The cold brew coffee has become fashionable again, thanks to millennials who walk rediscovering the best experiences in the world. This is a way of preparing coffee created a few years ago and that today is gaining more and more space in coffee shops and stores.
Do not be confused with cold coffee as a refreshing drink, because it is not only about that. It is something much more interesting than you will be surprised to know in this article. What is it, the best recipe, the differences with other coffee preparations and why is it popular with the new generations. The following are the things that we are gonna discuss in this article.
- What is cold brew or cold coffee?
- How to make cold brews?
- Our Favorite Cold Brew Recipe
- Products for cold brew
- What Is Cold Brew Or Cold Coffee?
What is cold brew or cold coffee?
Actually, cold brew references date back to the late 1800s and are scattered all over the world, from Cuba, to England, through Japan and the United States.
This gives us an idea that this preparation method is more common than thought. Each story has its recipe, its origin, but they all coincide on one point: cold water.
Originally, it involves the extraction of coffee grounds in water at room temperature for a longer time, preferably about 24 hours. That is, without the intervention of temperature, it is a cold infusion.
The most important thing to know at this point is that it’s not the same as iced coffee or cold coffee, which is prepared with hot espresso.
As a drink, it is usually served over ice and sometimes with a touch of milk.
As for its tasting, cold brew coffee is distinguished by being sweeter, less acidic, with more delicate and smooth tones and flavours, less loaded with caffeine.
The aroma and flavour are achieved by immersion time while the low acidity is due to the low presence of natural coffee oils in cold water as room temperature water doesn’t have the same power of extraction as the hot one.
It is known that caffeine is less concentrated in cold extractions than in hot ones. Hence, it is not consumed by those who need energy drinks to do physical activities or that demand a lot of concentration. People who drink cold brew coffee just enjoy this preparation (mostly during summer) for the delicate aroma, lack of acidity.
In short, it is a preparation that is consumed without distinction of time and at any time of the year. If you are interested in knowing how it is prepared, keep reading.
How To Make Cold Brew?
Preparing a cold brew is very simple: you just need a grinder, a container, and a cloth strainer or paper filter on hand.
Then in addition to coffee and water, the ingredient that you should have the most or that you should not miss is patience. Well, a standard cold infusion requires 60 grams of ground coffee per litre of water and immersion for at least 12 hours.
The longer it steeps, the more flavour is transferred to the water.
Then, you proceed to filter or remove the sediment to obtain the infusion. And voila, you already have a cold brew coffee.
However, this is not everything, there are other important elements that you should consider when preparing your cold brew, let’s see:
- Choice Of Coffee Beans – Although it will depend a lot on the taste of each one to choose between a dark or light roast, still consider the nuances you want to highlight. A medium to light roast bean is more acidic and citric, while a darker one accentuates the chocolatey, nutty notes. Consider using a single origin speciality coffee for a better nuance tasting experience.
- The Thickness Of The Grind – This is another debatable aspect since cold infusion requires other parameters than what is known. Preferably a grind between coarse and very coarse, giving the water more surface possible to be extracted. For an idea, it has the texture of grains of salt.
- Extraction Time – The grind size just needs to be pretty coarser but it will not have a huge impact anyway so don’t worry and just go all the way coarse on your grinder. You can consider using and hand grinder as well. An ideal range of extraction goes from 12 to 18 hours, according to your taste.
- Extraction Method – There are two versions of cold brew extraction: immersion and drip. Bear in mind that in case you’re opting for a drip coffee, you should aim for a ratio of 3 drops every 10 seconds. It will take around 3 hours to get a couple of cold brew cups (around 500ml)
- The water – Preferably the water should be filtered and be less than 20 ° C.
Well, you already know all the elements and conditions you need to prepare a cold coffee extraction. Now you need to get down to work to perfect your own recipe.
My Favorite Cold Brew Recipe
To prepare my favourite cold coffee, I use the Hario filter-in coffee bottle. I add 70 grams of lightly roasted coffee per 1 litre of cold water. Since it’s cold, it doesn’t matter if you opt for just water or a mix of water and ice cubes.
People like to add ice cubes for no particular reasons but a few smartly add ice in case they are using a container with limited capacity. In this way, you can have more room to play with as the coffee is being already extracted a bit while the ice cubes are melting down.
When I’ve done with the recipe I store the cold brew container in the fridge to get the same temperature of extraction and I leave it there for about 15 hours as I found that it matches perfectly with my personal taste.
Now it’s just time to make a cold brew. See you in the next article.
I am an Italian coffee lover that pushed for the love of this “amazing drug” decided to come to London to study about coffee and its different extraction procedures and tastes.
