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Homebrewing: Espresso Stout
by Ryan Jacobs
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The Coffee/Beer Connection
Beer has a lot in common with coffee. Both are very popular beverages. Both have the utilitarian consumers of the beverages as well as those who consider themselves connoisseurs. And both of these can be made in fairly easy fashion at home yielding very positive results. And, interestingly enough, certain types of beers are well complemented by coffee. I will be sharing a recipe I created that is an espresso stout using homeroasted espresso.
As a homebrewer who also happens to be obsessed with coffee, I found that too many of the coffee or espresso flavored stout recipes I found seemed to consider coffee more of an afterthought than an important factor in the success of the beverage. I have always found it odd that brewers would take so much time to pick out just the right hops, yeast and perfect water chemistry, only to say something so general as, "Add a pound of cracked coffee to the brew pot." Lightly cracking coffee is supposed to compensate for the longer extraction time in the brew, but overextracted coffee is as undesirable in the beer as it would be on its own. Some homebrewer recipes even go as far as advising instant coffee as an ingredient. This is intolerable advice. Over a few years, I have tried several methods, and the one I most enjoyed is the one that I am about to share.
The basic ingredients for making beer are water, sugar, hops and yeast. Varying the amounts and individual qualities of each basic ingredient will yield a different tasting beverage.
The basic equipment a homebrewer needs are:
- Boiling Kettle
- Fermenting Tank (Carboy)
- Racking Equipment (Cane, Tubing, Bottle Filler)
- Bottles
- Caps
- Bottle Capper
Brewing In a Nutshell
At a very high level, these are the basics in homebrewing:
- Sanitation - Everything you touch can be contaminated with bacteria which can cause skunked beer. Sanitize everything that will come in contact with your beer before or after boiling. Using sanitary handling practices is at the top of my list for brewing. The best crafted/designed beer can be ruined by failure to keep it clean.
- Make the Wort - In this step, you are cooking malts in order to break down their sugars and extract them to create a sweetened liquid. The sugary liquid is what will be consumed by the yeast later. This is achieved by adding water and malt/malt extract into the boiling kettle. Since most small homebrewers don't have kettles large enough to hold five gallons, the wort is actually concentrated, which means we will add cold water later to make up for the full volume.
- Add the Hops - This is actually part of creating the wort. Depending on your recipe, you will add a series of hops at different times into the boil. Hops serve the purposes of bittering the beer to counteract the sweet taste of the sugary malt. They also are a mild astringent, which helps to keep the bacteria content low. Finally, they provide aroma and flavor to the beverage. The hop additions are generally classified as either 'Bittering' or 'Aroma' hops. The bittering hops go in earliest because the aromatic compounds of the hops will boil out. Aroma hops go in the boil last so as to preserve those compounds so they will stay in the beer.
- Chill the Wort - This is to be done as quickly as possible. The temperature of your wort should be close to the fermenting temperature listed for the yeast that you chose. Basically, we are trying to cool it to the point that it won't kill the yeast. A trick that I use is to keep water in the refrigerator; I will be adding this water to the concentrate so that it helps to bring down the overall temperature quicker.
- Pitch the Yeast - This is simply adding the yeast to the wort. Once this step is complete, it is no longer wort, it is beer.
- Primary Fermentation - This is the process of allowing the yeast to consume the sugar in a sanitized environment. When yeast eat the sugar and metabolize it, two very important molecules are given off: Alcohol and Carbon Dioxide. In the primary fermentation, we are concerned with creating alcohol and letting the CO2 out. This is done by affixing an airlock on the carboy which lets gas escape due to pressure, but doesn't let anything in. After taking some measurements, you can find out when fermentation is complete.
- Secondary Fermentation - This step is not necessary if you keg your beer. However, if you bottle your beer, this step is important. In this step, a very calculated amount of unhopped wort is created and added back to the beer. This will create more CO2 and alcohol, but since we are bottling the beer next, the gas will be trapped in the bottle which serves to carbonate it.
- Bottling - This involves putting the beer into bottles and capping the bottles with a capper.
- Consumption - Enjoy your creation and share with your friends.
As is true with coffee, looking past the basics of homebrewing can be very confusing indeed. If you have the patience and the initiative, it can be every bit as rewarding as your coffee hobby. For the already experienced homebrewer, tweak this recipe as much as you like and have fun. For the newbie, stick to this recipe the first time until you become familiar with the basic procedure.
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