Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer McAustin's Mocha Stout (w/cold-brewed coffee)

[Brewenc]

Picked up the supplies for this recipe the other day. Gonna be in the Primary by the end of the week. Sounds like a great beer. Looking forward to it.

 

[spaga33]

brewing this today. pretty excited.

actually, just had my first boil over and lost about half a gallon after adding the DME....oops! hopefully it turns out alright!

 

[Brewenc]

brewing this today. pretty excited.

actually, just had my first boil over and lost about half a gallon after adding the DME....oops! hopefully it turns out alright!

spaga33, Just wondering how your stout is coming along. We brewed this beer on the same day. Mine is slowing down and getting ready to rack into the secondary.

 

[tomlivings]

I am currently brew-day on this recipe. Couple of questions...

1: I brewed the coffee already not knowing its a secondary addition. If I just dunp it in the carboy with the beer, is this ok? Will it make it more coffee-ish or less? Will it interfere with fermentation?

2: I forgot the 0ats until 20mins left on the mash as they were in a sepreate bag to my grist....I just put it in, do I need to leave the mash for an extra 40 mins or will a slow sparge be ok? I dont know how quick oats mash.

 

[tomlivings]

anyone? could really use some help.

 

[mcaustin]

anyone? could really use some help.

This is a bit late for you...

Anyway, for future reference you could store the cold-brewed coffee for at least a couple of days but eventually it will go bad.

Couldn't tell you what the short mash time on the oats would do, but I'm sure you still made beer :cross:

To answer another old question from BSBrewer that I missed... the last time I brewed this, I mashed at 158 for 40 minutes and sparged at 168 degrees.


I hope everyone's enjoying this beer, it looks like quite a few people have given it a shot recently. I found it also makes great ice cream floats!

 

[Brewenc]

I am looking to bottle this in the next few days. I had an OG of .060 @ 69 deg. After 10 days in the primary showed a .028. It has now been 18 days in the secondary and am getting ready to bottle. I dont have a kegging set up yet (my next gift to myself). So my question is what is the chances I will get proper carbonation without pitching some new yeast?

 

[MaxSpang]

I am looking to bottle this in the next few days. I had an OG of .060 @ 69 deg. After 10 days in the primary showed a .028. It has now been 18 days in the secondary and am getting ready to bottle. I dont have a kegging set up yet (my next gift to myself). So my question is what is the chances I will get proper carbonation without pitching some new yeast?

I have heard of people bottling after months and still getting a good carbonation. I think you'll be alright.


And the original extract recipe is on my to-do list! I am going to use nibs instead of powder, and I think I'm going to do a mini mash of of the grains. I cannot wait!

 

[mgc]

I picked up the ingredients for this one over the weekend and hope to have it in the carboy by the weeks end. As people have mentioned I decided to go with nibs, only my local store was out so I have gone with raw coco powder (ground nibs w/o any processing). I am hoping the increased surface area on the powder will lead to more chocolate flavor then just strait nibs. (I will also likely brew the coffee with some of the powder, a practice I have come to love with iced coffee anyways).

This will be my first beer (as I am typically a mead man). It seems much more my style then some of the simpler recipes. Hopefully come bottling time a friend will lend me his kegging equipment so I wont have to muck around with priming.

Wish me luck. I am very excited about venturing into the land of beer.

 

[mgc]

I have had some trouble in finding Lactose, any suggestions on what alternatives I have?

 

[Cascadegan]

Had a very similar recipe for my last brew, gonna send off to a beer comp soon
No cold pressed coffee added but..
I added a handful of coffee beans, hops and oak chips in the primary (didn't transfer to secondary, so it was in there 4 weeks) and added .25 lb black patent and choc malt and reduced roasted barley to .25 and used 8.5 lbs light lme instead of 6lbs dark

Its a great beer it just doesn't fit any category well, I call it an extra stout farmhouse porter

 

[mgc]

My apologies for the noob question, but in the instructions when it lists:
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 13 (~66 deg)
Additional Fermentation: ~2 weeks aging in keg
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 (~66 deg)
Does that imply that the brew to glass time is just less then 6 weeks? 2 weeks primary, 2 weeks secondary, and 2 weeks keg?
Am I understanding this correctly?

 

[mcaustin]

I don't really subscribe to set time frames for beer to be ready to drink. I'd call those minimums really, but if it's ready before that, drink up.

I think beersmith had default values for the times that were defaulted to something real low (like a couple of days each or something) so I just changed it to ~2 weeks each. Give it more time to mellow if you add a lot of coffee.

Let me know how it turns out!

Austin

 

[mgc]

As the last few drops are coming out of my keg now I want to say how impressed I was with this recipe. It is a wonderful brew, thanks to the OP.
Next time I would cut down on the coffee and maybe increase the amount of cocoa nibs I used, but after some ageing in the keg the coffee is spot on so maybe not. I'm going to miss this one when its gone.

Cheers,

 

[rexbanner]

I brewed a recipe very similar to this. It was originally a chocolate milk stout that ended up a little too sweet, so I added a french press pitcher of coffee to secondary, along with some 60 min ekg hop tea.

Fantastic. This recipe is almost the same as mine. I made mine for my friend's mom's birthday this sat. I can tell this beer is going to be a real crowd pleaser.

 

[kphipps06]

this will be my first stout and next beer to brew. i will follow the recipe as is (extract)

 

[kphipps06]

can the cocoa be hershey's cocoa powder?

 

[MaxSpang]

Man, I made this beer a little while ago... It was SUPER strong with the coffee and was kind of too bitter for me. A little too much going on.

I kinda left it alone for a few months and popped one open just now - it's tasty! To echo what a few others have said, this beer gets smoother with age. Other than me accidentally over-carbing it, I'd say this beer is a success! I'm gonna throw a bunch in the fridge right now

 

[jasper9]

It's probably in some other threads on coffee+beer but surprised no one mentioned this here. Avoid the sludge with Toddy's method of cold brewing. It's soooo good... http://www.toddycafe.com/shop/product.php?productId=67

Basically is just a big plastic pitcher that you let the coffee sit in with water, a filter is in the bottom that you drain through when it's ready.

their step by step instructions http://www.toddycafe.com/customerservice/instructions.php

 

[Roasty]

Brewing this one again today. I can't wait.

 

[Roasty]

Okay, so I've got a minor problem here.

I walked out of the brew shop with 5lbs of Light DME, not 6lbs of Dark DME.

Given that the steeping grains are accurate, how would the change to 5lbs Light DME affect the beer?

Also, I've got a malt starter packet and some table sugar (ick!) that I can make up the missing lb of difference with. Is that worth it?

 

[Effington]

Roasty, save the Light DME for another style - using it would not result in a stout if I'm not mistaken.

I'm thinking of making this recipe with some minor variations. I do have questions though - what do you guys think of adding an additional 1 lb. of dark LME? Is 8 oz. of lactose enough to qualify this as a milk/sweet stout recipe? What is the advantage to use cocoa nibs over cocoa powder (if any)?

 

[arnies]

What effect will taking the lactose out have on the beer?

 

[dannowatts]

What effect will taking the lactose out have on the beer?

it just wouldn't have the same creaminess to it or the mouthfeel that comes with that. it won't be ... well as "milky" i guess you would call the flavor/mouthfeel

 

[Brendon]

cold brew coffee question,

how much water did you add to 1lb of coffee? Others have posted that the coffee absorbed the water leaving them with sludge.

 

[Effington]

I used 24 oz. of water to 0.5 lbs ground coffee. I filtered about half as much water out of the grounds so it did absorb a good bit. Maybe a courser grind would be better, but the coffee I did extract was perfect for my purposes.

 

[shadows69]

From what I read, cold brewing coffee should be more of a syrup when the filter process is complete. This syrup is used in the format of shots for ice coffee. The syrup can be stored up to 2 weeks in the fridge. Hope this helps someone, I was lost on the whole "cold coffee" thing till I read it and it said in the form of syrup when filtered.

 

[cyclefiend1123]

Hi mcaustin: would you be able to post an updated version of your extract recipe for the mocha stout? If I understand correctly you would now:

_ use cacao nibs instead of the cacao powder, if so, how much? Also, do I assume they would be steeped along with the grains, or are they part of the boil? If you stick with cacao powder, when is that incorporated?

_ possibly use less cold press coffee? How much less? I'm looking for a balance of chocolate and coffee flavors.

_ different hop schedule?

Thanks,
Andy,
Tucson, AZ

 

[shadows69]

Cacao nibs are soaked in vodka for 24 hours then put in the secondary / end of primary for 5-7 days. They are put in a hop bag just as you would when you "dry hop". If you boil cacao nibs you get a bitter taste. I'm thinking 6-8oz of coffee cold brewed looks more like it. This is my thinking. I'm hoping to brew this recipe soon, waiting out my grain to come in.

 

[cyclefiend1123]

Cacao nibs are soaked in vodka for 24 hours then put in the secondary / end of primary for 5-7 days. They are put in a hop bag just as you would when you "dry hop". If you boil cacao nibs you get a bitter taste. I'm thinking 6-8oz of coffee cold brewed looks more like it. This is my thinking. I'm hoping to brew this recipe soon, waiting out my grain to come in.

Great, thanks! I made the mistake of only buying one bottle of New Belgium's Imperial Chocolate Coffee Stout when it came out, so I'm going to try my hand at cloning it. I'm still a partial extract brewer so I'm curious if I can even come close.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated!