Infusing Goose Island Bourbon County Stout

@bevoduz ? Care to weigh in. You do this oh so well. Popped the bcbvs last night you made, oh so wonderful.

 

Where?!

 

In people's houses. If you can figure out which ones all that's left is a little window smashing and some quickness. Best part is there's not even a checkout clerk you have to pay on your way out!

Seriously though, this. I might find a reason to make the drive if I can put together a 4 year vertical off the shelf (including the upcoming 2014)

 

If I were to french press coconut into 12 oz. of BCBS, how much coconut should I use? Shredded or flaked? How long to toast?

Assuming you want to let it steep for 15 minutes or so before pressing?

 

I did this a few weeks ago with untoasted shredded for 20 minutes on a randall. I used just a handful and it turned out gloriously

 

I used 1 and 3/4 tbsp. I could imagine going up to 2 tbsp.

I've used shredded because it was easiest to find at the supermarket. However, if possible, I would use whatever best quality/organic coconut you can find.

Throw it in a pan, low to medium low heat, shake and toast until "crispy" and brown. You'll know when it's toasted.

I've generally steeped for longer than 15 minutes. I haven't really objectively tested differences from time, but I go longer just to be "safe."

 

Probably most importantly is to not let any of it burn; lightly toasted is better than burnt.

 

My apologies if there are threads for this question, but I couldn't find one with the details I'm wondering.

I know people have discussed using a French press for infusing BCBS. I was wondering:

1) How long do you let the beer sit on the ingredients listed below?
2) How do you prepare the ingredients (i.e. coffee, hazelnut, vanilla, or toasted coconut)

I know it's a great beer alone, but I've got enough that I want to infuse some of them. Thanks for any help.

 

I'm actually interested in this as well.

My ingredients will be coarse freshly roasted coffee (probably medium roast) with a couple vanilla bean stalks cut in the middle and scraped.

From what I'm thinking of how well coffee infuses into water cold, my guess is less than 8 hours for sure, and possibly less than 1 for the stronger infusing ingredients (ie. coffee).

I wonder if infusing cold would be best for the beer.


Edit:
Not a bad place to start recipe ideas:

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/...s-spices-cocoa-nibs.html?ref=pop_serious_eats

Seems like brew time will be really really short (minutes not hours)

 

Thanks for this response. Cool find.

Anyone else with personal experiences with BCBS would be awesome as well.

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/french-pressing-infusing-beer.94761/

 

Well, I know one of my friends on here had a tasting, and one of the attendees used a french press, and pretty sure it was a BCBS.


@tat2dhllblly we need your input here.

 

Once again, what not to do:

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I've never taken the time to infuse BCBS, but I have added a few drops of vanilla extract to a snifter full. I added too much, but it was great nonetheless. Good luck experimenting!

 

Ive tried Bourbon drops/vanilla to shelf Stouts, never quite right, but certainly drinkable, adding a few drops of bourbon never hurts. But it doesn't taste like an aged anything, those small nuances are gone or can't develop without time in barrel.

 

I wouldn't waste the beans for infusion recipes. The best bet for vanilla infusing is using a really good extract. Save the beans for brew day

 

I've not gotten around to vanilla, coffee, or coconut yet. So far I've just done berries. I've done fresh raspberries and blackberries, and frozen raspberries and strawberries. The former had a much better flavor, very jammy and a nice mix of tart and sweet; reminded me somewhat of Backyard Rye.

I prepared the fruit by placing it right in the french press (I have a small 12oz one), filled about half to 2/3 the way up, and used a fork to macerate (really more like 'beat' or 'whisk') the berries. Then I poured in about 4oz of BCBS (slowly to avoid too much foam up) and (again slowly) mixed it into the berry mixture.

Let sit (on the counter, it's BCBS so some time warming will help anyway) for about 45 minutes to an hour, press (it's a bitch, stick with it) and pour, add the remainder of the bottle. Both times I found I really needed to fork out a good portion of the berries to get at even near the 4oz volume I put in, and you of course need to be pretty careful that you don't wind up with chunky/seed-filled BCBS.

If you are removing fruit pulp to get at the beer, I recommend (though have not tried) putting it on vanilla ice cream; I ate a fork full and while I wouldn't want a bowlful by itself, it'd probably be great on some sweet ice cream.

 

@bevoduz I might as well tag you into this thread as well; you might have more insight than I on the adjuncts specifically asked about at the top of page 2.

 

And the reason for that is because the water content in your frozen berries. If you are going for the French press infusion, fresh or frozen berries, I would suggest you put them in the toaster oven under low heat and evaporate some of the water content. The trick here is to infuse ONLY the berries essence and sweetness but not adding more water to dilute your base beer.

 

Yeah I knew that going in; frozen was all the host of the bottle share had, and it was 11pm and we were drunk... not exactly ideal circumstances but lower expectations came with it. If I'm ever doing this on my own I always have fresh fruit, and in that case don't mind a little dilution since it's natural fruit juice rather than water.

Thanks for the advice though! I really like the toaster oven idea, if I was going to use frozen again (and not while drunk and it's a bad idea to operate one at all) I would do that.

Also, I think the better results were in part because blackberries are a better choice than strawberries; more pungent flavor, more tartness, less sweetness (BCBS is generally sweet enough on its own).