Peace Coffee Stout - N00b Question

[JMM1980]

Hey, guys. First let me say that this is a great community. I feel like I've already learned so much from the threads here.

I brewed my first kit on 01/09/2016. Peace Coffee Stout from Midwest. In the supplied instructions it says to brew the coffee and add to the secondary (or primary after fermentation). However after reading several threads on here, it seems that the majority suggest cold brewing and adding to secondary.

I don't plan to use a secondary, so my question is, would it be better for me to:

a) Cold brew and add to primary after fermentation

b) Cold brew and add at bottling

c) Brew and add as the instructions suggest

Thanks in advance!

 

[LoneTreeFarms]

when I made this kit a few years ago I cold brewed it and added to secondary, since you're not planning to secondary I'd guess you could add it at either time. I also added .5# lactose.

this was a great beer that mellowed with a little time.

 

[JMM1980]

when I made this kit a few years ago I cold brewed it and added to secondary, since you're not planning to secondary I'd guess you could add it at either time. I also added .5# lactose.

this was a great beer that mellowed with a little time.

I guess I'm looking to get the most bang for my buck in terms of coffee taste. So I was just wondering which would offer more of the flavor, I guess.

 

[Spartan300man]

You will see that a lot of people don't use a secondary. It really isn't 100% necessary, it just adds more instances for introducing contamination and oxidation. Most members on this site use it only when adding something like fruit to a beer, and they need to get it off the trub layer. So, given that perspective, and the fact that the coffee will likely lose some flavor as it sits in a fermentor, I would think you could add it to the bottling bucket at the time of bottling and probably get the most flavor from it. As LoneTreeFarms mentions, he added some Lactose (i.e. milk sugars that don't ferment at a high rate), probably as a method to sweeten the mix a bit to offset the bitterness of the coffee.

 

[porterpounder]

Just ground the coffee coarsely and drop it in the primary fermenter until the desired level of coffee is attained. I use 8 oz per 6 gallon batch for 3 days. Not watered down additions, great coffee flavor. I slip a sanitzed nylon hop bag on the fermenter end of my auto-siphon to avoid picking up grounds. Works great.

 

[LoneTreeFarms]

I Agree, the lactose was added because if the bitterness. Spartan is right you typically don't have secondary, but in this instance I needed the bucket, and didn't have enough bottles.

 

[hanuswalrus]

Another option is to just add the whole beans in a sanitized bag directly to the fermenter (like a dry hop) a couple days before you plan on packaging the beer.

 

[Waynep005]

You can cold brew and add at bottling. I have done this with coffee before. Just used boiled water and a sanitized container to brew the coffee.