Well I am still using extract kits til I have my own home and tier set-up, my apartment is too small for a tier system. I pieced together a possible coffee stout idea and wanted to get opinions
6lbs Dark Malt Extract (I know I’m cheating)
1oz. Magnum hops (60 mins)
1oz. UK Fruggle hops (15 mins)
safale us-05 yeast
2 weeks primary, 2 weeks secondary, 2 weeks in bottles
for the coffee blast I plan to soak 6oz. of coarse coffee grounds in 6 oz. of vodka for the entire primary process and add it to the secondary.
I’ve never used the coffee infused vodka idea and would always recommend just adding cold press coffee to the secondary for the ease of it. You really only need a little bit (maybe 6oz?) to get a decent flavor.
The cold-press process requires grinding coffee beans at a relatively coarse setting (typically as fine as possible to still be filtered[1]) and soaking those grounds in cold water for a prolonged period of time, usually 12 hours or more. The grounds must be filtered out of the cold water after they have been steeped using a paper coffee filter, a fine metal sieve, or a French press. The result is a coffee concentrate that is often diluted with water or milk, and can be served hot, over ice, or blended with ice and other ingredients such as chocolate.
Cold brewed coffee naturally seems sweeter due to its lower acidity. Because the coffee beans in cold-press coffee never come into contact with heated water, the process of leaching flavor from the beans produces a different chemical profile than conventional brewing methods.[2]
^From wikipedia. I was feeling lazy. But in my opinion it is the best way to drink coffee; give it a try.
When you say 6 oz - do you mean 6 oz (weight) of coffee beans?
I recently brewed my second batch of an espresso stout recipe. Last year, I made 2 pots of coffee in my french press, using 3 oz beans per 32 oz pot. So it was a total of 64 oz of coffee (1/2 gallon) using 6 oz of beans. It was just about perfect. That was brewing the coffee as usual, with hot water.
This year, I tried the cold-steep method. I used the exact same recipe and coffee beans, just cold-steeped the coffee for 12 hours before pressing. The coffee flavor is MUCH more pronounced in this batch. I had read that cold-steeping extracts a lot more coffee flavor and caffeine, and I can tell you that it’s true.
If you plan to cold-steep the beans, I’d suggest cutting your coffee addition back to 3-4 oz beans total. The next time I do this, I think I’ll go with half the amount of coffee, and do the cold steep.
My recommendation: 3 oz beans in a French press, cold-steeped 12 hours before pressing, added to a 5 gallon batch.
Now that you mention it that doesn’t sound quite right so I looked up the last one we did which was midwest supplies Peace Coffee Java Stout. It says it comes with four ounces of coffee beans and we followed the recipe as is. We used a toddy which is a cold press filter and the instructions said to use ~2.5 cups of water for for 4 ounces of coffee beans.
The coffee flavor did have a good kick to it but that is the way we like it so it worked well for us. I guess it depends on how you want it to turn out but 3-4 oz of beans sound like a good starting point.
I suppose you could always add that and wait for a bit, taste it, and add more if you want.
