I was thinking of using American Roast Java Superior beans for some cold-brewed coffee to put into a porter and can’t find any info about acidity… though I probably don’t need to worry too much about that since I’m cold-brewing it, right? Has anyone here used those beans before? Do you have any other recommendations? I was going to start off with 1/2 lb coarsely ground beans and 32oz water for a 5 gal batch.
Go for it!
+1. I used some cold-steeped Sumatra in a Breakfast-type stout before in about those amounts, I believe.
Well take this with a grain of salt as I have not done this personally but the head brewer and owner of a local micro brewery that I am good friends with has a coffee porter that has won numerous awards and e shared his technique brewing the recipe with me. According to him and he definitely cold extracted the coffee and proportionally your amount seems like a good start but he cold extracts in secondary and not in a additional amount of water ( ie. the 32 oz you mentioned ). He told me that the extraction is enhanced by the presence of alcohol and is smoother than by adding it as a separate post fermentation addition. Like I said I hae not done this myself so as they say YMMV but this does come from a very reputable source.
Last time I added coffee to a porter, I coarsely cracked the beans, put them in a nylon hop bag and added them to the keg. I don’t recall the amount of coffee, but I could look it up. Previously, I’ve dosed the keg with espresso, which is obviously not cold extraction.
The beans directly into the keg gave a smoother coffee flavor.
aschecte - does your brewer friend draw wort off the batch to cold press the coffee or is the crushed beans added to the secondary for a while?
I like the idea of the cracked beans in the nylon hop bag in a keg. I’ve had good results cold steeping ,but I think I’ll try that next time. I do it with hops in the keg for hoppy styles, so why not?
It was to my understanding that the beans where added directly to the fermenter suspended in a filtration bag of sorts… I unfortunately have not seen the actual process this was all just discussion as the beer in question won a BOS beating out breweries such as Ommegang, DFH, Brooklyn brewery etc… he is a professional brewer / owner of a brewery. also keep in mind with his process this is all done in 80-120 BBL conicals and not in a home brew setup.
Perfect timing for this posting. I was just thinking the next brew will be a coffee enhanced porter or stout. Aschecte, thanks for passing along the tip from your brewer friend.
It’s tannins you don’t have to worry about with cold brewing, not acidity. But I don’t think any coffee beans are acidic enough to affect beer in the concentrations we use them. I used 1/2lbs cold steeped in 5 gal and liked it - almost too strong. Next time I’m going to add uncrushed beans directly to the beer for a few days and then rack it off to package. I do worry about introducing oxygen with cold steeped coffee. The blogger Mad Fermentationist says the coffee flavor is more persistent this way too.
Dry-beaning…
Until I a) upgrade to a home instead of my current condo situation or b) convince my wife a kegerator will look nice and have smaller footprint than all my bottling equipment, I still have to bottle, so dry beaning in a keg isn’t an option.
You can dry bean in the fermenter…
That’s why I suggested whole beans. Just put them in the fermenter, no bag needed. I’ve had randalled stout with whole beans in the randall and plenty of flavor is extracted.
Just to add to what your saying if you do a hot extraction with the coffee beans you will also then extract the beans oils as well which will have a multitude of other negative effects with head retention among other associated problems.
I’ve added hot brewed espresso to a batch and not had that problem.
As they say YMMV… Denny I would be the last person to ever disagree with your experience so their you have it if Denny says it’s good on the hot side then so be it. Like my original post stated I have not done this personally my knowledge comes from either books, schooling, and I have made a lot of good friends that are commercial brewers that have all basically said cold extraction is the way to go. Is it possible that other factors would play into the equation like carapils or another grain that would counter balance the oils ? I don’t think anyone will disagree that oils in general will effect retention.
It could very well be that in a 5 gal. batch you don’t get enough oil from the amount of coffee you use to be a problem.
I added coffee made in a French press to a porter in secondary and the resulting porter had little head even though it was carbonated sufficiently. IIRC, I added 16 cups of coffee to 5 gallons of porter.