How to get roastiness without the color

jmcnamara

jmcnamara

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A while back I had one of Stone's Stochaschisity (sp?) beers, a blonde stout. i kid you not, that thing was blonder than most blondes ive seen and as roasty as any stout i've had. in fact, a friend was over brewing with me when we had it. he doesn't like dark or hoppy beers (basically anything not MBC-like), but he liked this. kinda goes to show that people go a bit by visuals alone on choosing or not choosing a beer.

anyway, i forget what it listed as the ingredients, but I believe it really did use some coffee. my question is, i would think some color would come through no matter how much coffee you use or how concentrated. some of that color would darken the beer

any thoughts on how they did this? i'd assume any dark malt in the mash is out of the question too.
 
recently NOLA brewery did a collab with Left Hand and a local coffee shop. They did a coffee saison, and that thing was roast coffee with yeasty saison. not sure how they did it, maybe some soaking or extraction of coffee beans? get the flavor out without adding color? dunno.
 
i'll have to dig out the bottle and reread it tonight

but to my non-chemist brain, in this case, the flavor is the color. if that makes sense. like having white toast (not just toast made with white bread).

and i'd think anything that is able to extract flavor would also get some color along with it. whether you're using water, vodka, steam, whatever
 
Very interesting read.

I'm wondering if a pale stout will be a new substyle in a few years.

Then an India pale stout. Try to wrap your head around that one :oops: :shock:
 
I Have a theory probably not what the brewery did but i stumbled upon this recently by mistake. Last week i was brewing a session IPA and bottled a double chocolate stout . when all was done had the dumb idea beforehand to simply pour my wort over the yeast cake of the stout . Last second i realized this might change the color and give flavors i wasn't going for .. to late as i didn't prepare any other yeast so i said f* it .
Turns out i got some roasty flavors from the stout yeast cake without having any color issue . Just an idea and cool experiment .
 
Well i was just saying by chance this happened to me when i was not looking to do this and the result might not be exactly what you are looking for , but this is an option i guess to what you are looking to do and as I say you can never have to much beer :D
 
a great way to get roastiness into a blond is to roast the grain your self in the oven, take the lightest grain, wet your grain first, fairly damp but not soaked, lay it out on a cookie sheet, set the oven to a low temp like 200, cover with foil or a lid but cracked, roast for an hour, pull it out before any color changes, they shouldn't turn dark at all. you wont need much, its a strong roasty flavor, too much and it tastes burnt
 
Whole coffee beans in secondary=lots of coffee
Flavor and no added color.
 
bumping this because I'm now interested in adding coffee to a brown ale, but my malt bill is already too dark to add any roasted beans.

I'm seeing in the back at the LHBS that there is a ton of beans, all green. Anyone have experience with adding unroasted coffee beans to the secondary?
 
Could this flavour be essence like the distillers use to flavour their brews? You can get some essence that are pretty clear?
 
Trialben said:
Could this flavour be essence like the distillers use to flavour their brews? You can get some essence that are pretty clear?
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yes but couldn't I just add my own beans of choice unroasted? I guess I'm asking what unroasted beans cold steeped in a finished brown ale would taste like.
 
It would taste very different from roasted beans. Chew on a raw bean before you decide you want that flavor in your beer.
 
Stone's Mocha IPA...awesome beer. Dogfish Head Theobroma is a lighter beer with cocoa in it, also awesome.

Anywho I was just reading up on this, and some guys recommended cold brewing some coffee and adding 2 or 3 ounces at bottling/kegging time. You could add a little at a time, making it easier to control the amount of coffee flavor. Come to think of it I believe Gordon Strong mentions this method in his book, or maybe both books. I have them and I could look it up, but they're all the way over there (points at bookshelf 10 feet away).

I figure 2 or 3 ounces of coffee added to 5 gal. shouldn't have much effect on color, especially browns which are often coffee colored to begin with.
 
OK, I wheeled over and looked it up. Strong adds cold press coffee to the pot at "knockout", which I think is the same thing as "flameout". That's all he has to say about it.
 
I have a beer im drinking now and its has a strong roasted flavor, a little goes along way, roasted barley 9.5 oz in a 10 gallon batch and its a good strong roasty flavor, I love it
 
Gerry P said:
OK, I wheeled over and looked it up. Strong adds cold press coffee to the pot at "knockout", which I think is the same thing as "flameout". That's all he has to say about it.
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You got me thinking so I looked it up. Knockout is the chilling step, not flameout.
 
Nosybear said:
You got me thinking so I looked it up. Knockout is the chilling step, not flameout.
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Can this also be a method to add beans? Just steep the beans as you're in cool down mode and it will leave black coffee flavors
 
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