Micro batching to perfect my Coffee Porter

[Hopelesst]

My girlfriend and I began brewing recently and everything has been going well. With a few batches batches behind us we've decided to branch out and attempt our own recipe. We are, however, starting with a small, manageable batch size.

We want to make a coffee porter that is really built around the coffee flavor. We want to avoid bitterness in the grains so that any bitter bit comes from the beans. We want coffee flavor and aroma to be present and mingle with the grainbill. We want it to be good.

To this end was will make a pair of 3 quart batches from a single wort and and attempt separate methods of adding coffee to them. One batch will have while beans added as a late addition to the boil, and one will have cold steeped (and boiled) coffee added at bottling. Here's the recipe, modeled after Jamil's Robust Porter:

Boil volume: 2 gal
Final volume: 1.5 gal
Estimated OG: 1.069
Estimated FG: 1.017

3# Maris Otter
6 oz Crystal 40
6 oz Munich
3 oz Chocolate
1.8 oz Carafa

23 IBUs worth of hops @60 min
Wyeast 1056 @65

I was hoping for some guidance.
1. I have no idea what hop would be a good match our if there is one out there with a wrist aroma that might mingle well with the coffee as a late addition.
2. I have no idea how much coffee to use for either method, as all the recipes I've seen carry wildly.
3. Does the recipe look good? My only real contributions being reading Jamil's was using maris otter to get a nuttiness to blend with the coffee and carafa to reduce bitterness.

Thanks!

 

[Bob]

Scaling recipes is not as simple as it looks on the surface. While parts of it are linear, other crucial areas are not, areas crucial to the overall drinker satisfaction. Odds are, if you hit your target with the small batch the scaled-up batch will be different. That's not to say "not as good"; just "different".

For example, malt - the grist - is linear in scaling. A given amount of malt in a given volume of liquor will yield a given amount of wort with a predictable gravity. Liquor scales linearly. Hops scaling is not linear. Further, when the kettle volume changes, the boil changes characteristics, and that can have a significant impact.

What I'm saying is MAN UP! Design a five-gallon recipe, post it here for us to critique, and BREW IT. If you don't like it, identify what you don't like, tweak one or two (tops!) factors, and brew it again. Keep brewing it until you get it where you like it.



Cheers,

Bob

 

[progmac]

this is a take-it-or-leave-it suggestion, but process-wise, i would do a 65 minute boil, and remove half the wort at 60 minutes, then immediately add coffee to boil for five more minutes.

that way you could ensure that your two batches were exactly the same.

if you do flavor or aroma hops, this process wouldn't work though. unless you did aroma hops @ 0 minutes, that could work

 

[Karlofduty]

I heard something about to get good coffee aroma in a beer like that you could "dry bean" with coffeebeans for 24 hours before serving in a keg. I have never tried to make a coffeebeer but maybe someone else can confirm or deny this. I think I heard this on "The Sunday Session" on the brewing network. Great show btw!

Good luck with your brewing!

 

[Hopelesst]

Hah drybeaning sound fun

 

[Calichusetts]

Definitely don't need to brew 50 gallons and spend hundreds to find your perfect recipe. Thats pretty out there. Experimenting and tweaking go hand in hand with small batches, its really what they are made for IMO.

I've heard that Northern Brewer can smell like a minty/chocolate so that might add a nice complexity to your porter. Others might use First Gold or magnum...good luck!

 

[gyst]

Don't worry about starting with small batch size - I do a lot of testing in one gallon batches, then scale up when I have the recipe tweaked right. I do use Beersmith for scaling, though - Bob's right that hops isn't usually linear, but you can get pretty close with Beersmith.

For my coffee stout, I've been adding cold brew coffee when bottling, which is nice because you can add it a bit at a time and taste. Also, I prefer the taste of cold brew coffee - much less acidic that hot brew cooled down (I imagine dry-hopping with beans gives you the same thing, but I don't know the amounts). For one gallon, I added about 3/4 of a cup of cold brew coffee, which is made by steeping 2/3 cups grounds with 3 cups water overnight room temp (note that for drinking cold brew this is generally considered 2x, so that when you add ice and milk it gets about right), then filtering. I also use good coffee - Intelligensia House Blend is my coffee of choice for my coffee stout, but that's also what we usually have around the house. Get good whole beans and grind them yourself right before steeping - pre-ground stuff loses a lot of interesting flavors sitting around the shelf, and since you are making this a coffee forward stout, you want every flavor molecule you can get.

As to hops, I'm a Fuggles fan for stouts, but that may just be the traditionalist in me.

 

[HawksBrewer]

FWIW, I've added 24oz of strong-brewed, then chilled coffee to primary after a week and had good results. I don't recall acidity issues, but the stout had a lot going on that could have covered it up.

 

[Hopelesst]

So I started doing my brew math to plan out my stovetop mash and I end up getting my final volume before I sparge. Should I get a third jug set up and scale this to a 9 quart recipe, out go no sparge?

Also, how do I determine how much extra grain I'll need to do a no-sparge batch?

 

[plainbrad]

3 oz Chocolate
1.8 oz Carafa

To me, Carafa adds a slight coffee taste. Maybe consider subbing the above two grains with:

3oz Carafa I
1oz Carafa II

1. I have no idea what hop would be a good match our if there is one out there with a wrist aroma that might mingle well with the coffee as a late addition.
2. I have no idea how much coffee to use for either method, as all the recipes I've seen carry wildly.
3. Does the recipe look good? My only real contributions being reading Jamil's was using maris otter to get a nuttiness to blend with the coffee and carafa to reduce bitterness.

I like 1oz Willamette or Fuggles @60 as the only hops in my 5G porters and stouts - scaling isn't exact with out software but a place to start.

Bit of strong coffee after fermentation has stopped (or "dry-beaning") would be fine but taste your gravity samples to see if the Carafa has given some coffee taste.

I think this recipe looks good. Best of luck w the brew!

 

[ArcLight]

Last year I added ground coffee to the secondary for a week. (Dry Bneaning, except it was ground)
It was too strong at first, but mellowed nicely after several months.
It sank into the trub, so I was easily able to rack with no grinds coming over.


This is much easie rto control than splitting a live boil into two parts.
My suggestion is to try adding the grinds to the secondary and experiment.
There is a lot to vary.
- type of coffee
- Amount of coffee
- length of time the coffee sits in the secondry.

 

[Yankeehillbrewer]

With just a 60 minute addition you could use just about any hop, I elected to use Magnum in my Coffee Porter since it is such a clean hop. I wanted mine to be about malt and coffee with no Real discernable hop flavor, just a good bitterness for balance. I also Dry Bean mine and love the results. For 5.5 gallons, I use a 1/4lb of Whold Beans in the primary for the Final 3 days. I've found that 3 days gives just the right amount of Coffee Flavor.

 

[Ramitt]

When dy beaning or adding cold brewed coffee, what are you doing to sanitize?

 

[garcara]

Last year I added ground coffee to the secondary for a week. (Dry Bneaning, except it was ground)
It was too strong at first, but mellowed nicely after several months.
It sank into the trub, so I was easily able to rack with no grinds coming over.


This is much easie rto control than splitting a live boil into two parts.
My suggestion is to try adding the grinds to the secondary and experiment.
There is a lot to vary.
- type of coffee
- Amount of coffee
- length of time the coffee sits in the secondry.

This is what I did as well with the same results. A way overpowering coffee flavor originally then after time it mellowed out nicely. I also started w/ Jamil's Robust Porter recipe.

 

[Yankeehillbrewer]

When dy beaning or adding cold brewed coffee, what are you doing to sanitize?

I don't do anything, just dump the Beans right in. I'm of the opinion that there is enough Alchohol in the beer to ward off any critters. I look at it the same as Dry Hopping. Never had an issue with contamination. Although I do keep the Beans in the Freezer until I am ready to use them, which is usually 2-3 weeks. Not sure if that has any kind of Sanitizing effect though.

 

[chuckstout]

As far a the malt bill goes wouldnt a dark crystal be a better fit for coffee, and i believe the darker the roast of coffee the more oils are present in the bean. You might try and go to your local coffee roaster and see what he might suggest hes probably a homebrewer of beer as well

 

[Hopelesst]

After some consideration we've decided to scale the recipe up to include a third 3qt batch that incorporates both of the other two methods we'll be using. One batch brewed with beans inn the boil, one with cold brewed (and pasteurized) coffee added at bottling, and one with both. Stepped up recipe:

4# Maris Otter
9oz Crystal 40
9oz Munich
4oz Chocolate
2.4oz Carafa

1/3 oz 12% Magnum @65

The full volume will be boiled together, and share the hop addition. At 5 min I'll pull three quarts from the boil and add 4oz of whole roasted ethiopian coffee. At knockout the hop bag with the beans will be removed and a new bag of 2oz will replace it for a few minutes. The remaining wort will be split into two more 3 quart volumes.

After fermenting cold brewed coffee will be added to the second two batches to taste before bottling.

Having brewed this batch three ways should give me a wonderful guide to what I want out of my beer and how Ii should structure my first give gallon batch.