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Author Topic: First AG Recipe, looking for some opinions  (Read 1705 times)

Offline DKensil

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First AG Recipe, looking for some opinions
« on: October 08, 2016, 07:51:30 am »
I've been getting really into coffee porters recently and really wanted to make one for the fall/winter time. I was inspired by Kona's pipeline porter and a few other local brewers that have been doing them recently. During this whole thing I am increasing my 2 gallon extract system up to a 5 gallon BIAB AG system. Looking to get some opinions on what I have currently setup for my grain bill particularly and the recipe as a whole. Check it out!

Coffee Porter

Grains:
9 lbs Maris Otter
1 lbs Chocolate Malt (350)
12oz. Crystal 40L
8oz. Roasted Barley
4oz. Black Patent

Hops:
0.5oz. Nugget (60 min)
0.5oz. Willamette (30 min)
0.5oz. Willamette (10 min)

WLP001 California Ale (or WLP002 English Ale ?)

1 lbs Sumatra Coffee, whole bean, in primary fermenter.

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: First AG Recipe, looking for some opinions
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2016, 08:03:22 am »
I've never had that beer in particular, but in general, for a porter I'd drop the roasted barley - a lb of chocolate and 4 oz of black patent will be plenty of roast for a porter especially with the roastiness of the coffee. Secondly, as for the coffee itself, I'd use less than half that amount. A lb is overkill IMO. 4-6 oz of roughly cracked beans in a nylon bag added after fermentation is complete will give you plenty of coffee character. Remember that time is part of the equation - I'd leave the beans in the fermenter for 2 days, try a sample of the beer to see if the coffee character is where you want, then sample every day after if not. When the flavor is right, pull the bag and bottle/keg. My $0.02  . Good luck.
Jon H.

Offline DKensil

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Re: First AG Recipe, looking for some opinions
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2016, 09:26:18 am »
I've never had that beer in particular, but in general, for a porter I'd drop the roasted barley - a lb of chocolate and 4 oz of black patent will be plenty of roast for a porter especially with the roastiness of the coffee. Secondly, as for the coffee itself, I'd use less than half that amount. A lb is overkill IMO. 4-6 oz of roughly cracked beans in a nylon bag added after fermentation is complete will give you plenty of coffee character. Remember that time is part of the equation - I'd leave the beans in the fermenter for 2 days, try a sample of the beer to see if the coffee character is where you want, then sample every day after if not. When the flavor is right, pull the bag and bottle/keg. My $0.02  . Good luck.

Thanks for the quick response! Your $0.02 has been successfully deposited.

Offline fmader

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Re: First AG Recipe, looking for some opinions
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2016, 12:18:53 pm »
I'm getting ready to brew my 5th annual batch of my Good Morning Stout. It was inspired by Founder's Breakfast Stout. What Jon mentioned about the roasted malt is good advice for the porter. You can leave it all in and call it a stout lol. Either way, I think you'll beer will be great.

A pound of coffee? Yes, way too much. I don't use whole bean, but that's because I don't buy whole been coffee. I do order for Peet's coffee and they ground their coffee fresh before shipping mmmm. So I just use that. In a 5 gallon batch, I had 2-2.5 oz to the end of the boil. Then I add the that same amount to the secondary or keg. I bag it, so that I can easily pull it out when I reach my desired level of flavor. Obviously, with a lesser amount, you keep it in their longer. If you use more, you'll leave it in a less amount of time.

Sumatra is a nice roast for coffee beer.

I like WLP 001 with my American Style stouts/porters. I see that you are using all Maris Otter, so are you going with the English twist? I feel that the cleanliness of the 001 will allow the coffee to come through better.
Frank

Offline yso191

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Re: First AG Recipe, looking for some opinions
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2016, 03:09:22 pm »
Another option that I recently tried and had great results with: just dump 3-4 packets of Starbucks VIA microground coffee into your keg or bottling bucket before racking the beer into it.  I used the Columbia variety as I found the Italian VIA too harsh tasting.

The nice thing about it beyond ease of use is that it is simply coffee beans ground extremely fine.
Steve
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“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” ― G.K. Chesterton

Offline DKensil

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Re: First AG Recipe, looking for some opinions
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2016, 03:05:53 pm »
Thanks for the feed back everyone. I will be cutting the barley as suggested. I had read somewhere about throwing whole bean coffee (without grinding it at all) in at the last 5 minutes of boil. Apparently by not crushing the beans you don't release as much of the bitter flavors into the wort but it requires you to utilize more coffee. That's where my original 1 lbs figure came from. Has anyone else heard of this? I was also think about even just putting it in while I cool the wort to also help limit the buttering effects. Thoughts?

Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: First AG Recipe, looking for some opinions
« Reply #6 on: October 14, 2016, 09:05:12 am »
Thanks for the feed back everyone. I will be cutting the barley as suggested. I had read somewhere about throwing whole bean coffee (without grinding it at all) in at the last 5 minutes of boil. Apparently by not crushing the beans you don't release as much of the bitter flavors into the wort but it requires you to utilize more coffee. That's where my original 1 lbs figure came from. Has anyone else heard of this? I was also think about even just putting it in while I cool the wort to also help limit the buttering effects. Thoughts?

Grinding coffee too fine and steeping at too high of a temperature are two ways of over-extract coffee and create excess bitterness, so I suppose your process is one way to accomplish a less bitter coffee flavor. It's not the most efficient and not necessarily the process that will produce the best flavor.

A far better hot side approach would be to coarsely grind the coffee (French press consistency) and add the beans to the wort after the boil and after the wort has dropped to 200F. Let the beans steep for 5-10 minutes. Then pull the ground coffee and chill the wort down to fermentation temperatures. Doing this you shouldn't need more than around an ounce of coffee per gallon of wort.

Adding coffee cold side is another popular approach and IMO produces a better flavor, either steeped in the beer prior to packaging or as a cold brew added to the bottling bucket or keg at packaging.
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