Coffee Nap

My passion for beer doesn't end at visiting breweries and tasting great beers.  I have been interested in brewing beer since well before my being able to purchase it legally.  Even though my good friend Ryan and I dreamed of brewing beer back then, I didn't get started until Learn to Homebrew Day, 2012.  I have another good couple of friends, Janie & Nikki, to thank for the gift of Charlie Papazian’s book, “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing”.  Papazian's book tapped my appreciation and seeking of beer knowledge and lead me to John Palmer’s, "How to Brew".  The fact that Palmer has his whole book online for free, makes me want to hug the man.  He really makes brewing easy to understand and goes into the scientific details of the art of brewing.

Since beginning to brew in 2012, I have brewed many batches of beer and have started entering my homebrews into competitions.  One such competition that I will be entering is Café Au Ale, a coffee beer competition that is being held at a local coffee shop during Sacramento Specialty Coffee Week.  I brewed a Robust Porter to which I added a cold brew of Old Soul's Whiskey Dreams.  I have dubbed that beer Coffee Nap, follow the link for the recipe.  To help me with documenting the process, the wife took periodic pictures throughout the brew day.

Water in the kettle coming up to temperature.  The cooler is my mash tun (it's where the grain gets wet).  The paper bag is my grain and the little bags are my hops.

A layer of grain is being infused with 162° F water.

Another layer, this process is called "doughing-in".

More water, then more grain, etc...

After a few minutes the temperature is taken,
I was shooting for 154° F.  Not bad!

Three very important things are going on in this picture.  In no particular order of importance: calibration beer poured and tasted, enzymes are converting the grain to fermentable sugars (mashing) and notes are being taken.

After an hour of mashing I start the recirculation process know as the vorlauf.  A couple of quarts of the liquid, known as wort (pronounced wert), are pulled off and then carefully added back to the mash tun.  This helps to settle the grain bed and keep grain particles out of the kettle. The vorlauf is repeated several times until there are no particles in the wort.

Here begins the collection of the first runnings.
  Notice that the valve handle is only partially open.

The wort is poured over the back of a spoon
so as to not disturb the grain bed. 

The collection of the wort should go slowly
in order to avoid splashing which
would lead to oxidation of the wort
 and ultimately off flavors.

Every brewer needs an assistant, this is Brutus.
He was keeping an eye on the collection of the
 2nd runnings.  After the mash tun has been
drained the first time, another batch of hot water
 is added (167° F) and allowed to settle; this is
 known as batch sparging.  The vorlauf  is done
 again and the wort is collected in the same way
 as the first runnings.  Here I have the mash tun
 tilted in order to get all of the wort out.  I did not
 tilt until it was near empty.

Approximately one week later the yeast have
done their work of digesting the sugars and
producing alcohol.  Above you see a
hydrometer which measures the apparent
attenuation of the beer.  To put that simply,
as the yeast eat up the sugar the beer gets
thinner, the hydrometer drops farther.
At this point the fermentation is complete
and I added the strong, cold brewed coffee.
After a couple days the wife and I bottled
the beer.  

During the boil, hops were added.  The wort
was then cooled via my Immersion Chiller.
Notice that is is now dark outside, this brew
day took about 6 hours from set up to clean
up.  Here I am transferring the wort to my
fermentation vessel.  I move the hose around
and up and down in order to introduce a fair
amount of oxygen to the wort.  This gives
the yeast the oxygen that they need.  The yeast
will be added after the fermenter is filled.

The carbonation of my beer is done in the bottles by adding a little more fermentable sugar (known as priming sugar) to the beer just before bottling.  Then after a few weeks, the remaining yeast digest that sugar and produce the carbonation.  This picture was taken just ten days after bottling, note that there is very little head.  There is very little carbonation at this point, but I still have another couple weeks until Coffee Nap will be judged.

I am pretty happy with this beer and look forward to tasting it again in another couple weeks.  By that point it should be fully carbonated and the coffee flavor should have mellowed a bit.  I am also eager to have it judged, receive my score sheets and learn the outcome of the competition.  As of now it is an opaque black with burgundy edges.  The aroma is of a dark roasted coffee, bittersweet chocolate and dark dried fruits (i.e. raisins, prunes).  The flavor follows the aroma and in the same order but is paired with a subtle earthy hop presence that lingers in the finish along with rich coffee.  The mouthfeel is not quite ready to judge due to not being fully carbonated, but my initial tasting was pleasing.  It is creamy and has a medium-full body.  There is a soft warming in the chest from the, slightly higher than I was going for, ABV of 7.11%.  I am proud of my first attempt at a coffee beer and will most certainly brew it again.

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Cheers!