38 replies to this topic

[djinkc]

My semi-annual Christmas stout is close to 7%. Basically a Quiet Storm oatmeal stout with what I have on hand. Ghirardelli chocolate coffee (preground) and American vanilla extract go in to make it a Christmas brew. Sounds dumb if you brew all grain to take a shortcut. Ask the LBG guys how they liked it at last year's Christmas Party. It's usually a hit.Dry coffeed in a knee high after kegging and added the vanilla extract then too. Maybe my palate sucks but I'll have a hard time convincing myself to buy nibs or beans the next time I brew it.

[Mindblock]

My semi-annual Christmas stout is close to 7%. Basically a Quiet Storm oatmeal stout with what I have on hand. Ghirardelli chocolate coffee (preground) and American vanilla extract go in to make it a Christmas brew. Sounds dumb if you brew all grain to take a shortcut. Ask the LBG guys how they liked it at last year's Christmas Party. It's usually a hit.Dry coffeed in a knee high after kegging and added the vanilla extract then too. Maybe my palate sucks but I'll have a hard time convincing myself to buy nibs or beans the next time I brew it.

+1I have always infused post fermentation in the kegs using the same equipment, techniques, and thought process as when dry hopping.

[positiveContact]

+1I have always infused post fermentation in the kegs using the same equipment, techniques, and thought process as when dry hopping.

so ground coffee steeped in the beer? how much? how long? do you take any special precautions to keep the coffee from contaminating the brew? how do you grind the coffee? I'm guessing your coffee grinder is far from sanitary relative to brewing.

[positiveContact]

here is a good article on dry beaning: https://hbd.org/club...letter0402.html

Coffee Beer…A Breakfast Drink?By Russ Kaz^*$#@zakAbout four years ago, a good friend of mine who noticed the similarities of dark beer and coffee asked me to brew (no pun intended) a coffee beer for her. At the time, she had tasted some of commercially available coffee beers, but was unimpressed. She felt that that the beers could have had a stronger coffee aroma and flavor.After tasting the beers she referred too, then doing a literature research (books, magazines, and internet), and asking various brewers about their coffee beer making techniques. I came to the following realization that, the only way brewers make coffee beer is to add a liquid extract of some sort (i.e. hot or cold brewed coffee/espresso) to a dark beer (porter or stout).So, in order to make a coffee beer I first brewed a Porter for the base. After the beer was fermented, I went to a local store to purchase some coffee beans. While dispensing the bulk coffee, I thought to myself, "God this smells great, if only I could just capture this aroma in a beer". Then I realized why not? If brewers want to capture the fresh aroma of hops in a beer, they do it by adding hops directly to their fermenters (dry hopping). The reason being that if you add them to theboil, you lose a majority of the volatile aromatics, contained in the hops, to the atmosphere. Coffee Beer continued:After I got home, I did not grind the beans and make a batch of coffee/espresso as you would expect. No, I was going to try something completely new and different, even at the risk of losing 5 gallons of good beer. I lightly crushed about an once of the French Roast beans and placed them in a nylon mesh bag.The bag was then suspended inside the 5 gallon keg of beer using ultra-fine dental floss slipped between the o-ring and keg lid. After a day and half, I removed the bag of crushed coffee from the beer. The beer was carbonated and after about a week we tested the beer and Wow!, we were both blown away that this beer had such a strong and very fresh coffee aroma and flavor after only a day and half of contact time.I just recently revisited this beer and brewed a new batch of a Black Butte style Porter for Amber, who is currently on a dark beer binge. This time I upped the amount of coffee to 2oz per 5 gallons for 2 days. Recommended coffee due to the darkness/richness of roast is French Roast. I like the degree of roast (black and greasy) and freshness from the local coffee roasters Cafeto or Equator. The base beer was a Porter (see below for the recipe), but any dark beer will work just adjust the amount of coffee according to style.Coffee Porter Recipe: (75 min infusion mash @ 153F and 90 min boil)Grain43.6% 10.50 lbs. Pale Ale Malt (2 Row) 2L43.6% 10.50 lbs. Special Aromatic Malt 5L4.1% 1.00 lbs. Chocolate Malt 475L2.5% 0.60 lbs. Light Chocolate Malt 170L6.2% 1.50 lbs. CaraMunich 60LHops 28.35 g Centennial 9.00% , 75 min. 21.26 g. Sterling 6.70% , 30 min. 21.26 g Sterling 6.70%, 5 min.Batch Size (GAL): 12.00Total Grain (LBS): 24.10Anticipated OG: 1.058Anticipated IBU: 24.9Pitch with WYeast 1084 Irish Ale and ferment at 68-70F.If you are interested in this coffee beer and would like to taste a CBS exclusively created beer, come to the next meeting.

[positiveContact]

so I'm not a huge coffee drinker (although I do like it - the caffeine just makes it so I can't sleep). what type of coffee would you guys recommend for this application? The most common coffee I drink is either from a diner, dunkins, or something like green mountain coffee (breakfast blend is usually what's available). my favorite coffee would be the greek/turkish variety. actual colombian also seems to be pretty damn good (someone brought some back for me). so what do you guys think?

Edited by StudsTerkel, 14 November 2012 - 12:12 PM.

[beach]

I've only used Sumatra and Kona. I prefer the Kona, not as sharp and bitter (from a cold steep.)Beacheta: after reading that quote, 'dry beaning' will be employed in my upcoming coffee Porter brew along with a cold brew addition.

Edited by beach, 14 November 2012 - 01:05 PM.

[positiveContact]

I've only used Sumatra and Kona. I prefer the Kona, not as sharp and bitter (from a cold steep.)Beach

I like the idea of "dry-beaning". it sounds like it's mostly aroma which is what I would want.

[beach]

I like the idea of "dry-beaning". it sounds like it's mostly aroma which is what I would want.

I'm wanting both flavor and aroma. The 'dry beaning' method makes perfect sense for the aroma portion.Beach

[djinkc]

I used whatever the bag size was. Guessing 12oz. Split into two cornies (10 gal batch). It definitely had a caffeine punch.

[positiveContact]

6 oz per 5 gallons seems like it might be a lot. did you crush the beans at all?

[SchwanzBrewer]

I'll be dry beaning this beer. It's going to be a French vanilla saison coffee stout. I'm gonna use WYeast 3711 french saison yeast - mainly because I know what it will do - and go from there. I will probably only add the coffee and vanilla beans to 1/2 the batch so it will be siason stout so I have something to compare against. Should be interesting, definitely out of my comfort zone, which is why I want to try it.

[djinkc]

6 oz per 5 gallons seems like it might be a lot. did you crush the beans at all?

"preground"

[positiveContact]

what kind of beans and how much are you planning on?

[SchwanzBrewer]

what kind of beans and how much are you planning on?

Some french roast beans. Gonna cold soak them and see what kind of results I get first before adding it to the beer.

[Genesee Ted]

Cold steep is where it is at for me. I would be worried about over extraction from the dry beaning method if you did it in a keg, maybe not as big of a deal in secondary for a couple days max. My buddy just did a coffee porter with cold steep that I actually had after my first post and it is spectacular. He used the Starbucks Pike's Place

[jayb151]

espresso beans or the ground up stuff or actual brewed espresso?

Actual Brewed espresso made from espresso beans. I make it in this:

[djinkc]

Can you overextract in a cold steep? If so, what are the flavour issues?

I think you can, I probably should have pulled mine after a week last year. But still pretty good after a couple weeks. But, I'm an expresso hound.

[Genesee Ted]

Can you overextract in a cold steep? If so, what are the flavour issues?

I would think that it is possible, but it is pretty easy to taste to see. Overnight should be enough time. There was just an article I think in Zymurgy or some beer mag about this. I didn't read it carefully yet though, just skimmed it over lunch. My friend's steep was just overnight

[SchwanzBrewer]

I think I'll probably end up just throwing the beans into the primary while it cold conditions. Might soak the vanilla beans first, but it will be in alcohol anyway. Just have to figure out how much coffee to use.