Adding coffee beans in primary vs. secondary?

I added coffee beans to my keg and removed them from there, but that was because I was kegging and I can purge everything. I don't really see any problem with adding them to primary other then harvesting yeast. It shouldn't affect your beer, especially if you can cold crash before.

 

Some recipes tell you to throw the coffee in at the end of the boil for 15-20 minutes before cooling.

 

I used whole beans in a coffee stout recently. I threw them in 3-4 days prior to bottling with great results.

 

Have you considered a tincture with vodka? I've never done it, thus I'm not speaking from experience, but I've seen it suggested in this forum, and it makes sense because you can control the flavor at the time of packaging by adding just the amount of the tincture you need to get the flavor that you want. Once you've put beans into your beer, you really don't know what you're going to get. But before you try this, test it to see if vodka brings any unwanted color out of those beans. I'm clueless on that. Maybe someone else can comment further on that, amount of vodka and beans, etc.

 

I did a 300ml container filled halfway with ground Kona beans and filled with a 2:1 vodka:bourbon mixture (Bulleit). Added the liquid after 3 days in the fridge to ~1.5 gal of 7% Brown Ale. Base beer was meh at best, but the coffee'd portion was awesome. Nice amount of coffe flavor with just a hint of bourbon.

 

I did a 300ml container filled halfway with ground Kona beans and filled with a 2:1 vodka:bourbon mixture (Bulleit). Added the liquid after 3 days in the fridge to ~1.5 gal of 7% Brown Ale. Base beer was meh at best, but the coffee'd portion was awesome. Nice amount of coffe flavor with just a hint of bourbon.

 

I think this is very likely wrong. I cold-brew coffee all the time, and it adds about as much color as you would get brewing the coffee normally (i.e. high-heat). Now, you'll be adding less coffee than you would for actual coffee, so I would expect that you would get a proportionately lower amount of color (and certainly I've seen coffee beers that are far from dark, as in this one), but I don't know of a way for you to avoid color altogether. Maybe a "tawny stout" is in your future.

[Update: Oh, look, I didn't even notice that @OldSock specifically addressed the color of the beer. To quote from his post:

'If you really wanted to brew a coffee beer and have it remain “blonde,” likely you’d need to go all Pilsner and wheat. The color from the C60 and Golden Naked Oats I added for deeper malt flavor combined with the the coffee to result in the honey color.']

 

I think as whole beans they wont add as much color as they would when ground. The small amount in 5 gallons probably helps with the delusion of color. They'll add color but it's probably not significant.