Getting coffee into beer

[gregkeller]

So i've skimmed the archives looking for the best way to get coffee flavor into beer and i've found the following:

1. ground in the boil
2. in the fermenter (ground and whole beans)
3. hot brewed coffee added somewhere
4. cold brewed coffee added somewhere

So one thing i've been thinking about and haven't heard done is going the cold brewed way added to the keg, but using the beer itself instead of water as the steeping liquid. Here's the thing, i'm planning on doing this in a sessionable milk stout (maybe 4%) and i worry that adding a quart of water/cold brew coffee might water things down. I've found with low gravity beers that building mouthfeel is the most important thing, and my gut says adding water will affect that mouthfeel. My other line of reasoning is some of the aromatics in coffee might be more soluble in alcohol of the beer instead of water.

I'd basically pull a few cups of fermented beer (uncarbed) from the primary a day before kegging, add it to a sanitized french press along with a healthy does of freshly ground coffee, let it sit overnight and then add that brewed coffee to the keg when i rack the rest of the beer to it. My only concern is oxidation, so i'd have to be careful, but otherwise i think i'd get a nice rich coffee profile. Any ideas? is what i'm thinking any different than just adding whole beans to the fermenter for a few days?

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

Adding cold brewed coffee at kegging/bottling is the way to go IMO. You can't ruin it that way and you can be pretty sure the ratio will be good. Beer may extract more stuff from the coffee than water but it might extract flavors you don't like. In the other hand, people throw coffee in the secondary without ruining the beer. I suggest you make cold brewed coffee using beer and water and use whichever tastes better. You can make cold brewed coffee that is very very strong so dilution may not be as big of a problem as you think.


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