Coffee's For Closers

Craigerrr

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Planning to brew this recipe in about a week, interested in hearing what you guys think of this recipe, and if you have any recommendations. This recipe is from my LHBS, it gets a healthy amount of espresso after the krauzen drops in primary. I don't do secondary.
Also want to do a starter on this, wondering what yeast would be best, or should I just rehydrate the packaged US-05.
I do BIAB, and sparge as the 10.5 gallon kettle gets a little full when adding in he grains. Plan to strike into 7.5 gallons, and sparge 1.43. I am using RO water and adding salts to get close to the target water profile.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/659796/coffee-s-for-closers

Thanks in advance.
 
Just a quick glance but that seems like a lot of roasted malts. I used 5% pale chocolate and 3% midnight wheat in my last oatmeal stout and I felt like all I tasted was coffee/roast (and I didn't actually add any coffee). I had even cold steeped them in an attempt to get less of that character. You've got about 16% of darker malts in your grain bill.

Also I don't think that's much in the way of adding espresso to beer, I've seen 8-32+ oz in several 5 gal batch recipes that were going for a coffee brew. You might consider adding the coffee at bottling/kegging so you can taste as you add it to get the flavor dialed in the way you would want it.

I like the water and hop schedule and the Maris Otter base malt is definitely the way to go. But if it were me, I would probably dial back the dark/coffee malts to at least 10% and plan on adding more coffee but doing it to taste at packaging.
 
Full disclosure, I'm not a huge coffee drinker so perhaps I'm more sensitive to the taste than others :p
 
Looks good. At first glance the 6 oz of espresso seems low, but espresso is pretty strong and you have some roasted malt to add coffee like flavor so it should be ok. The us 05 should work, no starter needed. Other yeasts you could try is any British ale yeast, they go well in porter\stout. If using liquid yeast then do a starter.
 
Do a little research on style and percentages...I think you have too little Crystal and too much roast. Munich is also a good addition for malty sweetness to offset the roast bitterness and acid bit from the coffee.
 
I think it will come out a bit too hoppy - the high hop load and the coffee working together will result in a very bitter brew. Your grain bill has a good bit of sweetness in it if you mash high and may offset some of this. Also, to JA's point, all that roast is going to add bitterness as well.... I think the result will be harshly bitter. Now to your water: Take a bit of lactic acid and baking soda and combine them and see what happens. They neutralize each other. My guess is you're adding baking soda to get carbonates because whatever water profile you are using has carbonates in it. You don't need them. If you stick with the roast malts you have, you may need some alkalinity to offset the acid in the grist but I can't think of a situation where you need both alkali (bicarbonate) and acid.

Consider using a hydroxide to offset the mash's acidity. That much baking soda leaves one thinking they're drinking Alka-Selzer.
 
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Thanks guys! I will work on the recipe. Nosy, you nailed the reason for the baking soda, I will adjust my water additions as well, and repost with the changes.
 
I have made some adjustments to the recipe, decreased roasted malts to approximately 10%, added some flaked oats, changed to OYL British V yeast, deleted the baking soda, and adjusted the other brewing salts.

Could you fine folks re-critique this recipe?

Are my percentages of crystal malt and flaked oats good?

Should I mash at a higher temperature?

Thanks in advance, again...
Craigerrr
 
Should I mash at a higher temperature?
I recently did a Pecan Porter with quite a bit of crystal and roasted barley in it. I mashed at 148 and still had relatively low attenuation despite a pretty massive pitch and good oxygenation. I don't think I'd push it higher. You've got a low-attenuating yeast, to contend with.
 
Do a little research on style and percentages...I think you have too little Crystal and too much roast. Munich is also a good addition for malty sweetness to offset the roast bitterness and acid bit from the coffee.
J A
Do you have any thoughts on the grain bill? I really appreciate the input and guidance.
Craigerrr
 
Here's the Porter that I just did recently:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/690926/pecan-porter
It turned out mighty dark and roasty and is mellowing nicely into a balance of dark caramel malt. That sugar is in there just to make up some missed efficiency and boost the gravity a bit. It would have been better without it. There's about 8% dark roast and 12% C-malt and that UK Brown is darker than your C-30. It says I mashed at 152 but I remember starting lower. Your 150 should be good.
Yours is carrying a slightly higher percentage of dark roast and maybe still a little light on C-malt. I think I'd go to C-40 or mix some C-60 for a little more color and complexity and up it maybe a half pound for at least 10%. Mixing lighter and darker C-malt will do more than just change color. Lighter Crystal tends toward a more bland candy sweetness while the darker stuff brings in some deeper flavors of caramelized sugars, dark fruit, etc. I'd pull just a couple percent of the dark roast out. Since you're bringing in coffee at bottling, I'd lose a little Coffee roast.
Likely, if you brewed as is, I bet it would be fine, given a relatively low attenuation. Basically just a couple of small changes to push the malty sweetness forward a little will help give it balance, I think.
 
Can't thank you enough, the input is much appreciated!
 
Should be no problem at all. Rehydrate using slightly warm water and let it sit for at least 30 minutes before pitching. It'll get all poofy and foamy. Aerate your wort very well. I prefer as close to 60 degrees as possible for pitch and first few days of fermentation and raising to 67 to finish out.
 
Thanks bud!

One more question if you don't mind. This will be my second batch using RO and adding salts and such. First time I added the salts to the kettle before heating to strike temp.

Is it better to make these additions after mashing in?
 
I'm light on experience with salts since I have good brewing water and haven't done a lot, but when I've added, I added to both strike and sparge water, depending on what the additions are. Acid additions matter more than salts for ions because mash PH is important. To the extent that salts change PH, you have to pay attention. I'm just getting used to the water chemistry calculators.
Others will jump in.
 
I add to the mash only, it's only needed in the mash mostly, some add salts to the boil kind of like salt and pepper right when you eat even though it's already been added to the recipe, if you add salts to the separate hlt like i have some can be left behind, lost or even undissolved, some salts only dissolve in certain temperatures too, if you bib it doesn't matter, it's all in the same kettle
 
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if you add salts to the separate hlt like i have some can be left behind, lost or even undissolved,
I've added salts to my HLT, but mine doubles as the boil kettle so everything comes out for the sparge and wort gets pumped back in on top of whatever residue might be left behind. It ends up in the beer one way or another.
It's sort of a closed system in that regard. All the liquor goes in at the beginning of the brew day and everything gets used up and comes out in the wort at the end.
 

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