A question about beers brewed with coffee

The process was explained to my by my boss, who once brewed a beer with this ingredient and according to him - wrecked the beer - too intense. Too much of the extract perhaps.

What he said he did was basically finely ground coffee (think turkish grind - super super SUUUUPER fine grind) and then - you know those conical filters? basically fill one of those and place in a funnel and over a vessel - keep it in the fridge, and add a small amount of very cold water at a time, over the course of several hours (he basically said you'll get up a few times over the course of the night if you want to use/drink it on saturday) the cold water takes a very long time to get through those grounds and the result is like 10X espresso, but cold. Really have to choke it down. He said he added just a little bit to the batch and it overpowered the beer.

Yeah this wasn't a method for making cold press, this was what he called an 'extract'.

And the reason cold press is concentrated is to keep it from getting diluted with ice.

 

This might offer some insight Expresso Stout Suggestions (Homebrewtalk). I was wondering if anyone had experience just adding ground coffee beans to secondary fermentation, but it appears most home-brewers do the cold-brew /extract method.

 

I think that's just a good coincidence for serving it. Personally i just use cold water to dilute because its stored in my fridge already. Any type of concentrates are made for more efficient use of space, shipping, storage, etc.

 

yeah it doesn't have to be cold - but as far as the purpose of making cold press 2x as concentrated as it needs to be, I'd wager my bottom dollar it's because cold press is (almost) always served with ice, which will always melt and dilute the drink. At least, that's my main concern.

 

For my current coffee beer I brew for High Horse. The Business. 9.25%abv Imperial Stout

I do a cold toddy and use very little water(beer) to coffee. About 1#coffee per 1.75 liters of liquid to get a lovely rich cold extract. This sits for 24-36 hrs before I transfer it into the finished beer. We get a lovely rich coffee character without any acidity or astringency. a very popular beer at High Horse