[rugbymike]

I am trying to make a porter for the first time. I am planning on using brown malt and dark munich malt.
My questions are:
I want to add whole pecans during the last 30 minutes of the boil. That should give it a pecan flavor I want. Right?
If I add whole bean favored coffee during the secondary fermenting, will that give it the coffee flavor minus the caffeine?

-Mike

[Stevie]

Try emailing the Brewers at 512 in Austin. They have a pecan porter and may be willing to share tips.

Adding unmilled coffee will still give caffeine. Maybe the amount is less. If you are concerned, go with water process decaf coffee.

[dmtaylor]

I've never done this before, but I would toast the pecans in the oven for like 10 minutes, then crush them and add them to the mash.  This just seems like the best way to do it.  I wouldn't boil them, seems odd to me and might not taste right in the finished beer, and if you kept them whole, you wouldn't extract as much flavor.

Haven't done the coffee thing, don't know about the caffeine.  Seems a reasonable hypothesis to keep them whole to minimize the caffeine if you want to try that.

[reverseapachemaster]

You often see nuts added in the mash rather than the boil. I think you need that long warm rest to extract the flavors. I would be concerned about the boil extracting unwelcome tannins and other harsh flavors. I would also be concerned about scorching the pecans in the boil because I assume they will eventually sink to the bottom and stay there.

I don't think caffeine content is affected by whether the bean is ground any more or less than extraction of any other compounds, including the coffee flavor. Caffeine extraction is less at cooler temperatures so it might be easier to rack away from whole beans but to limit caffeine you want to do a post-fermentation steep. If you're dead set on keeping away from caffeine then you need to go with a decaf bean.

[curtism1234]

I've never done this before, but I would toast the pecans in the oven for like 10 minutes, then crush them and add them to the mash.  This just seems like the best way to do it.  I wouldn't boil them, seems odd to me and might not taste right in the finished beer, and if you kept them whole, you wouldn't extract as much flavor.

I've never done it either, but that's probably how I would do it too.