Covenantal Coffee Ale

[Taliesin]

This is a beer I have not yet had the chance to brew, but am planning to do so in the next month or so. It is based off my memories of a coffee brown I had in Juneau at Alaska Brewing Co., which they said they'd never distribute. So I put together this recipe using BrewR for Android along with some gut feeling "calculations". I'd be happy to get any feedback from brewers more experienced than I. (That'd be almost everyone. lol)

Some notes: I'm not really committed to pasteurizing the coffee after cold-brewing. I lean that direction right now because I don't want to have to worry about contamination, with putting a potential contaminant in the primary to compete with the yeast. I'm also not committed to a specific yeast. This is an American Brown, so I just went with an American Ale yeast off the top of my head.

[Grains]
Two-row (US) 7.500lb Grain 65.2%
Special Roast 1.000lb Grain 8.7%
Crystal 40L 1.000lb Grain 8.7%
CaraPils 0.750lb Grain 6.5%
Wheat (US) 0.750lb Grain 6.5%
Roasted Barley 0.500lb Grain 4.3%

[Hops]
Galena 0.75oz 11.0% AA Pellet @ 60 min, 28.1 IBU
Willamette 0.50oz 4.5% AA Pellet @ 30 min, 5.9 IBU
Willamette 0.50oz 4.5% AA Pellet @ 5 min, 1.5 IBU

[Yeast/Other]
American Ale yeast 1.0 unit(s), Yeast 73-77% attenuation
Coffee 4.0 unit(s), Flavor Add 4 cups of cold-brewed coffee into the fermenter. Instructions for cold-brewing can be found in the recipe notes.

[Recipe Notes]
Cold-brewing coffee:
- Mix 8 oz. coarse-ground coffee and 32 oz. water in airtight pitcher.
- Store in refrigerator 24-48 hours.
- Strain using coffee filter.
- Heat to 160 degrees for 5 minutes (to sanitize).

Single Infusion Mash @ 155° for 60 minutes
Strike w/ approximately 18 quarts (4.5 gallons) @ 168°
Sparge (batch) with 18 quarts (4.5 gallons) @ 167°, but try to collect at LEAST 7G for boil

 

[mnollar]

I've made a Coffee Porter that has turned out great using the same cold brew method for the coffee. The only difference I in what I did was that the the coffee was added at the end of the boil. The coffee flavor comes through fine with fermentation without any worries about contamination since its added at flame out. Cold brewing keeps the bitterness down so I wanted to try and keep it out of the heat as much as I could.

 

[Taliesin]

Right on. I may eventually try that. The first time I brewed this, I didn't like my gravity numbers. I've made some significant changes to my setup, so the next batch will hopefully be a little bigger. My first batch of this is still sitting in the primary clearing out.