exBEERiment | Impact Post-Fermentation Contact Time With Coffee Beans Has On An American Blonde Ale

Author: Will Lovell

Widely viewed as an energizing morning beverage by people the world over, coffee has found its way into a number of consumables, from candy and ice cream to soda and, of course, beer. Whereas barley is a cereal grain that’s a member of the grass family, coffee beans are the seed of a specific type of stone fruit, but they get roasted in similar ways, which may explain their complimentary relationship.

There are a number of methods for imparting coffee flavor to beer, one of which involves adding whole coffee beans to the fermented beer the same way one might add dry hops, a technique some refer to as “dry beaning.” When employing this approach, it’s commonly recommended to leave the beer in contact with the coffee beans for 2 to 4 days before packaging, with longer contact times purportedly leading to unpleasant off-flavors and astringency.

While I typically add cold brew concentrate to my coffee beers at the point of packaging packaging, I find the idea of dry beaning intriguing, as some have reported it leads to a rather strong overall coffee punch. When putting a recipe together for a coffee Blonde Ale recently, I began to wonder what impact longer dry beaning times might have and designed an xBmt to test it out for myself.

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between a Blonde Ale that was dry beaned for 3 days and one that was dry beaned for 10 days.

| METHODS |

While coffee is often used in darker beer styles, I went with a simple Blonde Ale recipe for this xBmt in hopes of accentuating any differences.

Fuzzy Jitters

The night prior to brewing, I collected 2 identical volumes of RO water before measuring out and milling the grain for each batch.

After waking up to properly heated water the next morning, I incorporated the grains then checked to ensure both mashes were at my desired temperature.

During the mash rests, I prepared the kettle hop additions.

Once the 60 minute mashes were complete, I removed the grains and proceeded to boil each batch for 60 minutes, adding hops at the times stated in the recipe.

When the boils were complete, I quickly chilled the worts then transferred equal volumes from each batch to separate sanitized Kegmenters.

A refractometer reading showed the worts were at my target OG.

I then pitched a pouch of Imperial Yeast A07 Flagship into each batch.

The beers were left to ferment at 66°F/18°C for a week before I took hydrometer measurements confirming FG was reached.

With fermentation complete, I added 90 grams of coffee beans to the first fermenter then waited 7 days before adding same amount of coffee to the second fermenter.

After 3 more days, I pressure-transferred the beers to CO2 purged kegs that were placed in my kegerator and burst carbonated overnight before the gas was reduced to serving pressure. Following a 2 week conditioning period, the beers were ready to serve to tasters.

| RESULTS |

Shout-out to the San Antonio Cerveceros for letting me collect data at a recent club meeting!  A total of 21 people of varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt. Each participant was served 2 samples of the beer dry beaned for 3 days and 1 sample of the beer dry beaned for 10 days in different colored opaque cups then asked to identify the unique sample. While 12 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to accurately identify the unique sample in order to reach statistical significance, only 9 did (p=0.24), indicating participants in this xBmt were unable to reliably distinguish a Blonde Ale that was dry beaned for 3 days from one that was dry beaned for 10 days.

My Impressions: Out of the 5 semi-blind triangle tests I attempted, I correctly identified the odd-beer-out 3 times, which isn’t terribly consistent. I felt the coffee flavor and aroma in both beers was pretty intense, which made telling them apart difficult.

| DISCUSSION |

Coffee has become a rather commonplace brewing ingredients, used to enhance the roast flavors in dark beers or contribute something unique to paler styles. One method for adding coffee is dry beaning, which involves adding whole beans to the fermented beer and leaving the in contact for a set amount of time. Countering claims that extended contact times lead to perceptible off-flavors, tasters in this xBmt were unable to reliably distinguish a Blonde Ale that was dry beaned for 3 days from one that was dry beaned for 10 days.

When considering explanations for these results, it’s possible the pungency of coffee character in this beer hid any differences caused by contact time, which may very well be a function of the dry beaning method. Moreover, some evidence suggests unpleasant green pepper flavors stem from using beans that are under-roasted, which the coffee I used was not, which would further support the idea that contact time may not have as big of an impact as some believe.

I’ve made a handful of coffee beers where I added cold crew concentrate at packaging, and in my opinion, the dry beaning approach contributed a much strong coffee character. While I enjoyed drinking these xBmt beers, I personally prefer the more nuanced coffee flavor I get from my standard method, but I look forward to exploring the impact different approaches to adding coffee to beer have. Based on these results, I certainly wouldn’t worry if I had to leave a batch of beer in contact with coffee beans a little longer than planned.

If you have any thoughts about this xBmt, please do not hesitate to share in the comments section below!

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