coffee in a oatmeal stout

Just brewed up an Oatmeal stout myself. I had very good luck with cold steeping coffee and adding it to an Irish Dry stout. I would imagine it would work just as well with an OS. Give it a quick google search.

 

Cold steeping worked great for me. I cold-brewed six ounces of non-flavored coffee in a quart and a half of cold spring water. Added to a sanitized 2L flask and covered with foil, kept it in the fridge for two days. After that I filtered with a sanitized grain bag and added to the secondary fermentation vessel*. I added most of it to a five gallon batch. The coffee flavor came out right on the money. I chose the coffee as a blend of non-flavored varieties from mid to dark roasts.

*I don't usually do secondaries, but I was experimenting. I'm sure you can do it with whatever method you use and it will come out fine

 

My wife and I brewed an award winning (silver medal) chocolate coffee oatmeal stout about 18 months ago. For the coffee notes, we simply brewed a strong pot of coffee and added it to the beer on packaging day. Before adding the coffee, we filtered it twice more after brewing to try to remove as much oil as possible. The beer came out great.

 

I currently have a batch of Oatmeal stout on tap that I split the batch, 3 gallons in each keg. To one I added 2 oz of coarsely ground dark roast coffee in a strainer bag right in the keg. Keg was at about 60 degrees, 48 hours later I removed the strainer bag and put the keg in the kegger. Turned out great. I prefer it to the non coffee'd batch. Just the right amount of coffee flavour and aroma.

 

Has anyone tried removing a portion of the finished beer and cold-steeping the coffee in the beer instead of water?

I am contemplating trying this and wondering if there's a reason not to.

 

That's how Wake 'n' Bake is made. Well, actually it's cold steeped in all the beer, not just a portion of it.

 

I thought I remembered reading about a brewery just "dry beaning" the coffee. Maybe a hop bag with coarse-ground beans?

 

Yep. That's essentially what they do for Wake 'n' Bake. I was just coming back in to add that 'cold steeping' might be a misnomer in this case... I don't think they chill below their normal secondary temp. But it's cold in contrast to normal hot coffee brewing.

 

I just racked my coffee imperial to secondary, the coffee flavor is spot on. I actually threw about 3 oz of gground coffee into the pot at flameout and let it sit for about 20 minutes before chilling, and strained the grounds out with the hops when I poured into the primary before I pitched. I thought I was going to get some off flavors this way, but am glad to say this beer is turning out quite nice.

 

For a 5 gallon Chocolate RIS I brewed last year (which received numerous compliments) I used my coffee press. Cold brewed 30oz of coffee with 12g / 4oz (which is double a normal hot brew). So about 12-13tbsp in 30ish oz of water. Let that site for 24hours in the fridge. Tasted similar to cold espresso, not bitter at all. Added that at kegging. It turned out wonderfully!
-Phil