Over Ice: A Follow Up About Cold Brew Coffee
Last night, I posted about trying my hand at cold brew coffee. Well, I tried the coffee this morning, and here are the results.
I liked it.
It definitely contained less acidity (many people say that brewing coffee hot is most of what extracts the acids from the beans, and that's most of what upsets people's stomach), which is always welcome.
Preparation methods I noted said to mix anywhere from 3 parts water to 1 part coffee concentrate all the way to 7-to-1. I ended up doing about 5-to-1 in my batch. I got a coffee filter, wet it and draped it over a funnel so that I could do one final micro filter of this cold brew. It was a little slow, but it worked just fine. It caught some of the "muddy" looking sediment that you will sometimes see in the bottom of a cup of French press-made coffee.
I made sure NOT to muddle or squeeze the muslin bags, as I didn't want to extract the acid from the beans. This is one of the big reasons I'm trying the cold brew method in the first place. I just let them drip as much as they would, and then moved on with my mixture.
I should have tasted the concentrate (shame on me), but I didn't. I mixed it all in a pitcher with my 5-to-1 water to concentrate mixture and stirred with a wooden spoon. Then, I poured into a cup and added some ice, a splash of milk and a squirt of chocolate syrup. That gave it just the right hint of sweetness. I did taste it before adding anything other than water, and it was much more chocolatey and smooth than hot brewed coffee is. Hot brewed coffee tends to be kind of harsh and bitter at times.
I'm going to keep exploring with different mixtures and amounts of concentrate. It was a good trial, but I was not completely satisfied with the recipe I chose. Note: that didn't stop me from downing the entire glass of the stuff!
In the future, I will leave it in its concentrated form. This will allow me to have it as hot coffee, by mixing in some hot water, or as iced coffee. By making it up into a pitcher and diluting it with water already, I'm pretty much forced to drink it as iced coffee. I'm just thinking it would not have a fantastic flavor if I poured a cup and zapped it in the microwave. It is still probably better than instant coffee.
Do you have a recipe that you like? Let me know in the comments what you use.
