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Coffee porter question!
I am planning to brew my 5th batch tomorrow night - a coffee porter. I got the recipe from my LHBS but tweaked the recipe a little, substituting some of the hops and trying a different yeast than what was reccomended. I asked the guy in the shop how/when I should add the coffee, but the guy working today was more a vinter and couldn't really give me a good answer. His final answer was to brew about 4 cups of coffee to a 5 gallon batch (after santizing my coffee maker) and add it when I am ready to bottle.
I have thought about steeping ground coffee during fermentation kinda like dry hopping, adding it to the boil, or just adding a few cups when it is time to bottle. Has anyone made a coffee porter that they liked? What have you tried and what works?
I've never made a coffee porter but I’ve been thinking about a mocha porter. However I have made three batches of a chocolate coffee stout and all have turned out well. The way I added the coffee was to grind fresh beans somewhat coarsely and steep them in a muslin bag for about 15 minutes immediately after removing the brew pot from the heat. This may not be the best way but it works for me. It adds a definite coffee flavor but I can still taste the beer which I have heard has been a problem for some people.
BrewRob wrote:
I am planning to brew my 5th batch tomorrow night - a coffee porter. I got the recipe from my LHBS but tweaked the recipe a little, substituting some of the hops and trying a different yeast than what was reccomended. I asked the guy in the shop how/when I should add the coffee, but the guy working today was more a vinter and couldn't really give me a good answer. His final answer was to brew about 4 cups of coffee to a 5 gallon batch (after santizing my coffee maker) and add it when I am ready to bottle.
I have thought about steeping ground coffee during fermentation kinda like dry hopping, adding it to the boil, or just adding a few cups when it is time to bottle. Has anyone made a coffee porter that they liked? What have you tried and what works?
In a mocha porter I've done, I've tried two methods:
- once, I simply brewed a pot of coffee and dumped it in about five minutes before the end of the boil: this, in connection with the hops I chose, made for a rather bitter porter, not what I expected (and I loved it, but it was not exactly the first choice for a lot of my friends);
- the next time, I cold-brewed the coffee and dumped it in at the same time, it was a lot less bitter and had a much more predictable flavor for coffee in a beer... and this was the recommendation I got from other brewers who'd used coffee.
You could try steeping it during fermentation, that sounds interesting, but I would do it during primary and make sure to rack off of it pretty quickly. I would not recommend putting it in at bottling time, but that might just be a personal reservation, I have no real answer as to why not to do it.
I ended up brewing a hot pot of coffee and dumping it in with 15 minutes left in the boil. That, in conjunction with the hops, has produced an almost undrinkable bitter batch.
One of my favorite coffee porters gets it's coffee flavor from coffee extract....... maybe I will try that next time.
I'm with The Goods on this one. Honestly it is the only way I've tried it and always had good luck. This is a good way to add flavor to your beer but not kill it with bitterness. Pretty much everyone that I've ever heard of doing a coffee style beer made a pot of coffee and dumped it in with bad results. Seems like it would be over doing it.
Yea, I've always heard that brewing the coffee will bring out the bitterness and that it might work better if you cold soak it or do a vodka infusion. I'm guessing the 4 cups added more bitterness than the ounce of Galena hops. Galena is pretty clean bittering hop, high alpha, but still very clean. I use it a lot, especially in my imperial stouts (several ounces).
DT
I stole a taste of my coffee porter today and the bitterness was WAY down. It tasted good, except for the coffee part. The coffee was hardly noticeable.. and what I could taste did not taste very good.. like I was sucking on the coffee filter or something. I am thinking about buying a quality extract and adding an oz to the secondary...
Not sure what else to do, although I am encouraged by the taste after 5 days... big difference
one of my favorite beers is lakefront brewery's feul cafe coffee stout. I can't get enough and can't wait till I make something like it! Anyway, once of the many, many times i've taken their tour I asked how they do it and they use an extract... tastes amazing, like fresh brewed coffee so maybe extract is worth looking into
i noticed on an online homebrew supply site they sold coffee malt, maybe that would solve your bitterness and or flavor problems
I have never heard of coffee malt.. interesting. is it treated with coffee?
UPDATE- I bottled last night after 2 weeks in the fermenter. My, how this one has changed! The bitterness was GONE... not even a little bit bitter. Not only that, but it tasted more like coffee than it did beer.. the coffee flavor came shining through like a champ and tasted great, like fresh coffee, not like coffee grounds.
I can't wait to see what a few weeks in the bottle does to this one.
here is a link to it, but it doesnt say much about how they do it.
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_i … s_id=10129
Here is a good link to diferent types of malts, coffee malt is not on the list but looks like the chocolate & dark chocolate could also be called coffee malt. I used the chocolate malt in a stout I just did, still in primary. I have gotten great coffee over tones from it in the past.
http://www.briess.com/brew/products.shtml#special
Cheers
In my last batch of Porter, I used about a 1/8 lbs more Chocolate malt than what was on the recipe. The batch came out with a nice espresso flavor. No beans or coffee was necessary.
Just a thought.
When I was brewing this one and was steeping the chocolate malt it smelled so good, much like a nice coffee flavor. I was a little bummed out once I added the LME, the aroma was replaced with that canned extract smell.
I popped open a bottle of this yesterday to try it and the coffee taste is overwhelming.. It was hard to taste the beer beneath the coffee. This one has been strange.. coffee taste slightly noticeable, no coffee taste at all a few days later, overwhelming coffee taste after a few days in the bottle. Oh well, I like coffee and I like beer. Now I can get tipsy while catching a major caffeine buzz.
My second batch was a mocha proter. I followed Papazian's instruction for adding coffee to the wort- steep freshly ground coffee for 15 minutes after the wort is taken off the heat. The results were mixed, Papazian said start with 1/2 pound of coffee (i used espresso) this was way too much, for me at least. Beer drinkers who liked frilly no beer tasting beer liked it, but the porter character was lost. It certainly had a coffee flavor if that is what you are going for, no bitterness, just a strong coffee flavor, it overpowered the bakers chocolate and the hops.
Hope this helps.
R.W.
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