I was thinking that once I have gone through the two brew packages I have that came with my kit I would try a Coffee Stout. Anyone have a good recipe I could try?
This would be for a 1 gallon batch.
I don’t think it matters a whole lot what recipe you use for this style of beer. Just pick any decent recipe for a dry or foreign stout, cut the hopping rate back somewhat to accommodate for the added bitterness from the coffee, and add some strong (cooled) brewed coffee to the secondary fermenter, or at bottling time. I’m sorry I can’t really quantify any of the points I’m touching on, as I’ve never actually brewed one myself, but just do a little research on the subject, and I’m sure you’ll find that it’s an easy beer to make.
I currently don’t have anything I can use as a secondary fermenter, so it looks like I would have to add the coffee part at bottling time.
How would I go about this? Do I still brew a normal 1 gallon batch of a stout or dial that back somewhat to allow room for the coffee later on?
Do you have any good stout recipes you would recommend?
If you’re only making one gallon of beer, you definitely don’t need to add a whole lot of coffee to get the flavor you need. I’d say a pint would be enough, as long as it’s got a good, strong flavor. I would increase the OG on the brew to compensate for the added liquid, though. Like I said, just pick any recipe and drop the IBUs by a few points- I’d say between 5 and 10, depending on the intensity of the coffee you add- and scale it down to the size of batch you’re brewing. I’d probably go with a recipe that has at least a little bit of caramel malt in it, to help counterbalance the intensity of the coffee flavor with a bit of richness. If you already have a stout recipe you’ve used before and like, use it, and make the adjustments I’ve mentioned. Otherwise, just start looking around and use whatever one appeals to you. Don’t overthink it.
Here’s a link to a YouTube video I found on making coffee stout. I haven’t actually watched it myself, but I thought it looked like a good starting point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro_Xrsf34zM
Just found this series of videos on brewing a java stout on youtube. I will compare and contrast this and the one previously suggested before considering how I wan to proceed.
This of course will be a couple months in the future as I currently have a brew going, and will be attempting a honey ale prior to approaching a coffee stout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq7Q4dz ... 791892CAD5[quote=“KnoticalBrewer”]Just found this series of videos on brewing a java stout on youtube. I will compare and contrast this and the one previously suggested before considering how I wan to proceed.
This of course will be a couple months in the future as I currently have a brew going, and will be attempting a honey ale prior to approaching a coffee stout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq7Q4dz ... 791892CAD5[/quote]Yeah, I came across that one, too, but I thought “Okay, this is WAY more video footage than I really want to watch on this subject. I mean, one video that’s maybe 15 minutes long would be okay if it were informative and useful, but NINE??? Not so much”. I wasn’t looking for a Homeric epic on the subject of brewing a coffee stout. I’m pretty curious how that guy could possibly fill that much video time on that subject alone, but nowhere curious enough to actually watch it all.
Actually, it was pretty informative, though there was a bit he could have edited out. One thing he did show is how he put the coffee into the secondary fermenter, not the primary. There were quite a few other things I saw him do I am assuming just comes with experience, so I am going to pretty much stick with the more basic instructions and methods until I have a few more brews under my belt. Also, I only have one fermenter at the moment, so I will have to wait on that as well.
[quote=“KnoticalBrewer”]I was thinking that once I have gone through the two brew packages I have that came with my kit I would try a Coffee Stout. Anyone have a good recipe I could try?
This would be for a 1 gallon batch.[/quote]I just made my first Breakfast Stout and it is really really good. Here is the recipe.
https://byo.com/stout/item/1857-founder’s-brewings-breakfast-stout-clone
[quote=“MullerBrau”][quote=“KnoticalBrewer”]I was thinking that once I have gone through the two brew packages I have that came with my kit I would try a Coffee Stout. Anyone have a good recipe I could try?
This would be for a 1 gallon batch.[/quote]I just made my first Breakfast Stout and it is really really good. Here is the recipe.
https://byo.com/stout/item/1857-founder’s-brewings-breakfast-stout-clone
[/quote]
Goodness, I don’t think your ingredients list is long enough.
But seriously, is it possible to pare that down to a one gallon batch?
[quote=“KnoticalBrewer”][quote=“MullerBrau”][quote=“KnoticalBrewer”]I was thinking that once I have gone through the two brew packages I have that came with my kit I would try a Coffee Stout. Anyone have a good recipe I could try?
This would be for a 1 gallon batch.[/quote]I just made my first Breakfast Stout and it is really really good. Here is the recipe.
https://byo.com/stout/item/1857-founder’s-brewings-breakfast-stout-clone
[/quote]
Goodness, I don’t think your ingredients list is long enough.
But seriously, is it possible to pare that down to a one gallon batch?[/quote]Sure it’s possible but maybe not practical. Fwiw, I made 23 gallons.
I’m sorry for jacking this thread, but I have been thinking of a coffee stout as well. Trader Joes has a quart bottle of shelf stable cold brewed 2x concentrate that might serve this purpose. I was thinking of mixing it in at bottling time to taste. Since it is shelf stable, it should be pretty sterile and pose little risk to contamination.
Dan
As a home coffee roaster and certified coffee geek (sometimes callously known as ‘snob’), I can tell you that the extraction method plays a huge part in the flavor of coffee. So this really depends on exactly what you want the coffee to add to your beer. And don’t say “coffee flavor”. There are over 800 flavor compounds in most coffees, most of which are affected by the length of the roast, and certainly by the method of extraction (ie cold-steep, drip, french press, vacuum, etc.)
That being said, most people want a ‘roast’ flavor when they get (or brew) a beer made with coffee. My preferred method is to make my own extract, which can be done with no additional equipment.
1.) get some good beans from your local coffee snobbertorium (or by mail) and if possible, grind them minutes before starting. Ask said snobbertorium WHEN the beans were roasted. If its within a week, buy them and use them. If they don’t know, go somewhere else, and no I’m not kidding.
2.) follow method 2 to make a concentrated coffee extract: (cold steeping) https://www.sweetmarias.com/library/tin … imentation
3.) once the extract is filtered, add a measured amount to a sample of the beer, and determine how much extract you want per pint (scale up from the amounts used in the sample).
4.) add the scaled up amount of coffee extract at packaging (either to individual bottles or to the keg).
:cheers:
Absolutely agree with the previous post. Besides being way, way better tasting, doing a cold extraction will avoid the oils in those coffee beans which will come over if you do the coffee brewing with hot water.
Question for the coffee snob, what kind of roaster are you using? My iRoast broke, can’t get parts and I’m being forces to drink (and don’t laugh) Starbucks… 
see my avatar…
I’m using a FreshRoast fluid bed roaster. Small batches, which will be a pain when our little one gets here, but a good roaster to learn on! May go in on a drum roaster with a few friends to do bigger batches at some point, but then its almost just worth buying the coffee from a good local roaster.
I’ve brewed Don Osborn’s recipe a couple times, and it was great.
Here’s a link to the recipe page.
http://www.donosborn.com/homebrew/Beer_Log2004.htm#coffee_stout
Here’s a link to all of Don’s recipes and batch notes.
http://www.donosborn.com/homebrew/Beer_Log.htm
I’ve played around with the coffee additions, and here’s what I found.
The first time before bottling, I cold crashed for about 36-48 hours. I brewed two pots of coffee in my French press, for a total of about ½ gallon of coffee. I used a total of 6 oz coarse-ground beans (3 oz per pot), steeped for about 10 minutes. I pre-boiled the coffee water for about 5 minutes to remove oxygen before brewing the coffee.
The second time, I used the same amount of coffee grounds and water, but cold-steeped the brew for 10-12 hours per batch.
Note – the coffee character in the second beer was stronger than desired, due to the cold steep. I’d cut back on the amount of beans next time, to maybe 3-4 oz. The hot-steeped coffee was just fine in the beer. The cold-steeped dominated more, although I’ve heard that’s the preferred method for beer additions because you’re not extracting the oils, which kill the head on a beer.
[quote=“El Capitan”
The second time, I used the same amount of coffee grounds and water, but cold-steeped the brew for 10-12 hours per batch.
Note – the coffee character in the second beer was stronger than desired, due to the cold steep. I’d cut back on the amount of beans next time, to maybe 3-4 oz. The hot-steeped coffee was just fine in the beer. The cold-steeped dominated more, although I’ve heard that’s the preferred method for beer additions because you’re not extracting the oils, which kill the head on a beer.[/quote]
I’m a bit unclear about hot-(i.e. normal brewed) vs cold-steeped. Looking at the previous BYO & DonO recipes, it seems like they went the hot (“normal”) brewing method, and from Don’s picture (from the link), it looks like there’s plenty of head there.
So does it matter? I’d rather just brew the coffee (never cold-steeped any coffee before), but I don’t want to kill the head, either.
And I assume that it be added at kegging… is that correct (to get the correct coffee flavor/aroma profile)?
I had great results doing it the Don Osborn way. If I was going to do it again, I’d go the “hot coffee” method.
So again, I preboiled my coffee water to drive off O2. Then I put 3 oz of ground coffee in my 32 oz French press and let it steep for 10 min before pressing. I repeated that process to end up with a total of ~64 oz (half a gallon) of strong coffee. I used “Electric Monkey Espresso” and it was super good.
I added the half gallon of coffee at bottling time. Take a gravity reading and calculate your abv before you add the coffee. Then you can figure out the dilution. I think Don walked through that calculation on his brewday sheet.
This is a great stout that I’ll certainly brew again. Hope it goes well for you!
:cheers:
So I’m looking to do 5 gal. of this stuff and want to be true to the recipe but the Kona beans are presenting me w/ a problem. Only needing 2 oz. and 2 of my local roasters are out of it, and the price, I’m wondering if any coffee experts can suggest a good alternative to the Kona $30+/lb. beans that aren’t even in stock atm. I would use the rest up myself but I quit coffee.
I called one of the places and the gentlemen mentioned Guatemalan. Or, if I’m forced to buy at least a half pound, why not use the Sumatran for both additions? Both places roast regularly so maybe I should just choose the most recent roast as Pietro considers this an important consideration.
[quote=“dsiets”][quote=“MullerBrau”]
I just made my first Breakfast Stout and it is really really good. Here is the recipe.
https://byo.com/stout/item/1857-founder’s-brewings-breakfast-stout-clone
[/quote]
So I’m looking to do 5 gal. of this stuff and want to be true to the recipe but the Kona beans are presenting me w/ a problem. Only needing 2 oz. and 2 of my local roasters are out of it, and the price, I’m wondering if any coffee experts can suggest a good alternative to the Kona $30+/lb. beans that aren’t even in stock atm. I would use the rest up myself but I quit coffee.
I called one of the places and the gentlemen mentioned Guatemalan. Or, if I’m forced to buy at least a half pound, why not use the Sumatran for both additions? Both places roast regularly so maybe I should just choose the most recent roast as Pietro considers this an important consideration.[/quote]I can’t imagine it will be that big of a difference. My local grocer has all kinds of beans.
