Wake and Hop Coffee IPA (Rogue Cold Brew IPA clone)

[Juno_Malone]

Recipe Type

All Grain

Yeast

Wyeast 1764 PacMan

Yeast Starter

Yes

Batch Size (Gallons)

5.4

Original Gravity

1.064

Final Gravity

1.015

Boiling Time (Minutes)

60

IBU

81

Color

10

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

21 days @ 64'F

Tasting Notes

Nice mix of Citrus and Pine with a perfect level of cold-brewed coffee

So, this has been a project of mine for some time - I spent some time attempting to "reverse-engineer" Rogue's proprietary hop varieties they mention in their recipe for Cold Brew IPA:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...oprietary-hop-varieties-freedom-rebel.638783/

Unfortunately, I couldn't get my hands on Horizon for this recipe, but since it's the suspected bittering hop, I replaced it with something clean like Warrior (Magnum would work well too) which I doubt will have a huge impact on the final product. I also added in some Simcoe because I felt like Ahtanum and Centennial on their own wouldn't quite bring enough to the table.

I brewed an earlier version of this recipe; the tasting notes, discussion, and potential tweaks to the recipe can be found here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...-a-coffee-ipa-wake-and-hop-coffee-ipa.594672/

What's laid out here is version 2.0 of this recipe, which I bottled 3 weeks ago and will be tasting for the first time later this weekend (tasting notes will be updated then). If you've never tried Rogue Cold Brew IPA, do yourself a favor and track it down - it's one of the better beers I've tasted, and it's what made me a believe that coffee can work in an IPA. A note on the cold-brewed coffee in this recipe - 1.50 oz refers to the dry weight of the beans used. I recommend a coarse grind, submerging in ~1.5L of boiled and cooled water (the best way to do this is pour the water over the coffee grounds in a sterilized container, waiting five minutes, and then stirring with a sterilized spoon to fully wet/submerge the grounds), and letting cold-brew in the fridge (covered) for up to 24 hours.

****5.4 Gallon Batch****

Batch Size: 5.4 gal
Boil Size: 7.4 gal
Estimated OG: 1.064 SG
Estimated Color: 9.8 SRM (prior to coffee addition)
Estimated IBU: 80.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grains:
------------
9.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (65.7%)
3.00 lb American White Wheat Malt (21.9%)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (3.6%)
0.50 lb Carapils/Dextrine Malt (3.6%)
0.50 lb Flaked Oats (3.6%)
0.20 lb Coffee Malt (1.5%)

Hops:
------------
1.00 oz Warrior [15.4%] (60 min)
0.50 oz Ahtanum [4.1%] (15 min)
0.50 oz Centennial [8.5%] (15 min)
0.50 oz Simcoe [15.0%] (15 min)
1.00 oz Ahtanum [4.1%] (0 min)
1.00 oz Centennial [8.5%] (0 min)
1.00 oz Simcoe [15.0%] (0 min)

Yeast:
------------
1 Pkgs Wyeast 1764 PacMan (Starter Recommended)

Other:
------------
1/2 tsp Irish Moss (15 min)
1/4 tsp Ferman (10 min)
1.50 oz Cold-Brewed Kona Coffee (Bottling Bucket)

Mash at 152 degrees for 60 minutes.

I'll add pictures and tasting notes later this weekend. Any comments, questions, critiques, or feedback is 100% welcome and appreciated!

 

[Juno_Malone]

Picture quality isn't great, but I'm really happy with how this turned out. The hop flavor is really well balanced, and I really like the overall grain bill. The head retention isn't quite where I wanted it to be, but then again, almost none of my beers are... The only other thing I would change is using a little more coffee. 1.5oz of ground coffee cold-brewed in ~1.5L water came across somewhat subtle, definitely more subtle than in Rogue's Cold Brew IPA. You can still definitely detect it, so if you're not a huge coffee beer fan, or not completely sold on the idea of a coffee IPA, maybe try 1.5oz first. But I'll likely up this to 2-2.5oz of coffee next time I brew this. Overall, a very tasty beer!

 

[Pappers_]

That looks/sounds very interesting. I've seldom enjoyed pale coffee beers, but don't think I've ever had a coffee IPA. I've neer heard of coffee malt - its not just roast, right?

Once the beer is to your liking, you've tweeked the recipe, if you'd like to add it to the HBT recipe database, you should. The database is for tried-and-true recipes, sounds like this might be one or close to it. In the recipe database, you should put this in the "ale" category and then pick the 'Specialty IPA' as the category. That way, other brewers can search and find it.

Congrats on an interesting beer!

 

[Juno_Malone]

Thanks, I didn't realize HBT had an official recipe database - I'll look into adding this. Coffee malt is just a roasted malt, I think Simpsons makes it. ~150L, here's the description from NorthernBrewer:

"A dark roasted malt on the lighter end of the chocolate malt spectrum. It will impart a dark brown color and rich coffee like flavor and aroma. Use it to enhance the coffee like roast character in stouts and porters, or try it in brown or amber ales to give additional complexity."

Rogue lists it as a malt they use for Cold Brew IPA, so I included it, but not much as I didn't want to make this beer too dark - I wasn't sure how much color the cold-brewed coffee would add.

 

[ajbosley2015]

Question for you: did you consider adding ground coffee to the secondary instead of cold brewed coffee in the bottling bucket? Think of it this way, you are essentially cold brewing and I wonder if 1.5 ounces is enough liquid coffee to impart enough coffee flavor...just a tought

I typically don't like to do it, nor do I care for beers that add liquids at bottling. I think it cheapens the experience for me, and certainly brings down the ABV.

Thoughts?

edit: I saw the post where you said you will add more coffee next time.

 

[Juno_Malone]

Question for you: did you consider adding ground coffee to the secondary instead of cold brewed coffee in the bottling bucket? Think of it this way, you are essentially cold brewing and I wonder if 1.5 ounces is enough liquid coffee to impart enough coffee flavor...just a tought

I typically don't like to do it, nor do I care for beers that add liquids at bottling. I think it cheapens the experience for me, and certainly brings down the ABV.

Thoughts?

edit: I saw the post where you said you will add more coffee next time.

If I was going to add grounds to 2ndary, I'd want to do it no more than 36 hours prior to bottling - if the beer sits on the grounds for longer than that, I think you'd start to get some off flavors. And then I'd have to worry about the coffee grounds clogging up my siphon and potentially getting into my bottles; using a french press to strain the cold-brewed coffee prior to adding it to the bucket eliminates that issues. I don't really have any qualms about adding liquids to the bottling bucket. It's the best method (out of the few I've tried) in terms of getting coffee flavor in to beer, and the drop in ABV% from adding ~30oz of cold-brewed coffee to 5 gallons of beer is negligible - maybe 2-3 tenths of a percent? If it was a real concern, I'd just up my grain amounts slightly to offset it.

Also, I noticed you mentioned "1.5 ounces of liquid coffee" - 1.5oz is actually the amount of dry grounds I used, in about 30oz of cold water.

 

[ajbosley2015]

If I was going to add grounds to 2ndary, I'd want to do it no more than 36 hours prior to bottling - if the beer sits on the grounds for longer than that, I think you'd start to get some off flavors. And then I'd have to worry about the coffee grounds clogging up my siphon and potentially getting into my bottles; using a french press to strain the cold-brewed coffee prior to adding it to the bucket eliminates that issues. I don't really have any qualms about adding liquids to the bottling bucket. It's the best method (out of the few I've tried) in terms of getting coffee flavor in to beer, and the drop in ABV% from adding ~30oz of cold-brewed coffee to 5 gallons of beer is negligible - maybe 2-3 tenths of a percent? If it was a real concern, I'd just up my grain amounts slightly to offset it.

Also, I noticed you mentioned "1.5 ounces of liquid coffee" - 1.5oz is actually the amount of dry grounds I used, in about 30oz of cold water.

The only reason I commented, is because I have a lot of experience with integrating coffee with brews. My latest coffee cream ale had 4 ounces of grounds added to the secondary 2 weeks before bottling (ended up a little heavy on the coffee flavor). The beer turned out exceptional, and with a conical fermenter the grounds completely settled and clarity is perfection for a bottle conditioned beer. I will say that I fresh ground, and soaked in espresso vodka, then placed in a large hop spider that I have dedicated to coffee.

I still feel that(no offense) adding cold brew coffee to the beer at bottling "cheapens" the experience, and the product you are bottling is no longer beer, but is a malted beverage, but thats just my take on it. Either way, I bet it tastes great.