Aging with oak chips / Coffee - Tips?

oak chips: for a 5 gallon batch id go with 2-3oz of chips depending on the intensity you want. Id use cubes not chips though. Id also boil them for a good 15minutes before soaking them in bourbon to reduce some of the harshness.

Coffee: I would 'dry hop' with whole beans. I cant help you on the quantity thought.

 

With coffee, oak chips, vanilla, and bourbon a little goes a long way. For a 5 gallon batch (20 liter) I'll use about 8 ounces (227 grams) of oak chips that have soaked in the spirit of my choice for a couple of weeks. Since you're making a much smaller batch I suggest using 1 oz (28 grams) of oak chips.

Vanilla is easy. 1 bean split down the middle and cut into fourths. Dump everything into your fermentor. More than one bean can be used, but I think with your small batch the vanilla may overpower the beer flavors.

Coffee can be added at bottling time. I suggest cold brewing crushed whole beans. About 1/2 liter should do it. What I do is crush up some coffee beans so they are chunks, not powder. put it in a french press with some water, store in a refrigerator for 24 hours and add to the bottling bucket.

Cheers!

 

Hmmm... You start out saying that a little goes a long way, then proceed to say that you use what many would consider to be a boatload of oak chips. I use 2 oz of oak cubes in 5 gallons and find the result to be borderline over-oaked. I realize tastes vary, but this seems a bit out there. How long do you leave the beer in contact with the oak?

Just my 2 cents.

 

For the coffee, I second dry hopping with whole beans. I have tried various methods of adding coffee to beer, including the cold press method, and "dry beaning" is by far the easiest and yields the best results. Usually 1/4-1/3# in 5 gallons gives a pretty strong coffee character to a stout, so 40 or 50grams would probably be enough for the volume of beer you are talking about. Just drop the whole beans in the beer and give them 24-48 hours to soak before bottling.

As for vanilla, I would say half a bean should get the job done. Use a whole bean, never extract or any other processed product, split it in half and scrape the paste out of the pod, then add the paste and the pod to the beer. Give it about a week and you should have a nice vanilla character.

 

Do the vanilla beans and coffee beans need to soak in spirits? I'm scared of infections and am curious if I need to be paranoid about these being tossed into the fermenter.

 

Yikes! You're right. I wrote my reply at work from memory. I forgot the fact that I made a 15 gallon batch of imperial stout and that's why I used so much oak. Had 8 oz's on the brain. Anyway, 2 oz for 5 gallons is reasonable. I leave the oak chips in the beer for a week, then taste samples every few days to see if the flavor is where I want it.

 

I'd add that time is a factor in your flavor as well. The longer the beer sits on oak the longer the beer sits on vanilla, the stronger the flavor will generally be. If you're worried about overdoing it just take samples every week until you get where you want to be. I would add these flavors just before packaging so you get the most mature flavor you can out of your strong beer. This will take away some of the green flavor and give you a good idea of how your beer is going to shape up. And remember, you can always add more. If you make a vanilla bomb it will stay a vanilla bomb.

 

That's very true. I would add that more oak for less time is not the same as less oak chips for more time. The intensity may be the same, but the result is different. You need to experiment to find your sweet spot.

 

I've never worried about it or had a problem with those ingredients. Because of having been roasted and then handled in a food facility, I don't expect coffee beans to have all that much living on them, the vanilla may be a different story. Fermented beer is more resistant to infection than some people think, especially something as strong as an imperial stout, and like I said its never been a problem for me.

Spirits won't disinfect anything anyway unless you are talking about pure grain alcohol (vodka is not strong enough to sanitize).

 

Despite the creepy avatar, I appreciate the info!

 

Don't use a darkly roasted coffee. I tried a batch of stout with Trader Joe's Bay Blend before, and it was a mess. It may have worked better if my grain bill had been heavier on dark roasted malts, but I think it would be wise to use a lighter roast, cold brewed for a smooth coffee flavor that is neither overpowering nor too bitter. If you do get bitterness from the coffee, since you are brewing a stout, it might be wise to have some lactose handy to add at bottling time. Then you can beef up the body and counteract the bitterness.

 

Espresso oak aged yeti is made with a super dark espresso roast from a local coffee shop here in Denver. The shit's amazing and stands up to aging well. Nothing worse than pulling a bottle of "coffee" stout from the cellar only to have your buddies ask "where's the coffee?".

 

Great Divide are not homebrewers.

And a lighter roast will not provide less coffee flavor. Just a different, softer, and less bitter coffee flavor. You will also have fewer head-killing oils extracted into your beer.

 

I'm pretty sure the guys at GDBC are home brewers. I was using it as an example of a dark roast being successfully used in a stout. I'm also not sure what head killing oils are in espresso that aren't in a breakfast roast. Some people also have an aversion to caffeine, and darker roast coffees have less caffeine in them as well. You may not like the big roast flavors, but to assume everyone else's palate is the same as yours is a bit pretentious. My last stout was brewed with 4 oz French roast and I found it to lacking in coffee flavor. I'll be using espresso for the next batch.

EDIT: I do suggest changing hop schedule around to compensate for the additional bitterness that coffee lends.

 

The high pressure in an espresso maker emulsifies oils in the beans that would not be extracted with other procedures (Drip, Haribo/Chemex, French Press). Also the absence any type of filter post extraction increases the amount that makes it into the final product.

That being said, never had issues with an espresso beer versus a dry beaned beer or gasp cold pressed added to beer (I hate cold press, hence the gasp).

Re the darkness of the roast, agreed. As long as its not fucking astringent and charcoal (e.g. Italian roast), its really roaster to roaster. Have used all different kinds of varietals and roasts, and it really comes down to pairing the coffee to your beer or pairing the beer to your coffee (e.g. know your ingredients before you use them, don't make blanket statements).

 

By using the term espresso relating to my beers I am referring to the roast of the coffee and not to the coffee brewing process. I will be dry beaning my imperial stout with 4 oz espresso beans as well as a bean-stand with 2 oz coarse ground espresso.

 

You definitely do not want to age on coffee beans for more than a few days (and really not even more than a day). It will start to develop unpleasant flavors. You are far better off either adding the coffee beans a day before bottling or add brewed/steeped coffee in the bottling bucket.

When selecting a coffee bean you need to think about how it complements the flavors in the beer. You don't want to accentuate the wrong flavors to an unpleasantness (e.g. a stout with a solid roasted barley punch plus really bitter coffee will make an unpleasantly acrid beer). You also don't want to lose the coffee in the beer (e.g. a strong chocolate note in the beer should not be paired with a chocolatey coffee). Imperial stouts tend to already have a lot of roast, chocolate, coffee and caramel flavors, so a dark, acrid roast usually is never appropriate. However, you could use a light to medium roast and try to find one that will either add new flavor complexity and/or bump up some of the existing notes in the beer. You might want to taste the fermented beer before choosing a coffee bean.

 

Sounds like a great plan you have here! I have worked with coffee flavoring a number of times in homebrewing- I agree with the masses- "dry hop" coffee beans is the way to go- and the better the bean, the better the flavor IMHO. If you plan to age this, the dry hop method imparts less acid, which can develop into less than great flavors over time (the worst was cold press for the acid flavors). We soak 2-4 oz medium oak chips per 5 gallons in about a cup of Makers Mark bourbon for 2-3 weeks. We also add our vanilla beans to this mix for about a week. We use 3 beans, sliced, for each 5 gallon batch. We let this sit in the secondary for 3 months. Having tried fewer beans, if you want the flavor to stay more than a couple months, you will need a couple beans. We did a batch of bourbon "barrel" stout with vanilla about 8 months ago...it's drinking devine right now...only wish I would have added some coffee to half the batch. Cheers!