My club is putting on an "Iron Chef" beer comp, where everyone blindly chooses a special ingredient they must use in their beer. I got espresso beans. I want to avoid the obvious stouts and porters, and plan to do an English Barleywine with espresso and hazelnut. I will use a 100% Maris Otter or Golden Promise grain bill, and want to get coffee aroma and flavor while using real coffee, but without getting the beer black. Thoughts on how to do this, or is it a lost cause?
You can "dry bean" or cold press and add it to taste. For a higher gravity beer, I'd coarse crush and steep about 4-5oz for a couple days. You can always add more if needed. It'll add very little color.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30249/106943/ Helped formulate the recipe and coffee usage for this beer & came to use 0.4 oz/gal with a 24 hr conditioning period. Coffee beans were manually cracked and added in muslin bags. I would imagine for what you are trying to do, you want the coffee to be noticeable, but as a hint, an added complexity to an already good base barleywine. If this is the case, I suggest using the same ratio, 0.4 oz/gal, and just taste at 18 hr, 24 hr, 36 hr, etc and pull the beans as soon as you think best.
