Cold-brewed coffee

[chocotaco]

Hi,

Recently I brewed a Coffee IPA. For the coffee I wanted to add cold-brewed coffee after primary to avoid losing coffee aroma to fermentation.

I was nervous about the cleanliness of my coffee beans so instead of "real" cold brew I boiled some water and let it cool down to about 185, threw in some leaf hops and the coffee grinds (a very large amount of coarse-ground coffee - nearly a pound in 3/4 gallons of water), let it stand for about 5 minutes to pasteurize the beans and then cooled it down as quickly as possible. Then I let that sit in a sanitized jug for a few hours before filtering it into my beer.

This worked pretty well, but I am worried about getting an extra acid bite from the hot pasteurization.

I noticed that Trader Joes has on their shelf a big (presumably aseptic) jug of "Cold Brewed Coffee Concentrate". I thought I might try just using some of that next time instead of making my own. I just wanted to hear if anyone has thoughts on whether using that would keep me safe from infection, or if it should still be considered "unclean"?

 

[tootal]

Our local micro does a coffee stout. They cold brew with just water and coffee and let it sit for 3 days. They throw it in the boil and it's a nice beer. I think getting the right amount in the boil would be the key instead of risking getting the oils out of the beans which will mean no head on the beer.

 

[chocotaco]

In my experience (coffee-drinking, not brewing) straining through paper filters does a pretty good job of removing the oils from the coffee.

 

[Hello]

Definitely strain the coffee I would say. I buy that cold brew coffee from TJ's; it just became available here in the east. I love it frankly and I also wondered if i could just toss that in a boil or something. Not doing any research, I would say that you could dump it straight in from the jug but I would likely spray star san on the mouth just in case. It is a strong and low-acid coffee. I am not sure if that was the intent, but it definitely has a low-acid taste to me. For $7.99 (32 oz), it's not a bad buy. Keep in mind the directions are 1 part coffee to 2 parts milk or water. I use milk because it's damn delicious and I use 3 oz of coffee to nearly 9 ounces of milk. I love my coffee strong and this does give me the taste of strong coffee.

If you do use it in a brew, report back.

 

[feinbera]

Black coffee has zero nutritive value, so, while it won't kill any bugs per se, if you practice good sterile technique for everything else, what few bugs do come in with the coffee grounds won't reproduce while it's brewing. In hostile alcohol and pH conditions of secondary fermentation, competing against billions of still-active yeast cells, those few hungry bugs won't stand a chance.

Just throw that cold-brew in!

 

[shoshin]

I've read claims that you can put a substantial amount of diluted StarSan into a brew without much consequence (up to a gallon of diluted StarSan in a 5-gallon batch with no hint of the StarSan? not sure if I buy that, but that's a claim I've heard) ... would anyone be willing to try a small cold-brewed batch of coffee in diluted starsan instead of water?

 

[chocotaco]

It's true that StarSan has no smell or taste on its own in distilled water.

But I have found that as soon as anything is introduced to the StarSan (either minerals from tap water, or other contaminants) I am able to distinctly smell the StarSan and its smell really bothers me. I doubt it would be any different with coffee (not to mention the acidity of the StarSan would have a profound impact on the coffee extraction)

I am brewing a DIPA right now which I plan on adding the TJ's coffee to once dry-hopping is done. I'll post back here with notes on how it turns out. I tasted the one that I did with semi-hot-brewed coffee and it has a huge acid bite from the coffee so I'm not too happy with it. Hopefully the low-acid cold brew will work better.

 

[chocotaco]

Update on this:

I added the TJ's cold-brew coffee at kegging. Half the jug in each of the 5-liter mini-kegs.

I am disappointed with the coffee-ness of the flavor and aroma. It's there, but it's nothing like Dayman even though there is DEFINITELY a ton of coffee in the beer. It is highly caffeinated and gives more of a coffee buzz than a beer buzz. Hardly surprising since the TJ's coffee is concentrated and if you do the math it's as if you took 33% of the water out of the beer and replaced it with coffee. What is surprising is how little impact that had on the flavor and particularly the aroma.

Overall I think I preferred the flavor and aroma profile from the "semi cold-brewed" coffee I described in my first post.

Next time I think I will just try "dry-hopping" with coarsely ground coffee. My recent research has led me to believe that this is what Stone/Aleman did for Dayman. It will probably be several months before I get a chance to brew the next attempt but when I do I'll update here again to compare the tasting notes against the other two methods.

 

[chocotaco]

Another update:

The "Hoppucino" made with the TJ's coffee seems to be getting better after being tapped - maybe it is getting a little more carbonation from the CO2? I left it on "set and forget" for almost 3 weeks but I guess it didn't carb enough. It is also clearer now and more tasty. Maybe there was some junk on the bottom of the keg?

My coworkers have also been drinking it off the keg and people seem to like it. I am still not sure I like it better than the original version because it is way too caffeinated. But maybe it is still a good option as long as you don't use so much (I used 32 oz of TJ cold-brew coffee concentrate in a 2.5 gallon batch). I still think I will try crushed coffee beans in secondary next time, but if you are worried about infection then the aseptic TJ concentrate is a safe bet in that regard.

 

[JonW]

I recently did an espresso porter. I fresh brewed shots of espresso and dumped it right into the keg just before putting it on the gas. I've had more rave reviews on this beer than almost any other beer I've done.

 

[chocotaco]

OK, last comment on this for my previous batch.

Today I tapped the "A" keg of Hoppucino (with TJ cold-brew concentrate) at the office. The "A" keg is the one I filled first; it has the "fillet" of the carboy from the middle of everything with no sediment whatsoever. The "B" was the first one I tapped, kind of as a "beta test" - it was the second keg filled which probably got a lot more sediment from the carboy.

I had the "A" and the "B" on 2 different regulators for carb, because I have a dual body regulator and I couldn't be bothered to hook up my manifold at the time. I had them set to the same pressure, but for whatever reason the A keg carbonated much better than the B. It is also nice and clear and extremely delicious. We had a commercial beer on tap before this which kicked (it was Yellow Snow IPA from Rogue which is really delicious itself) and when I tapped the Hoppucino I had people commenting that they liked it better than the Rogue.

So I am kind of changing my mind at this point. I had a taste of the "A" keg and it is really quite tasty. Nice coffee presence, nice IPA presence. Still not as great as Dayman was, but definitely in the ballpark. I might give the TJ concentrate another chance next time and spend my efforts working on the "IPA" portion of the equation (and trying to fix my packaging practices so there isn't such a huge discrepancy between the "A" and "B" keg - maybe a short secondary is the solution for reducing sediment ingress as much as possible).

 

[skullface1818]

Thanks for doing the experiment already. I picked up one container f this stuff from TJ's yesterday to add to my imperial stout.

I thought about adding two containers, but decided that one in a 5 gallon batch would be the proper concentrations and your experiences seem to back that up.

Here is hoping that it works out well

 

[rhys333]

I stumbled across this cold brewed coffee video on youtube the other day:
https://youtu.be/7WgFkgaoYZM