Using coffee

[Benjamin R]

Anyone have some suggestions on technique and ratios when using coffee? I have a stout already in the fermenter I'm thinking of coffee'ing up. suggestions?

[Benjamin R]

Well I guess by the number of views vs the number of responses, I'm now the leading expert in the club on brewing with coffee. In my 10 gallon batch (porter), I added 6 oz of fresh ground coffee during the last 5 minutes of boil.

I've switched to the suspended hop bag (a must have for every brewer and cost less then 5 bucks to make) and just added the coffee in that. It seems to have worked very well, but I'll not have a full report for another couple of weeks. I used Starbuck Sumatra, which is an extra dark blend not unlike a french roast.

[Michael]

Benjamin

I think the best way is a cold brew process added to the secondary or serving vessel. If you add to the boil, you tend to get an "old coffee" flavor since the heat does change the flavor profile after it has been cooled and aged. To get an idea of the process go to this URL http://www.ineedcoffee.com/06/coldhome/

Once you finish the process, you can add the final product, that does taste like fresh brewed coffee, to your keg or bottling bucket. I used about 4 ounces of dark roast Starbucks in 5 gallons and it had a great coffee character that hangs on much better than coffee added to the boil.

As they say, your mileage may vary!

Mike

[blksabbath]

I know schlafly does the cold toddy in the secondary technique. I've added freshly brewed coffee to at KO before with success.

I was thinking of throwing some whole beans in with my grain bill to see what that'd do. I'm guessing I'd lose the aromatics, but it may add some interesting characteristics otherwise. I wonder if it'd be a head killer though...but I'm not sure why it would if you can still get good foam with stuff in the secondary. Anyways, there are experiments to be done.
dang

[karst]

Prefer cold toddy added at bottling.


Ratio of 1 gal filtered coffee toddy to 13 gal beer. One pound of finely ground double crack roasted beans (prefer S. American Kaldi coffee high in quinic acid) Shake the shit* out of the cold toddy as often as possible over 36 hrs or the weekend before you keg/bottle.

*This from Stephen and Greg of Schlaffly and Kaldi when they were considering marketing a homebrewer's kit for coffee stout.