I Like My Coffee Black, Like My Stout

It's pretty easy to find information about how to put coffee into a stout, but it's a lot more difficult to decide which method to use.

I was lucky enough to have some background knowledge about beans, their flavor, and how to make a good cup of joe...but the closest I had previously ever come to making a coffee stout was the time I poured way too much Irish cream in a gas station Folgers.

Folgers is awful by the way, and no amount of Irish cream will make you forget it.

So, on to the methods, via haphazard research:

1. Brew coffee, the old fashion way in your coffee maker, let it cool and add it to the secondary.
2. Brew coffee, this time using the cold brew method, and add it to the secondary. The most common way to get the first part of that sentence done is to use about a pots worth of coffee, add it to a sanitized gallon jug or French press, grind the beans coarsely and let it sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
3. Add whole or coarsely ground beans right to the secondary, or even drop them in the primary in you are lazy (or fearful) about racking to a secondary.
4. Add a cup of Folgers to the secondary. Yes, if you believe what you read on the Internet someone actually did this.
   

As far as equipment goes, at a minimum you are going to need a five gallon secondary (this would be a good excuse to actually use it), a coffee grinder, and access to fresh beans. Based on this comment you can infer that I think option 4 is not really an option at all and that adding beans directly to the primary is a questionable move i.e. a derivative of option 3 (they are more than likely going to end up in the trub, thus not getting a chance to soak much in the actual beer).

If you ever took an LSAT you would probably have deduced that I don't think much of option 1. A coffee pot isn't required if you aren't using hot coffee, and because brewing coffee hot can produce a harsher taste and add some bite, I prefer to attempt to reduce those things via a cold brew.

So while any of the options will give you a coffee flavored beer, cold brewing fresh beans for 24 hours give you a great tasting flavor, adding the a 5 gallon secondary allows for it to adequately infiltrate the beer, and based on what I can gather probably the results in the best blend of coffee and stout.