Method of adding coffee flavor to porter?

[tacks]

Hello everyone,

Up until about a week ago, there was no question in my mind about how to add coffee flavor to my porter. Boil a knee-high, crunch up a couple ounces of beans, put them in said knee-high, and toss em into secondary. However, while at a brewing competition last week, I had someone suggest actually making very strong coffee, putting my priming sugar into it, and adding it to the bottling bucket rather than having it in secondary. Can anyone give me feedback as to the differences if you've done this both ways? If you've done the coffee flavoring via making coffee and putting into bottling bucket with priming sugar, is there a certain amount of coffee you used? Is one way better than another or is it just preference? Thanks in advance!

 

[m_c_zero]

Best way I have found is to buy a french press and cold brew it. Grind your coffee pretty coarse and add cold water to it and then let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours. After that, press it and pour it into your bottling bucket then rack on top of it. The recipe I use calls for 2 oz of coffee for a 5 gallon batch. Cold brewing it prevents you from extracting oils from the coffee that can kill head retention.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Cold brewed coffee and some chocolate malt wont hurt. Edit: Cold brewing should also help lessen the harsh coffee bitterness (probably more needed for mead because beers already have heavy flavors to combat that.)

 

[tacks]

Thanks a lot, both of you! Looks like the consensus is cold brewed, and I will use my french press at your suggestion, m c zero. I actually had 2 lbs of chocolate malt built into the 15 in my grain bill, MarshmallowBlue. Good to know I'm on the right track.

 

[m_c_zero]

I added my coffee to the bottom of the keg and then kegged on top of it. The beer came out great, nice mellow coffee flavor.

 

[daksin]

Has anyone cold steeping cracked beans in vodka? I think you'd end up with a bit more concentrated, sanitary extract that way.