Whew!!! Now THIS is a beer. And a good first post after a while to get back into documenting some stuff again.
I’d kind of lost interest in posting since we’d been busy churning out beers over the past six months, and sometimes just brewing and not thinking about the extra stuff is the way to go.
But I also missed documenting the process. So here we are, sharing a beer that I think came out approximately 97% cloned. The only criticism given by myself and my two friends in a side by side… The commercial version has 1 or 2 small notches of more ‘oomf’ in the overall profile than our clone.
But everything aside from that is spot-fricken-on.
Before I get going… I got the base recipe from here…published by Tim with Cellarmaker. Straight from the horse’s mouth is always a good sign. That combined with the info on the can label. The difference obviously is the use of coffee after fermentation, rather than using Underberg.
Here’s a link to my Brewer’s Friend Recipe in case you want to easily get the info and brew it yourself. But the recipe is below as well.
Here we go:
| Basics | Coffee and Cigarettes Clone | |
| Batch Size (fermentor): | 7 gallons | |
| Boil Length: | 75 minutes | |
| Mash Temp: | 151F | 60 min Single Infusion |
| OG: | 1.076 (estimated) | 1.072 (actual) |
| FG: | 1.018 (estimated) | 1.014 (actual) |
| ABU: | 7.6% (estimated) | 7.6% (actual) |
| IBU: | 36 | |
| SRM: | 35 | |
| Fermentables | ||
| 2 Row | 41.4% | 9 lbs |
| Golden Promise | 32.2% | 7 lbs |
| Chocolate Malt | 6.9% | 1.5 lbs |
| Beechwood Smoked Malt | 16.1% | 3.5 lbs |
| Brown Malt | 2.6% | .75 lb |
| Black Malt | 0.9% | .25 lb |
| Total | 100% | 21.75 lbs |
| Hops | ||
| Centennial (34 IBUs) | 1.75 oz | 75 min |
| Hersbrucker | 2 oz | 0 Min/Whirlpool @ 200 F |
| Total | 3.75 oz | |
| Yeast | ||
| Safale S-04 English Ale Yeast | 2 Packs | Pitch at 68, bring to 72 at 1.030. |
| Extracurriculars | ||
| Coffee Beans, Whole I used this coffee, since it’s my normal every day drinking bean. | 6 oz | At terminal gravity, drop to 50 F, add coffee for 48 hours before packaging. Any light or medium roast that’s freshly roasted should work well. It’s similar to our love for craft beer… Find a local roaster with fresh stuff. Avoid big names. Also avoid dark roasts, french roasts. Too much burnt flavors and oils. |
| Water | ||
| Mash pH | 5.5 | |
| Calcium | 50 | |
| Mg | 5 | |
| Sodium | 27 | |
| Sulfate | 50 | |
| Chloride | 60 |
Brew Day 1/22/22
So I didn’t take any pictures of brewing itself, but here’s a picture of her all tucked in for bed after pitching.
And here’s one 24 hours post pitch, the yeast going to town.
Pre-Coffee Addition Sample – 2/2/22
Wow! This is delicious. Roast, slight smoke, chocolate. Both in flavor and aroma.
Final Tasting & Comparison to it’s Commercial Version – 2/12/22
Overall, I’m very happy with how this one turned out. My version is in the bootleg pint glass, and the commercial version is in the small taster glass.
Appearance is pretty similar. Mine is a touch lighter overall. A little more light gets through giving it a slight reddish hue.
Aroma is spot on identical. The coffee roast hits you in the face. It’s incredible. Some chocolate notes.
Flavor, the most important part. The way I can best describe it is that my version checks all the same boxes as the commercial beer, but just a hair less in your face. How the flavors come across your pallet are all nearly the same, just dialed back a touch.
Which isn’t a huge problem to me. This isn’t necessarily a beer that you’re trying to slam pint after pint of, but it is nice to be able to pour a second glass without it being too much. We all know there are certain beers that 8-10oz is more than enough for one sitting.
It’s like plagiarism from Cellarmaker’s description, but like I said it’s all pretty much the same.
“Coffee and Cigarettes is our lightly smoked Coffee Porter. This beer is loaded with potent locally roasted coffee; providing aggressive coffee aromatics and subtle acidity in addition to a dash of smoke and chocolate malt character for an intense flavor offering. Both a breakfast and dessert beer – you can pair this with just about anything you’d pair with chocolate or coffee. Cheers!” – Description courtesy of Cellarmaker themselves.
Final Verdict – I’m thrilled with the outcome. It’s a type of beer that’s unique that you won’t find many of these on tap competing with IPAs, Sours, Big Stouts, etc. When I brew this again, I likely won’t change a thing.
If you’re after something a little different, this one’s a good one to make.
Cheers,
Nick
Simple Homebrew 