Sweet, sweet coffee — some of us depend on it to survive through the work day, and others even consider ourselves connoisseurs. Whether you’re a casual drinker or a coffee addict, you can likely tell the difference between a good cup and a bad one.
Although you only need water and coffee beans to make decent cup of joe, it’s pretty easy to make crappy coffee. What makes coffee taste gross? How about when you make it too strong, too weak, use a bad blend, or when you leave the pot sitting on the burner too long? That’s why office coffee is often the worst kind — the pot sits for hours, the coffee develops a burnt taste, and you’re left with something that’s about as palatable as mud.
The key to a great cup of coffee is chemistry. Your cup of java contains organic acids like malic, acetic, and quinic acids, and it has inorganic acids like phosphoric acid. That’s why bad coffee tends to have a bitter, acidic taste. So, what’s the key to making a great cup of coffee that tastes even better than your favorite coffee shop blend? Try cold brew coffee.
Cold brew coffee has a much more pleasant flavor because you get the sweet flavors from the good-tasting acids, without the bad taste of the bitter acids. When some people think of cold brew coffee, however, they think of a long and tedious process or costly equipment and supplies. But, you don’t have to be Starbucks to cold brew your coffee. You can make easy cold brew coffee at home; and it takes only about 10 minutes of work, and a bit of knowledge.
What you’ll need
- Coffee
- Water
- A fine strainer
- Cheesecloth
- A glass pitcher or a large mason jar
How to make cold brew coffee
Grind your beans. You want your beans to be coarse ground, about the consistency of kosher salt. If you only have fine-ground coffee available (like what you’d use in your coffee machine), it will over-extract, leading to a bitter brew.
Mix the coffee and water. Pour 4 cups of water into your pitcher and add your coffee. If you want a regular brew, add 1/2 cup of coffee grounds, which produces a 1:8 ratio of coffee to water. For a stronger brew, add up to 1 cup of coffee grinds. This is personal preference, but both Blue Bottle and Kicking Horse Coffee suggest a 1:4 ratio.
Give your coffee and water mixture a quick stir to help get brewing started.
Refrigerate your brew for 12 to 15 hours.
Strain the coffee and water mixture using a fine strainer coated in some cheesecloth.
To serve, add water or milk to dilute the concentrate. Again, it’s personal preference, but start with a 1:1 ratio and go from there. We added a vanilla bean, 1.5 cups of skim milk, and 1/2 cup of sugar.
Store your cold brew in a sealed container in the refrigerator for no longer than two or three days. When you add milk, water, or other ingredients, this shortens your coffee’s shelf life. If you leave your cold brew as a concentrate, you can store it for about a week before its quality degrades.
Tips and warnings
- Use filtered water for best results. You can also use regular bottled water, but filtered water is your best bet.
- As tempted as you are to remove the brew from the fridge before it’s done, wait at least 12 hours. It’s well worth the wait.
- Cold brew coffee sits for extended periods of time, and it tends to sit in danger zone temperatures of between 39 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Be mindful of food safety and shelf life guidelines.
- Cold brew coffee tends to be stronger than traditional hot coffee, so dilute your cold brew if you don’t want to be bouncing off of the walls.
For the folks who can’t wait for several days, there is a more efficient way to make cold brew that was shared with us by the Danish coffee writer and Q Arabica Grader, Asser Christensen.
The beverage goes by the name ‘Icepresso’ since it’s essentially espresso brewed with cold water. For years, most coffee experts have thought that espresso could only be brewed with water around 200°F. However, in the last couple of years with the advent of manual espresso, some adventurous coffee people have started to use ice-cold water when brewing espresso.
The key for this to work is to use an ultra fine grind. One benefit of the method is that you don’t even need an espresso machine to pull it off. You can also do it with an Aeropress, which is an affordable coffee brewer that many people already have at home.
Asser Christensen, who also runs the blog ‘The Coffee Chronicler,’ shared this recipe with us that works very well for Aeropress. It takes less than five minutes total and it will open up a whole new range of coffee flavors that you have never experienced before.
Traditional cold brew is known for being mild and low acid. Icepresso, likewise, is low in acidity, but because of the higher pressure when brewing, you’ll be able to extract flavor notes such as bitter dark chocolate, licorice, and hazelnut.
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20 grams of ultrafine ground coffee (almost like powder)
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80 grams of cold water
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Add coffee grounds to upside down Aeropress.
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Pour in water. Stir for 30 seconds. Then wait for one minute.
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Put two paper filters in the Aeropress cap. The additional filter will increase the pressure in the brew chamber and add clarity to the flavors. Attach to Aeropress, and flip it over on top of a sturdy mug.
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Start pressing. Slowly increase the force.
Enjoy a powerful yet balanced icepresso shot. If you prefer a more diluted flavor you can mix the shot with tonic water or pour it on top of frozen milk cubes.