Anyone ever add coffee beans straight into bottled beer?

[mtnagel]

I'm thinking you could pop the top of a chilled beer, drop a couple beans in, wait a couple days and then you'd have a coffee beer. Anything wrong with this plan?

 

[bobeer]

Worth a shot but you might have to put in more than a couple since you're not going to grind them. Maybe break them in half? You also might have to let it soak for more than a couple days due to the same reason but the alcohol will probably help extract some coffee flavor. Cool idea! Report back on how it goes.

EDIT: If all else fails it would probably be easier to cold press some coffee and add it into the beer as you're pouring it.

 

[Casedeville]

Depending on the intensity of coffee flavor you want, I would try 6 grams or .2 ounces of beans in a bottle. You should have the coffee flavor extracted in 18-24 hours. I'm basing the weights on using 4oz of whole beans in a 5 gallon batch. Mine took longer to extract at 35°F and infuse 5 gallons, but I routinely make cold brew coffee in 12 hours in the fridge.

The only concern I would have for your experiment is that the beers will lose carbonation if you don't recap them. I would also imagine you'd displace a lot of beer when you drop the beans in and you'd probably get a lot of foam over.

Let us know how it goes!

 

[filthyastronaut]

You could, but you risk some oxidation and loss of carbonation when you do. The oxidation may not be too bad since you're thinking just a couple days of conditioning.

It'd be more reliable to make a batch of beer and add the whole coffee beans to that, or transfer half to secondary with coffee beans and bottle the other half if you don't want them all to have coffee.

 

[evchenko]

Also, you may get an instant gusher with all the nucleation that can take place when trying to add something into a carbed bottle of beer...

 

[mtnagel]

Worth a shot but you might have to put in more than a couple since you're not going to grind them. Maybe break them in half? You also might have to let it soak for more than a couple days due to the same reason but the alcohol will probably help extract some coffee flavor. Cool idea! Report back on how it goes.

EDIT: If all else fails it would probably be easier to cold press some coffee and add it into the beer as you're pouring it.

I've done the cold press thing and it works well. Just figured I could do this ahead of time though.

Depending on the intensity of coffee flavor you want, I would try 6 grams or .2 ounces of beans in a bottle. You should have the coffee flavor extracted in 18-24 hours. I'm basing the weights on using 4oz of whole beans in a 5 gallon batch. Mine took longer to extract at 35°F and infuse 5 gallons, but I routinely make cold brew coffee in 12 hours in the fridge.

The only concern I would have for your experiment is that the beers will lose carbonation if you don't recap them. I would also imagine you'd displace a lot of beer when you drop the beans in and you'd probably get a lot of foam over.

Let us know how it goes!

I'd recap quickly Thanks for the math. I didn't literally mean a couple beans. I would have done the math.

You could, but you risk some oxidation and loss of carbonation when you do. The oxidation may not be too bad since you're thinking just a couple days of conditioning.

It'd be more reliable to make a batch of beer and add the whole coffee beans to that, or transfer have to secondary with coffee beans and bottle the other half if you don't want them all to have coffee.

Of course I could do that, but figured it would be cool to just do a few bottles here and there.

Also, you may get an instant gusher with all the nucleation that can take place when trying to add something into a carbed bottle of beer...

I was going to do it into a BCBS, but then I realized I should try it in a home brew first just in case things go poorly