Recipe Advice Thread

[denimglen]

Thought it might be handy to have a thread for some of the more advanced brewers to give some advice on recipes.

Let's see how it goes eh...

[James P]

I stopped at the LHBS on the way home and picked up a kg of Chocolate and one of Roasted (time to get out the rolling pin :-O ).... Coffee stout time!

4.00 kg Pale Malt (2 Row)
0.25 kg Chocolate Malt
0.25 kg Roasted Barley
(Can / should I add carapils here? What would be the result?)

Espresso Coffee.....

10.00 gm Green Bullet (60 min)
30.00 gm Williamette (15 min)
25.00 gm Williamette (3 min)

I have caramunich, chocolate, roasted, crystal, carapils and pale malts in the inventory....

[HerrSchnapps]

We use Pacific gem in St Paddies Steadfast Stout at 60 mins only, personally I'd move all the hops back towards the beginning, let the malt and coffee dominate. Oh yeah, I have some beer for you too!

[MrC]

Sounds nice.
I'd add some crystal maybe 250g to balance all that Roasted Barley.
Carapils will increase mouthfeel & improve head. Basically the same as increasing the mash temp.

[James P]

Thanks Mr C, hmm crystal.... Dark Crystal Stout ® :)

HS: Looking forward to the beer! :)

[Soren]

Old post, but better late than never:) How did you add the coffee, in the kettle or fermenter? I did a coffee stout some time ago, added 150g of ground coffee to the fermentor for a week or so, turned out extremely astringent but I'm not sure if it was because I used too much or because my method was wrong. Wasn't the best coffee on the market but decent.

[James P]

Hey Soren I went with fermenter addition as most of the posts I read on the net used that method. Used Robert Harris Espresso, but only 30g to 250ml water, basing it on what I would have added as bittering hops in my lagers. No real science, but I like my coffee's pretty strong.

I had a couple of night mares with the batch, having to repitch yeast after a couple of days, as I hadn't seen any action... turns out you need to screw the lid on tight to get an air tight seal....

It wasn't as good as I had envisaged, however the box was polished off by some friends in one night.

[MrC]

I recently brewed a porter and added some coffee at bottling time. I brewed some plunger coffee and added different amounts to a couple of different bottles experimenting with the volumes. It worked really well.

[Mike Neilson]

Best to add coffee to mash or add brewed coffee 10 mins before end of boil I would imagine

[James P]

There is potential to get astringency from burning the coffee in the boil, brewed coffee is the way to go IMHO.

[Soren]

If you add coffee to the mash, you will be boiling it for the full boil, without the grounds though, but I fear this could drive off a lot of flavour and aroma...?
Brewed coffee at the end of boil or straight in the fermenter seems right. what about adding ground coffee to the kettle at flame out? or even better in the hopback if you have one (which I don't, YET!:)

[James P]

If you use the theory from the espresso machine, you should be passing water @ 92-96C through an amount of grinds (a ratio of about 1g per 1ml of water), however the coffee grinds are only subjected to the water for 30 seconds to a minute under pressure, thus not imparting any real astringency.

I would still have to suggest either brewed espresso at flame out, or into fermenter.

[JoKing]

That would work... you'd need to experiment with your weights.

The general practice is to add an espresso infusion to your secondary fermenter. Many homebrewers just use perk coffee... but it's not as strong... And it dilutes your ABV calculations.

I find that 50mls of double espresso makes a rich cappucino of about 400mls... So in terms of brewing - these quantities would more than likely be too much.

I guess you need to factor your tastes into it... and the fact that espresso oil might ruin your head retention. Perhaps 50mls of double espresso per 4 Litres of beer might be a good starting point. That's approx 1 cup per batch which sounds about right to me!