Coffee Stout problem

[jelsas]

Hi--- I brewed a coffee stout 2 weeks ago & have just now had a chance to sample it. My first reaction: WAY too much coffee, and still a little too sweet. It was my first coffee stout, and I really didn't know how much would be too much. Anyone have any ideas for how I can tame the coffee flavor? Here's the recipe:

2.5 gal boil
Steeped for 20-30 min at 150 degrees:
.75 oz roasted barley
.75 oz crystal 60L

6 lb of dark DME

1 oz of Galena for 60 min.
1 oz of Chinook for 30 min.

Added a little under 2 cups of *dark* coffee to the fermenter with the cooled wort & topped off with bottled water.

Pitched WL 004 Irish Ale yeast.

OG: 1.055, SG after 2 weeks 1.022 (59% attenuation? a little high still -- I might pitch some dry yeast soon). Fermenting 65-68 degrees.

I brewed the coffee in a french-press and I think I ground the beans too fine. I didn't worry about fine particle coffee grounds at first since I figured they would settle out in the fermenter. But, I think they've added to the over-powering coffee taste.

Part of the problem might be that my sample was drawn from the bottom of the fermenter, where the coffee grounds have likely settled.

 

[Beerrific]

Anyone have any ideas for how I can tame the coffee flavor?

Cream and sugar.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Maybe just let it finish fermenting and clear in the secondary, like you said, if it is grounds then they might settle out.

 

[Moonpile]

This reminds me of a story. When I had just started homebrewing in college back in '93, a friend of mine got the bug too. I was probably on my third or fourth batch and he brewed a stout and brought some to my apt when it was ready. We poured and were drinking it and I was about 2/3 of the way through and said "You put coffee in this, didn't you?" He replied that he'd put less than half a teacup of coffee in the whole 5 gal batch and that he'd frankly forgotten that he'd put it in there until I asked.

What you have to understand is that I HATE coffee, which is kind of odd since I like coffee notes in my beer, chocolate and wine, but only just as long as it's not really coffee.

He was a smoker and coffee drinker (obviously) and so I think he was kind of impressed that I'd picked the real coffee taste out of the other coffee notes in the stout.

It's a shame. It was a really good stout, and was better than my first batch, except for the coffee.

So I guess the moral of htis story is that a little coffee goes a long way in beer, and keeps me from drinking your homebrew! My friend and our other coffee appreciating friends enjoyed his stout while I popped open some of my own homebrew and everyone drank happily ever after.

Cheers!

Moon

PS, Oh yeah, what to do about your brew? I'd guess waiting will help mellow out the flavors.

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

I agree with waiting this one out. In the future, I'd add the coffee at bottling/kegging time to taste.

 

[jelsas]

Thanks. not a problem to let this one sit for a couple months in the secondary.

 

[Geologist]

Added a little under 2 cups of *dark* coffee to the fermenter with the cooled wort & topped off with bottled water.

Well, I'd say you are a bit sensitive to coffee. A couple of years ago I made a coffee stout from an LME kit as a base. Steeped some grains to bring the points up into the 1.080 range, cooled and added 2 pots of coffee to the fermenter before pitching the yeast. This was a 5 gal batch and I ground the Kilimanjaro beans to make a couple of very nice pots of coffee for this stout. The coffee was great! The coffee stout tasted like, well, coffee. I let it condition for about 6 months before it was all gone. But the oddest part about this story is that I entered it into the local branch of the AHA competition and got second place for the imperial stout category. It actually tasted much better after the long conditioning.

Tried making another coffee stout 5 months ago. 1 pot of coffee in a 5 gal batch. Again too strong and most of it is still in the closet. But it's starting to taste better.

Through various experimental beers that I've tried to make I've found that in general it's best to start with a tiny amount of adjunct if you're not sure, then increase it in subsequent batches if needed.