While not a traditional brewing ingredient, coffee has been used by creative brewers for many years to contribute uniquely rich flavors to a variety of beers. With most preferring to use higher quality coffee from commercial roasters, increased access to home-roasting has led some to rely on coffee they roasted themselves. Is there a difference in quality, and if so, which do people like more? That’s what we aim to find out!
2 thoughts on “The Brülosophy Show: Impact Home Roasted Coffee Has On A Cream Ale | exBEERiment”
The last coffee beer that I made was a stout. I used Ethiopian beans that I roasted myself on a Behmor 1600 machine. I roasted just past first crack which allowed me to get all of the goodness of an Ethiopian without getting the harshness of an over-roasted bean. I then put a pound of whole beans in the secondary for about one week. After this much time the beans all sank to the bottom after that much time. The beer turned out fantastic and I will definitely repeat this process again.
Back when I did a lot of my own roasting, I found many people didn’t enjoy a medium roast. I’d go on and on about where I sourced the beans (not only the country, but the precise farm and hill in that country), the lighter level of roast so as to keep the character of the beans instead of hiding behind a dark oily roast, etc. Didn’t matter to most people…it was not what they expected. Coffee geeks geek out and most people just want a dark roasted coffee.
Great experiment. Sadly the result doesn’t surprise me.