Coffee: Cold Brewed vs Alcohol Steeped

[foodplusbeer]

As a test, I decided to compare the tastes of cold brewed coffee vs coffee steeped in vodka. I'm no coffee expert, but that shouldn't matter since the main idea here is to figure out which method is best for adding to beer in which the coffee will be extremely diluted.

SAMPLES:
3 T coffee grinds, 12 T water
3 T coffee grinds, 12 T vodka

Both samples sat in my fridge for 5 days, and were then filtered.

TASTING NOTES:

Water - This sample smelled no different than the grinds out of the bag and tasted less bitter than a typical cup of hot coffee. It was slightly sweeter but over all tasted even weaker than a regular cup of coffee despite being brewed with a higher proportion of coffee grinds.

Vodka - The aroma on this sample was similar to the water but had a sweeter, more liquory smell. I did get whiffs of vodka, but the grinds had subdued them so that they were more tolerable than a straight sniff of vodka. The coffee flavor here was incredibly intense and surprisingly sweet. I did not add any sugar, but it actually tasted like I did. The liquid even had a bit of a syrupy texture. Again, I did not get much bitterness, although there was that trademark alcohol burn.

Final thoughts? My vote is with the vodka. Using the same amount of coffee the alcohol extracted a LOT more flavor. While the cold brew with water was subtle and mild, the vodka sample popped with a lot more complex flavors and sweetness. I'd lean towards the water sample for aroma, but this could have been swayed by the concentrated vodka. The misgivings in aroma for the vodka sample were slight, and not enough to alter the decision.

My thought is that the vodka itself will be lost once it's added to the beer. Hope this helps!

 

[iijakii]

Should try cold seeping in some beer!

 

[SwampassJ]

Damn you homebrew talk and giving me these crazy good ideas. I need another fermentation chamber.

 

[foodplusbeer]

Should try cold seeping in some beer!

I assumed that cold steeping in water would be similar to dropping some grinds into the beer. I didn't want to overpower the flavors with beer for the test. But, considering the beer will have some alcohol content, I'd imagine that you'd get a bit better results than just water.

 

[g-star]

Makes sense, you're extracting more oils with the less polar solvent (ethanol).

Nice experiment!

 

[MikeBilly]

Did you use 2.5 gallon batches for these experiments?

 

[foodplusbeer]

I just tasted the samples as is. I ended up tossing both in an oatmeal stout that I brewed since it's not a big enough volume of coffee to make much of a difference. 24 T = 1.5 Cups

 

[rednekhippiemotrcyclfreak]

I just tasted the samples as is. I ended up tossing both in an oatmeal stout that I brewed since it's not a big enough volume of coffee to make much of a difference. 24 T = 1.5 Cups

So how was the stout? Did coffee come through?

 

[jtrux]

You will also do a better job extracting the caffeine if that is wanted with the etOH. Caffeine is not very soluble in room temp water, needs hot water to extract but should be soluble in alcohol.