6 replies to this topic

[ncbeerbrewer]

A friend of mine wants to learn how to brew All Grain from my homebrew club and I asked him to come over in a few weeks and brew a ten gallon batch and split the cost and beer as well. One of the ideas of beers he wants to try is a coffee stout idea. I have brewed many stouts and last year brewed an American Stout spiked in secondary with coffee as well. In thinking about this beer and some methods of adding coffee has anyone here ever added coffee grounds to the mash tun and let it steep for the length of the mash. I was thinking of grinding up some coffee beans (Good Quality, not Folgers or Maxhouse) and adding that to the mash. Anyone have any suggestions as to how much coffee to use? Thoughts on this coffee infusion idea? Interested to hear your experiences with this idea. Thanks.Mike

[MakeMeHoppy]

I added coffee to secondary with good results. What is nice about that is you can pull a sample and add small amounts of coffee to taste and then know how much you want to add for the rest of the batch. When researching when to add the coffee I was told by some to do it post boil. I am not a coffee drinker, but apparently boiling coffee for a long time makes it very bitter.

[Sidney Porter]

you don't want to boil it, which would exclude adding to the mash tun. You have 3 viable options1) Add it during chilling when you get down to 180ish (would work better with immersion chiller). 2) Add ground bean to 2ndary. A lot of people like to do this and seem to get good results.3) Add coffee at packaging.I have done 2 and 3 side by side. I think that you get much more coffee aroma, with the actual coffee since a lot of the aromas only come out during brewing. To me a coffee stout s more about getting the aroma there than the flavor of coffee. I would fist pour a bunch of 2 oz beers and dose each one with measured amounts of coffee until you get the mixture you want. It isn't much more work and you have the most control. I would go with a city or full city roast to maximize aroma.The other thing I would consider is a porter rather than a stout. Similar flavors but you are going to get more chocolate and less roasted barley flavors. I was on a coffee stout / porter / brown kick about 4 years ago and probably did 5 batches (50 gallons most split with different bean / roast levels) trying out the different methods. I did a monsoon malabar mild was interesting a lot of earthy characters came thru. I don't know if you can buy roasted monsoon malabar beans, but coffee roasting is an easy process .

[ncbeerbrewer]

I added coffee to secondary with good results. What is nice about that is you can pull a sample and add small amounts of coffee to taste and then know how much you want to add for the rest of the batch. When researching when to add the coffee I was told by some to do it post boil. I am not a coffee drinker, but apparently boiling coffee for a long time makes it very bitter.

That is a good method. The stout I brewed last year I spiked it in secondary and it came out really well too. I was just being creative and the idea of the mash came to mind. While there would be some hops to the recipe if boiling it for an hr makes the coffee that bitter that won't work well either.

[DubbelEntendre]

I don't know if I would add it to a sweet stout, since you don't want that beer to be too roasty.

[CoastieSteve]

I brewed 6 oz. of strong coffee and added it to a keg of American Porter. It turned out great. I wouldn't recommend any more coffee than that as the flavor was noticeable, but not dominating and complimented the malty flavors of the beer. A couple buddies said they tried to add pure coffee grinds at flame out and another tried in the primary.... neither liked the result and both used about an oz. of coffee grinds.

[ncbeerbrewer]

I brewed 6 oz. of strong coffee and added it to a keg of American Porter. It turned out great. I wouldn't recommend any more coffee than that as the flavor was noticeable, but not dominating and complimented the malty flavors of the beer. A couple buddies said they tried to add pure coffee grinds at flame out and another tried in the primary.... neither liked the result and both used about an oz. of coffee grinds.

Thanks for the input. I am thinking I am going to change the plan to a porter and follow those suggestions and add to secondary. I might even give it a twist and add some Hazelnut or Macadamian nuts too. We shall see. Thanks for the feedback!!