Coffee Addition - What I Learned From a Pro Brewer

[Chimichango]

Last weekend, I had the good fortune to taste a delicious Coffee Porter from Monkish Brewing in Los Angeles. It was a delicious blend of rich, dark porter and the unmistakeable and amazing bitterness/lushness of a locally roasted organic coffee (Venice Blend - Medium Roast) from Groundwork Coffee in Venice, CA. This was at a beer event where the brewers themselves were on hand to answer questions and represent their beers.

According to the brewer, the coffee addition occurs after secondary fermentation is basically finished and the final gravity has been hit. The beer is cold/chilled and it's already carbonated in the tank. He said he added 5 lbs. of coffee grounds to a barrel (we figured this to be 1lb. per 5 gal batch). He mentioned placing it in a mesh bag and submerging it right into the tank. I suppose a nylon/mesh bag would do the trick for home brewers.

So...needless to say, I'm itchin' to brew me up a coffee porter now!

[spiderwrangler]

Seems like dropping a bag of grounds into a carbonated beer would be asking for foam over....

[siwelwerd]

Sounds like a lot of coffee, I doubt you're getting great extraction if it's all in a bag.

I like to do a half pound of coffee in a half gallon of water, cold brewed, filtered, then added to taste in the keg. Homebrewers have different constraints (equipment wise and otherwise) than pro brewers, don't let what they do be your hard and fast rule. I think the takeaway from what Monkish does is to make sure the coffee addition is done cold, however you do it.

[trouble brewin]

I add 15 grams of fresh ground coffee (medium roast) per gallon of beer. I put the coffee in a nylon mesh paint strainer and let it sit in the keg for about 2 days (prior to carbonation).

If I recall correctly, I learned this from the CYBI Wake and Bake stout episode.

I've been quite pleased with the results.

[Ozwald]

I'm still working on figuring out where I stored all my brew sheets (I take meticulous notes on every brew - most of them even are legible past the 2nd hop addition). Since I'm a coffee freak, I did a lot of experimenting to get that perfect coffee porter. I remember I didn't have a whole lot of luck with grounds themselves - I tried everything from in the chill to in the keg. The worst off flavors were definitely from putting them in the chill stage, but there were some subtle odd-ball tones I couldn't get rid of from doing it in the keg as well. The way that made a real knockout was to put x grams into y milliliters of cold filtered water & to leave it sit in the fridge for a few days. I ran it through a coffee filter in a colander & added it the same time I would've done the priming sugar had I been bottling. That one got me hired on to brew for a few parties & a wedding reception.

Of course we all brew a bit differently and there's always more than one way to skin a JP (for a suit). If anyone's interested, I can post the coffee/water ratio & how long in the fridge gave me the best results when the brew sheets finally turn up.

[brewindruid]

I have yet to do a coffee porter, it's on the to do list. I do, however, think that the contol over intensity of flavor would be more precise with a freshly groud, cold brewed addition post fermentation and pre-CO2. I think it would also be better done at aobe serving temp so the flavor doesn't overwhelm as the beer warms.

[Ozwald]

Good news & bad. I found my brew sheets, but I can't seem to figure out where I put the detailed coffee stuff. I remember working through it & put it on its own sheet - all the recipes I wrote with coffee just have how much got added. On the plus side, I did find a note regarding where I started doing the cold-steeped coffee. 6 tablespoons in 24 ounces of water for an 11.5 gallon batch. Most of the later coffee porters show that I added anywhere from 570ml to the whole thing per batch. I just can't find the sheet where I experimented with adjustments.

I really think the hardest part is we all have a different opinion on how much coffee flavor we like in the brew, and everything from the roaster to the bean selection to the coarseness of the grind change that. But it was also a lot of fun experimenting with different combinations.

Two big tips I would give someone who's about to make their first attempt: brew your 'perfect' porter first. Changing the malt/hops can change the perception of the coffee. If you have an excellent porter that can stand by itself, you effectively take out one of the variables. Then find a coarseness of grind (I did this through my regular daily pot(s) I was having every morning anyhow) you like with your favorite bean and stick with it, which takes out another important variable. At that point you're only left with grounds vs water vs beer. It makes it much easier to find your 'perfect' coffee addition to that exact recipe. If you choose to take the starting point that I did, measure 6 tablespoons the way you'd normally scoop your morning coffee onto a gram scale. Write it down & repeat at least 10 times. Take your average & start from there. I also weighed my water, something I picked up from baking bread commercially.

[brewindruid]

I think the precision is important, especially with repeatability in mind.

FWIW, I am a huge fan of Peet's, and in that line their Sumatra, to me, is fat and chewy...love it, very RePeetable. I do a very couse grind to a french press. What I might do is break out a few SS taddys and dose them till i get the right balance.
what about cutting back on the dark roast and upping Fawcett Med. crystal, maybe just up the crystal first?