle it. And I have no idea at all what would happen if you put it into the primary, except that it would probably result in lactic acid (well, if it got the bacteria in it).

Good luck.

 

[Gildog]

heres my recipe input greatly needed

2.65 lbs extra light dry extract
3.25 lbs pale liquid extract
3.1 lb caramel malt
1 pkg irish ale yeast
.5 lb of cracked espresso beans 60 min boil
16-32 oz espresso in secondary to taste

whatcha think?

 

[Gildog]

good idea on the taste test maztec, take a 60 min boil of 1 oz hops and taste test with many boils of coffee and compare

 

[maztec]

Well, not counting the bittering, that is going to be a fairly sweet stout.
Based on my BeerTools estimates:
OG: 1.060
FG: 1.015
Color: 19.31 *SRM [I bet it'd be more like 30-40 because of the espresso by the end]
Alcohol: 5.89% [woo!]

No clue on the bitterness from the coffee. But a half pound in 5 gallons should be fairly intense.

Not sure why you are going with the light extracts, but wouldn't the caramel malt darken it a fair amount?

 

[Gildog]

i altered a recipe i found on beersmith, would i be better off with dark exxtract instead? as for the srm, im using a rating of ~200 lovibond for the coloring of the coffee

 

[Gildog]

now im wondering if i should go all extract, im not very competent in partail mash, and i want to concentrate more on the bittering than the brewing. i dunno

 

[maztec]

Hmm, coloring sounds reasonable then.

Are you actually doing a partial mash with that recipe? Or is the Caramel Malt being used in a steep? With an extract recipe I would suspect it is being steeped, although 49 ounces is quite a bit to just steep, so it might be a partial mash. Steeping is not that hard. 30-60 minutes, 150-170 degrees, sparge. Then again, a partial mash isn't that much harder as far as I can tell, but I have yet to do one ... and a partial mash would get more sugar out, which would be good for this and would add to the body. So, yah, I would go with the partial mash on this one. You want to get the sugars out if you are using that much Caramel Malt, is my hunch.

I assume you are planning Caramel 60L? Mmm, caramelly and good mouth feel.

I'm not sure which way you should go on this. I would consider sticking with all extract, but a little branching out won't hurt you - and it doesn't hurt to learn other things. It just gives up a bit of control, so you will have to watch it closer and decide if you have not messed up somewhere other than the alt-bitter. Good luck.

 

[Gildog]

Im planning on partial mash, im just a little nervous cause i majorly screwed up my first one.

i didnt crush my grain well enough, and i ended up not getting any conversion untill after i had filtered the grain out of the mash. I threw the grain back into it and its fermenting now, i hope.

This time im going to mill the grain IN the store, i thought a rolling pin ran over it a couple times would do it, and it did NOT.

Im off to the LHBS now, i gotta hope they have my ingredients, or else im SOL for a month untill they place thier next order.

wish me luck

 

[chumprock]

What about Horehound?

I'm really looking into the idea of a horehound bittered honey lager... (Horehoney, of course)

 

[maztec]

Gildog: Rolling at the LBHS works well for me. I have been told that the crushed grains will last for up to a month. But, the longest I have gone is two weeks before brewing. Although, I do keep mine in my wine fridge, nice, cool, moisture controlled, steady 45F.

Hmm, Horehoney sounds interesting.

Good luck at the LBHS Gil.