I’m looking to make a coffee porter next month, and I’ve read a few recipes that have different ways of adding coffee.
Some add ~4-6oz of freshly ground beans at 1min/flame-out.
Some mention brewing a pot of coffee and adding it during the boil.
And then some add brewed coffee and/or ground beans in the initial mash.
Most spicing I’ve done to date has been either at flame-out or in the secondary.
What are people’s favorite ways/times for adding coffee to a batch?
I made a coffee stout (sweet per BJCP) with about 4 oz of french roast in the mash. Had pretty fair aroma and flavor in the end product. Thought it balanced pretty well with the oatmeal and sweetness of the lactose. Given my coffee preferences though I’ll probably up to at least 6 oz on the next batch.
Also one more vote here for cold press. What I’d do is grind it up so that it’s pretty coarse (you don’t want it fine like you’d use for a drip brew or espresso) and cold press it in the secondary two days before bottling. Use between 1/4 to 1/3 cup per gallon of beer (1 1/4 cup or so for a 5-gallon batch) for a nice balanced coffee flavor that’s not in your face.
What I’d suggest though, is if you’ve got a few one- or two-gallon carboys around, split up your batch and try differing amounts to suit your taste. I added a nice winter blend coffee to Northern Brewer’s Winter Warmer recipe at 1/3 cup per gallon and it seemed to be a nice harmony between the beer and the coffee.
Don’t let it sit too long on the coffee though, try to go 48 hours and then get it into your keg or bottling bucket. And ALWAYS use freshly-ground coffee for the freshest flavor, and obviously using a coffee bean that you love.
What I would do is make the beer then keg it. Once you get that done, roast up some coffee beans (if you roast your own, the aroma will be much better than store bought stuff) then brew a really strong batch with cold water in the frig (takes a couple of days, use a french press then filter it when done). Get a dropper and pour out a measured glass of beer from the keg. Add the strong coffee with a dropper until you get the taste/ aroma etc that you want. After that figure out how much of the strong coffee you need to add to the entire keg based on your test and away you go. The advantages of doing it this way are 1) you avoid the oils in the coffee by doing the coffee brewing cold 2) you can directly control the amount of coffee flavor as versus say adding coffee to the fermentor and 3) you get all the coffee aroma into the beer. If you do not have coffee roasting equipment, go to a store that sells fresh, unground coffee beans (better if freshly roasted). In a pinch I quess you could use Starbuck’s coffee purchased in a grocery store but you will like the results much better if you can find freshly roasted coffee beans (like beer, fresh is better).
I’ve got whole Kona coffee beans that I was planning on using. Great flavor and aroma that I’m looking for. I don’t have the equipment to Keg (yet), so I’m going to have to do it in the fermentor.
I think cold press in the secondary will be the way I go like how twohenries suggested.
I was considering making this a coconut coffee porter and adding some shredded coconut as well.
It is easy to get the coffee stout/porter flavor but much harder to get it right and balanced. I think a lot of coffee beers (several of mine included) have a strong acrid acid note that is very overpowering. I have made the mistake of boiling coffee that has been in the mash or added to the boil and have not been happy with the results. I agree with all the cold press feedback.
This is exactly what I did and it worked very well. Did some cold brewed coffee and then added varying amounts to 4 oz samples of the beer, once I figured out the amount of coffee I liked in the sample I just did the math to scale it up to the whole keg and then dumped that amount in of cold brewed coffee in my keg.
