WTK: Adding Coffee & Cacao to Recipe

[ultravista]

I am planning an imperial coffee porter with cacao.

The large batch recipe calls for 3 pounds of coffee and 2 pounds of cacao per barrel. If my math is correct, the multiplier for 5.5 gallons is 0.1774 (3*(5.5/31)*16).

For 5.5 gallons, I plan on:
8.5 ounces of coffee
5.7 ounces of cacao nibs

First, does that seem excessive for a 5.5 gallon batch?

Second, what is the best way to add the coffee and cacao nibs? I’ve read about cold pressing the coffee and vodka soaking the nibs and looking for opinions on which is the best way to extract flavor without astringency. Others put both into the primary, secondary, or keg. I’ve also read about a brewer soaking the cacao in vodka and hitting it with a blender/processor to emulsify the batch.

Normally my batch size is 5.5 gallons to net 5 gallons in the keg; however, with the introduction of coffee and cacao, I may need to adjust the batch size to account for the extra volume or potential loss due to absorption.

When cold pressing coffee, is there a ratio of water to crushed coffee? Do you use all of the liquid or condense it down to a slurry?

The same goes for the cacao.

Is there a disadvantage to adding the coffee and cacao slurry to the chilled fermenter or is it best to do it post-fermentation.

Looking for your best practices – please chime in.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I recently brewed a mocha stout in which I used unsweetened Nestle's cocoa powder, rather than nibs. It was a 4 gallon batch and I added 8 oz (2 oz. per gallon) of cocoa powder to the boil with 10 minutes remaining. I was very pleased with the result and would not change a thing for future batches.

For the coffee, I cold brewed 6 oz of course ground coffee in about 20 oz of water for about 48 hours. Dumped it all into a French press and exctracted about 16 oz of liquid, which I added to my keg just prior to racking my beer. If bottling, you could add it to the bottling bucket. The coffee flavor in the beer is present, but not as pronounced as I would have liked. Next thime, I'll go with 2 oz of coffee grounds per gallon, so for a 5 gallon batch, I'd go with 10 oz of coffee.