This article is a complete guide to cold brew coffee in all its detail. Learn about what cold brew coffee is, how to make cold brew coffee yourself, the equipment you may need, and the essential tips to get your coffee tasting the best it can be.
Can You Make Cold Brew with Regular Ground Coffee?
Cold brewed coffee is a type of coffee produced when regular ground coffee is left to steep in water for a period of twelve hours or longer. The concentrated cold coffee brew that this method produces is then typically diluted with either milk or water by usually around 50% and served cold, although the concentrate produced by the cold brew technique is increasingly becoming an ingredient in an array of recipes – from ice cream to cocktails.
How Much Caffeine does a Cold Brew Have?
Caffeine informer reports about the differences between the caffeine concentration of regular coffee and cold brew coffee – typically speaking, cold brew coffee concentrates contains far more caffeine.
However, the final concentration of caffeine in beverages where cold brew is used is noted to depend on what extent the cold brew concentrate is diluted in the beverage used – so ultimately, the caffeine content can vary considerably.
What is the Ratio of Coffee to Water for Cold Brew?
Cold brew coffee vary notably in the proportions they use. People advocate ratios of coffee grind to water from 1:2 to 1:8. Exact recipes vary between groups, so make sure you experiment and find the right proportion to taste.
What is Special about Cold Brew Coffee?
The cold brew technique creates a different chemical profile compared to regular coffee. When taken in its entirety, the list of ‘coffee soluble compounds’ – the substances you dissolve when exposing ground coffee to hot water – including not only caffeine and the various aromatic molecules, that gives a particular type of coffee a distinctive smell, but also acidic tasting oils.
Regular coffee brewing dissolves all of these coffee soluble compounds, especially the acidic oils, which dissolve at high temperature thresholds, which results in a bitter, acidic tasting drink (that many people love, nonetheless).
However, in the case of cold brewed coffee, the fact that heat is not used in the brewing process results in a coffee that has a lower concentration of the acidic tasting oil compounds within it.
As a result of having less of these acidic tasting compounds the bitter, harsh taste of regular coffee is replaced by cold brewed coffee’s sweeter and more palatable profile.
Furthermore, as a related third point, because the bitter, harsh taste is removed, this allows the quality and natural aroma of the particular brand of coffee used is allowed to shine through, instead of being overpowered by the acid. It is said that for regular coffee you smell the aroma and you taste the coffee – for cold brewed coffee, you get to taste both.
What is the Difference between Cold Brew and Iced Coffee?
It is worth pointing out not to confuse cold brew coffee with iced coffee.
Iced coffee is simply regularly produced coffee, which is served hot, but poured with a mixture of ice and cream to cool the beverage.
What distinguishes cold brew coffee is its long, gentle steeping period, allowing for the maximum dissolution of the various water soluble compounds from the ground coffee into the coffee brew. Although many coffee enthusiasts look upon iced coffee with a degree of disdain – claiming that the flavour and overall quality of the coffee is downgraded in the iced version, but these very same critics are praising cold brew coffee for its strengths.
Can You Put Sugar in Cold Brew Coffee?
Regular coffees are often full of flavourings, sugars, creams and syrups in order to battle the inherently bitter taste of coffee, and produce a flavoursome product. However, in the case of cold brew coffee, as the concentrate produced by the brewing process is naturally sweet and lacks the sharp bitterness that normal coffee has, cold brew coffee is often sold without as much cream, sugar and other endorsements.
Can I Add Vanilla Extract to Cold Brew?
Just as various types of alcohol are infused with the flavours of fruit or other flavours simply by being exposed to them for an extended duration, so to can cold brew coffee is infused. Although the potential to infuse cold brew coffee extends to almost any water soluble material, good choices include vanilla pods and vanilla extract, ginger, chocolate and fudge.
What Coffee Beans are Good for Cold Brew?
Ultimately, there are two main varieties of coffee beans, Arabica and Robusta. Arabica coffee beans have the quality of tasting different according to where they are grown and there are many different varieties. Popular brands include Ethiopian-grown, which has a berry like taste associated with it, Indian/Indonesian brands which are rich and earthy, Central American brands which have citrus and chocolate tastes are good for cold brew.
Coffee enthusiasts often recommend Ethiopian and Central American brands for cold brew coffee, their berry-like, citrus-like and chocolate-like tastes shining through in the sweeter and lighter taste of cold brewed coffee.
Robusta beans do not vary as much relative to the ecological conditions they are grown in. Furthermore, Robusta beans are also easier to grow, due to their high caffeine content, which in effect, acts as a pesticide. Robusta beans are often used for instant coffee, which is not suitable for the cold brew method, although Robusta whole beans or Robusta bean grind is still purchasable separately. It is a common opinion in the coffee world to see Robusta beans as of slightly less taste and quality, but this is by no means a consensus view.
What Equipment do You Need to Make Cold Brew?
At its simplest level, cold brewed coffee can be made with the almost no special utensils. As cold brew coffee is left to steep in cold water, not even a kettle or warm hob is necessary.
Nonetheless, you will still need a few of pieces of equipment. Although you can approximate, or use a rough method such as cup measurement, it is often best to have a set of weighing scales, so you can measure the amount of coffee you need for your brew in the right proportion.
Additionally, you need a flask or some sort of container to leave the coffee mixture to steep in, and a method for separating the coffee, such as a filter, an appropriately sized mesh or a fine sieve. Alternatively, filtering the grind from the brew through several layers of cheesecloth, two or three times, is a popular method.
How do You Grind Whole Coffee Beans for Cold Brew?
If you chose to purchase whole coffee beans instead of their ground variants, you will need to prepare the coffee beans yourself. As formerly mentioned, this has the advantage of keeping the coffee aroma even fresher, however you will need to go to the hassle of grinding it yourself, as well as deciding what consistency of grind you want to produce.
In the case of cold brewed coffee, the decision of grind consistency is much simpler – coarse grinds are the best. This is for two reasons, a fine grain can cause the brew to become soapy and foamy when left in soak for a long period of time, and coarse grains are easier to filter, especially by hand through a filter.
Coffee grinders themselves come in one of two forms. Firstly, there is a burr grinder which is usually an electronic motorised device which grinds entire coffee beans into usable grinds. The more expensive coffee blurs will offer a range of settings for the more knowledgeable coffee freaks among you, who want the grind to be of a particular size and consistency, owing to the different flavours it may produce.
If you chose to buy one of these coffee blurs with multiple settings, as mentioned previously, for cold brewed coffee try to go for the coarsest grind.
The alternative to burr grinders is blade grinders, such as regular food processors. Although this will often achieve the same result as blur grinders, it is harder to control the consistency of the grind, and it is believed that some of the taste of the bean is lost through this method. If you want your coffee to taste better than anything you’ve ever tasted before, your best bet is to try and use a blur grinder.
Can You Cold Brew in a French Press?
A French press is one of the most common and easiest ways to brew cold brew coffee. A French press is a simple spherical device that can rest on your kitchen counter. The coffee grind used is poured in the bottom of the device, and water (usually hot, but in the case of cold brewed coffee cold) is added, and the mixture is left to brew. After this, the grind is separated by pressing down a plunger (which will come with the press) which separates the grind from the brew.
The only thing to bear in mind here is that if your coffee grind is too fine, it may pass through the plunger and remain in your brew, making contaminating the taste and consistency of the brew. As coarse ground coffee can work wonders with the cold brew technique, this should not be a great concern, but it is best to stay mindful. When using a French press, make sure to keep your grind slightly thicker in order to avoid any troubles.
Standard Cold Brew Coffee Recipe (Produces Eight Servings)
Ingredients-Equipment:
- 2 cups ground coffee.
- 8 cups cold water.
- Ice.
- Milk to serve.
- Two large bowls.
- Multiple layers of cheesecloth.
- Airtight container/pitcher.
Directions:
- Produce Cold Coffee Concentrate: Mix the cold water and coffee grind in a large bowl, making sure to stir. Cover the bowl with plastic film and leaves the mixture to steep for a length of at least 12 hours but no more than 24 hours.
- Filtering The Coffee Grind From The Cold Coffee Concentrate: Rest several layers of cheesecloth over a second large bowl. Gently pour the coffee and water mixture from the first over the cheesecloth into the second bowl, separating the coffee grind from the cold coffee concentrate.
- Storing The Cold Coffee Concentrate: From the bowl, pour the cold coffee concentrate into an airtight container or pitcher and store in the refrigerator. The cold coffee concentrate will keep for a week.
- Serving: Pour the cold coffee concentrate into a glass with ice and dilute with either milk or water to taste. Remember to consider the diluting effect of the ice will produce upon the drink.