When to add coffee?

[rossbaker]

So last night after reading a thread about coffee in beers I decided to very scientifically slosh a bit of cold steeped brew I had in the fridge into a glass of pale ale I was drinking. The result was nothing short of excellent and I will definitely be trying this on my next brew.

Onviously my first step will be to make sure I get the ratios correct. But what I really want to figure out is when should I add the coffee to the brew? Should I add it at the start of fermentation, after a few days or should I just add some to the keg when racking? I'm tempted to go with the last option as I reckon adding cold coffee to cold beer will probably have the least chance of ending up with an infection. This may be flawed logic though I'm not sure...

What are your thoughts?

For those interested, the beer experimented with was a grain and grape New World Ale fresh wort kit, fermented with US05 and no other additions. I'll probably use a coopers Aus pale ale kit with us05 and some American hops for the brew in question.

 

[Mearesy]

I've added it when racking to keg with good success

 

[Topher]

Ive only done it in the keg twice but it works well.

 

[madpierre06]

Did both, added medium fresh roasted whole bean (30g/10L) to primary for 18 hours prior to bottling (max 2 days recommended for this method), result was quite smooth and sweet taste at bottling and as I had split the batch, added 27gm coarse ground beans (same bean as other batch) to cold steep in 250ml water for 12 hours, then strained and added straight to brew the day before bottling. This one tasted a little drier. First tasting will be minimum of a month post bottle. I have also made an espresso shot and added to Young's Dble Choc Stout.....was bloody delicious.

 

[rossbaker]

Fair enough... In the keg sounds like the way to go. Are you guys talking about adding dry beans/ground coffee to the keg, or liquid coffee the had been cold steeped as madpierre06 suggested?

 

[pist]

I've done into kettle at flameout. That also seems to work OK.
Had a slight bitterness from the coffee when green...but was awesome at about 3 months.
Had positive feedback from everyone who tried it.
Cold steeping your coffee and adding when you would usually dry hop would probably be your best bet though.

 

[donald_trub]

Very timely... I'm about to do the same thing in a few days times. I've got a milk stout that's been in the fermenting fridge for 2 weeks and almost ready for bottling. I'm going to get 1 x 250g bag of coffee beans from a local good cafe, rough grind, cold steep the coffee in 1 litres of water for 24 hours. This will yield about 650mL - 700mL of coffee concentrate.

I did a batch of cold brew coffee using that method last week and messed around with some samples of milk stout. 5% coffee concentrate seemed to be a great mix to the beer, so I'm thinking about just chucking the 700mL I get from the next cold steep into the 20L of beer in the bucket, leave it for a couple of extra days in case the yeast decides to ferment something a little more, and then will bottle the most delicious milk stout you've ever tasted.

I tried a 10% mix of the coffee concentrate but it was too strong, so 5% seems to be the magic number.

rossbaker I'd be interested in hearing your ratios, for both the cold brew and your planned additions.

 

[rossbaker]

That milk stout sounds delicious. The ratio I originally used for the coffee was 10g of ground coffee per 100ml. I think I ended up making the one I mixed with the beer slightly stronger than that but that pretty much makes a cold steep brew that I like to drink. I'll update with the ratios I decide on for the final brew.

 

[citizensnips]

I highly recommend cold steeping and adding at bottling/kegging. I've just finished a chocolate coffee stout using freshly ground coffee from a mates cafe that turned out be extremely tasty.

 

[donald_trub]

I might add to this I've never dumped cold brew to my brew before and I'm worried about getting the strength right. I think I know how much should go in but I plan on adding it gradually over a couple of days until I get the right amount.

 

[citizensnips]

The easy way to find your strength is take a measured sample from the fermenter, add a little cold brewed coffee into it, keep note of how much your adding and when you find the profile is right..scale that up to your batch.

 

[donald_trub]

I did do this but I'm finding my numbers are way above everyone else's. So to play it safe I'll do it in 2 or 3 parts so I don't go overboard.

 

[adamh]

did anyone try that Mountain Goat beer where they used the coffee beans for the bittering element instead of hops? It was pretty nice! Would have taken a lot of experimentation to get right!

 

[///]

Use expresso at work, straight into keg. about .75ml litre works well.

 

[Topher]

Use expresso at work, straight into keg. about .75ml litre works well.

How is the flavour stability? Does the espro go funky over time? Does it affect the head retention?

 

[///]

No probs in head retention, usually only lasts a week or 2 and we do not see any flavor change

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Cold steep? I know flavors would be best but I'm just paranoid about possible infection for long term etc. If it all gets drunk quick then no worries but what about bottling for long term? Bottling for long term is probably the silly exercise in most cases :drinks:
The best choc ale with coffee I did was added end of boil. But much coffee character is lost in ferment. So best efficiency and character is to add post ferment.

 

[citizensnips]

Yeah I thought the same thing plus I added cacao nibs and a couple vanilla beans in there....soaked them in rum first so hopefully that killed any nasties. But at 7% abv I was hoping this would be my insurance policy if anything did go wrong.....no problems after 2 months in the bottle.

 

[donald_trub]

I'm cold steeping with water that's boiled and then cooled. Hopefully the alcohol content now in the beer can kill off any other nasties.

 

[Mearesy]

Use expresso at work, straight into keg. about .75ml litre works well.

eSpresso