HOMEBREW Digest #6021 Fri 24 May 2013
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
coffee ("Darrell G. Leavitt")
Re: Coffee in an RIS (jeff)
RE: Coffee in an RIS (IT) (Patrick Babcock)
Coffee for Stout ("Eric \"Rick\" Theiner")
Re: Coffee in an RIS (Michael Thompson)
RE: Coffee in beer (Joe Dunne)
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Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 05:13:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Darrell G. Leavitt" <leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu>
Subject: coffee
I am not sure as to the best way, but over the years I have added real
strong, dark roasted coffee at the time that I bottled the stout. I would
not make a full pot, perhaps 1/4 or so, but it should be strong as heck.
Let's see what others have done. This has motivated me to make one!
Thankhyou.
Darrell
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Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 06:07:14 -0400
From: jeff <climbzen at pa.net>
Subject: Re: Coffee in an RIS
On 5/24/2013 12:12 AM, Jones, Steve wrote:
> And what about a coffee IPA?
************
i've never used coffee in my home brew so can't help ya with amounts.
what i can say is we had a coffee ipa from mikkellers a year or so ago.
that thing was amazing. i had forgotten all about it till now. think i'm
going to be doing this soon.
peace
jeff
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Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 07:21:26 -0400
From: Patrick Babcock <patrick.babcock at gmail.com>
Subject: RE: Coffee in an RIS (IT)
Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your Colombian Dark Roast...
Steve Jones asks regarding the best method for infusing a stout with coffee...
I can't claim this to be a "best method", but here's what I've done
and have found to give me the results I was looking for.
First, a little background. I was looking for more of a "coffee note"
in one of my favorite stout recipes - my Up The Creek Without A Paddle
oatmeal stout. First, I tried adding a pot (french press) of Gevalia's
Espresso Roast to the brew pot prior to CFC. I could clearly taste the
coffee in the result, but was dissatisfied with the flavor, and noted
that this batch did not generate and maintain the rich, Guinness-like
head that this recipe was always famous or. The bubbles were larger
and "soapier". I attributed the loss of "richness" in the flavor to
CO2 scrubbing and/or combination of the coffee molecules with other
fermentation byproducts. No scientific proof of either; just a hunch.
The beer was still very palatable, but I saw the impact on the head as
fairly serious defect. I attributed the loss of heading to, perhaps,
the coffee oils. Note that since I did no further experimentation,
both the flavor and the heading issues could have been attributed to
the base beer - but it is a recipe that I have brewed (mostly)
flawlessly for innumerable years prior.
I tried a gain several months later. This time, though I still used
the french press, I poured the coffee through a paper filter into the
secondary fermenter. I like the french press as I believe it does a
much better job of extracting the flavor from the grounds than does a
drip coffee maker, and it doesn't boil the bean as a percolator does.
The paper filter was employed in the hopes of eliminating or reducing
the transfer of coffee oils into the beer. This beer had the great,
rich coffee flavor I was after, and did not demonstrate the heading
issues of the prior attempt. I never looked back, and have added
coffees, teas, and other non-sugar, infusions to my beers and meads
using this method ever since.
Cheers!
Pat Babcock
HBD, Inc.
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Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 10:52:48 -0400
From: "Eric \"Rick\" Theiner" <rick at ecologiccleansers.com>
Subject: Coffee for Stout
In answer to Steve's question about coffee for his RIS, I have a few
thoughts, some based on experience, some based on reading about how other
folks do things.
First off, you really don't want to brew the coffee like normal-- you will
lose a lot of the aromatics by doing so. Instead, do a 12-hour cold steep
such as what is described at this link:
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/cooking-tools-the-toddy-br
ewing-system/
I have done this, but I never bothered with buying the piece of hardware
they're talking about. A mason jar for steeping and multiple layers of
cheese cloth for a big filter, then a normal coffee filter gave me a
sediment free liquor.
I know you are probably familiar with the process, Steve, but for those
reading from the sidelines you want to be sure to do "bench trials" to make
sure that you hit the right ratio. In other words, pour 3 oz of beer into
several glasses and start adding coffee in increments until you hit the
point of perfection-- with 5 3oz glasses, add maybe 1 tsp to the first,
1.25 tsp to the second, 1.5 tsp to the third, etc. And then try them to
decide which one is best. Another thought is to then leave them for a few
hours in case there is any "melding" of the flavors (I was just at the
Winemaker conference and this idea of leaving the wine during bench trials
like this struck me as absolutely obvious, but it had never occurred to me
to do it!).
After you have your ratio, of course, scale up and add directly to the
carboy or keg.
Oh-- for those not familiar with coffee roasting, the people who supply
green beans will often have a lot of information on how roasting to various
degrees will affect presentation of the coffee. I get my beans from Sweet
Maria's, and they often will discuss the best degree of roast to pull out
the best notes that the coffee can provide. I'd probably go with a Vienna
for myself because I look strong roasty notes in my coffee stout.
Hope that helps,
Rick
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Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 10:08:25 -0600
From: Michael Thompson <thompson at ecentral.com>
Subject: Re: Coffee in an RIS
On Thu, 23 May 2013 at 11:31:54, Steve Jones <stjones at eastman.com> wrote:
> I brewed a Russian Imperial Stout on BigBrew day, and now I'm thinking I'd
> like to add some coffee to it. I really like the Stone Espresso Imperial
> Russian Stout, and would like to get a similar degree of coffee flavor ...
> just enough to notice, but not enough to be prominent.
>
> I've never added coffee to a brew before, and have read of many ways to do
> it: add grounds to secondary; steep grounds in a bag like dry hopping; cold
> steep grounds in water and add the strained water to secondary; etc.
> Steve Jones
Best suggestion I've seen was from Nathan Watkins in the
September/October 2012 issue of Zymurgy. He calls it a Coffee Toddy.
The cold infusion helps prevent bitterness.
Making a Coffee Toddy
For 5 U.S. Gallons (19.83 L) of beer
EQUIPMENT:
1 quart jar with lid, sanitized
2 muslin sacks, or pantyhose
INGREDIENTS:
2 oz. (57 g) of coffee ground to electric percolator (second from
coarsest) setting on commercial coffee grinder.
2 cups (473 ml) water
PROCEDURE:
1. Place ground coffee into the doubled muslin sack or pantyhose
inside jar, then stretch around the outside of the jar.
2. Fill with 1.5 cups (354 ml) cold water and put lid on tightly.
3. Leave in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
4. After 24 hours, open lid and lift out sack of coffee. Pour out the
remaining coffee toddy, leaving the dregs (last coffee bean bits)
behind.
5. Add to secondary before transferring from your primary.
6. If you only have a primary, put the toddy in before bottling, or,
if you keg, the Cornelius keg upon transfer.
Important note: The ideal ratio of coffee to water is 1.0 oz. (28 g)
coffee to 8.0 fluid oz. (237 ml) water.
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Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 11:43:17 -0500
From: Joe Dunne <jrdunne at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Coffee in beer
I've added coffee to beer in just about every way possible.
Grounds in the boil, espresso to the keg, and cracked beans in the keg.
I've not done a cold steeped brew, but that's also a possibility.
The best and most mellow coffee flavor I've gotten is with coarsely cracked
beans being added to the keg.
I put the beans in a stainless tea ball and suspended them on some non-flavored
dental floss.
As for an IPA, go for it. Maybe a very light roast?
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #6021, 05/24/13
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