Making a (Slight) Mess

I decided to brew a batch of Coffee Stout yesterday. Went to bed last night and didn't see any yeast activity. I woke up this morning to see that the yeast in the carboy were throwing quite a raging party. Kind of like the college kids coming from repressive Catholic upbringings who start the party late and then go overboard. The krausen had burst through my airlock and was bubbling away down the carboy. I have a 6.5 gallon carboy and had 5 gallons of brew, and didn't think I'd have that much activity. I consider myself fortunate that there was no explosion, and after doing some internet sleuthing, rigged up a blowoff tube by connecting the tubing from my siphon to the "out" hole of the bottom plastic portion of the airlock. Stuck the other end of the tube in some water that is no doubt turning into krausenwater as we speak. I don't know whether this will become a regular feature for me or not -- the other batch I brewed had much more controlled activity, so I think I'll give the airlock another shot before giving in to the overflow tube every time. Despite that misadventure, Graham reports that things should be okay.

The wort had a nice color to it, and a fantastic hoppy aroma, surprising for a stout, or at least the stouts I'm used to. I can't tell what the coffee will add to this equation because I haven't added it yet. You can mix the coffee into the batch at one of two points, either at the end of the boil (by throwing the beans into a grain bag) or after the primary fermentation is complete (by brewing a very strong pot of coffee and pouring it in after racking for secondary fermentation). The latter is recommended because if you add the beans at the higher temperature, the coffee flavor will be more bitter, and some of the flavor is lost during the primary fermentation. I didn't add the coffee during the boil for that reason, but I don't think that I'll do a secondary fermentation with this batch, so the coffee will go in with the sugar right before bottling. Any thoughts, dudes? Is more flavor imparted into the beer during a secondary fermentation versus when the sugar is carbonating away? I don't know whether that'll make a difference or not, but it's probably what I'm going to try, if for no other reason than I want to get a second batch going, an IPA recipe from Midwest with a relatively unique type of hop that the guy at the store was excited about. I'll be curious to see if it tastes distinctive or not.

In other beer-making news, look for the mighty Brewers to win the NL Central behind a healthy Ben Sheets this year.