French Press help

I wouldn't suggest a french press for coffee. It works great for fruit flavors and other things (coconut in imperial stout for example) but for coffee you want to add a tablespoon or so of cold brew coffee to the bottom of the glass and pour in the beer.

Either make your own cold brew, or just buy it from a nice coffee place.

Edit - this is pretty much exactly how they make BCBCS. it works out as about an ounce of cold brew per 12 ounce bottle, but this is very strong coffee flavor - start with half an ounce (a table spoon) and you can add more later if it isn't strong enough

 

No worries - coffee is the easiest flavor to add to beer as long as you get good cold brew coffee to start with, and don't over-do it!

What base beer are you using?

 

Hmmm, coffee peanut butter porter... I bet that could be a decent breakfast combo! Let us know how it turns out!

 

I would start with the Edmund Fitzgerald personally, but then I don't like peanut butter!

 

iso - ISO!

 

While we're on the subject, any tips for fruit infusions? I've done this a few times with gose and various berries. I've used what I thought was a decent amount of fruit (probably 1/2 cup), muddled it in the press, added about half the can of beer, and let it sit in the fridge for 20-30 minutes before straining it and adding the rest of the beer. Frankly, the results have been fairly underwhelming. Nice color but not a ton of fruit flavor. Do I need more fruit? More time? Tips appreciated.

 

I would only use a French Press for infusing coffee if you are using whole beans....not grounds

 

Why's that? I haven't tried it yet but considering you're using a cold liquid instead of a hot one, I would imagine that it's more difficult to pull flavor from the coffee, and if anything, a finer grind would be required (which isn't ideal for the french press, thus further convincing me that @pagriley is on point with his suggestion).

 

I actually infused Bourbon County Stout this weekend with coffee grounds and it turned out pretty amazing.
Poured 3/4 of a bottle into french press with a decent amount of a good coffee, Capped the remaining 1/4 of bottle. Set it in the fridge for 30 minutes, plunged and added the remaining 1/4 of bottle into the press (to add carbonation back into the beer). It was very good, the last few sips that are poured from the french press that have been sitting in the grounds have such a crazy coffee flavor.

 

The advice above is what I came here to say. Prepare a cold brew a day ahead of time. I used 1oz per bottle of BCBS to make my own version of BCBCS. I then started throwing it into everything I could find.

 

Can we discuss the difference between using cold press VS regular coffee in this context?

 

I've had the same experience, and I've done both - more time or more fruit. I think more time is better. Whenever I'm going to let beer "soak" I prefer to put it in a mason jar and seal it up real tight, then once it's done, pour into a Randall Jr. and strain out the bits. My french press and Randall Jr. do not have a tight seal so I don't keep beer in them for very long.

 

I just did a CW BBS in the french press with ground coffee the other day. I have a little 10 or 12 oz french press, ground up a tbsp or so of ground coffee and dumped in about 4 oz of beer, recapped the rest. Let sit overnight (forgot about it that night) and then added the rest of the beer and plunged the next night. My fiancee loved it, said it was like a perfect boozy latte that she could sit and drink at a coffee shop. I thought it was too much coffee. If I had remembered to drink it the night I brewed it I'm sure it would have been spot on.

 

Cold brewed coffee won't get nasty as it sits for over an hour, and it's more potent as well (brewed to be served with ice, won't get too diluted as the ice melts).