Cold-brew Coffee

Another of the many ways to brew coffee.

NY Times.¹

Without the bitterness produced by hot water, the cold-brewed coffee had hints of chocolate, even caramel. I dropped my sugar packet — no need for it. The best brews hardly need cream.

Cold-brewed coffee is actually dirt simple to make at home. You can even buy the Toddy cold-brew coffee system for about $30.

But you can also bang it out with a Mason jar and a sieve. You just add water to coffee, stir, cover it and leave it out on the counter overnight. A quick two-step filtering the next day (strain the grounds through a sieve, and use a coffee filter to pick up silt), a dilution of the brew one-to-one with water, and you’re done. Except for the time it sits on the kitchen counter, the whole process takes about five minutes.

NY Times.⁵

Time: 5 minutes, plus 12 hours’ resting

1/3 cup ground coffee (medium-coarse grind is best)
Milk (optional).

1. In a jar, stir together coffee and 1 1/2 cups water. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight or 12 hours.

2. Strain twice through a coffee filter, a fine-mesh sieve or a sieve lined with cheesecloth. In a tall glass filled with ice, mix equal parts coffee concentrate and water, or to taste. If desired, add milk.

Yield: Two drinks.

Note: To make hot coffee, dilute concentrate one-to-one with water and heat in the microwave.

Chow.com

Game plan: The coffee needs to steep for at least 12 hours, so plan accordingly.

You can brew the coffee in a 32-ounce French press if you prefer. Place the ground coffee and water in the pitcher, place the plunger lid on top, but don’t press the plunger down. After the coffee grounds have steeped, gently press down on the plunger until the grounds reach the bottom of the pitcher. Then proceed with step 2 of the recipe.

The resulting coffee from this brewing method is concentrated, so consider diluting it with equal parts milk or water.

Ingredients

For the coffee:
4 1/2 ounces coarsely ground coffee (about 1 3/4 cups)
3 1/2 cups cold water

For serving:
Milk, half-and-half, or water
Simple Syrup
Ice

Instructions

For the coffee:

1. Place the coffee grounds in a 2-quart pitcher, add the water, and stir to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and let steep at room temperature for at least 12 hours and up to 1 day.
2. Line a fine-mesh strainer with a standard coffee filter and fit it over a medium bowl. Working in batches, slowly pour the coffee into the filter until all of the liquid has passed through the strainer (the coffee will pass through in a slow stream; don’t force it through); stop when you reach the solids at the bottom of the pitcher (don’t pour them in). Discard the grounds and the contents of the strainer.
3. Wash and dry the pitcher. Transfer the strained coffee into the pitcher. Cover and refrigerate until completely chilled, at least 2 hours or up to 5 days.

For serving:

1. For each cup of iced coffee, dilute the concentrate with an equal portion of milk, half-and-half, or water. Sweeten with simple syrup if desired and top with ice.

Scripting.com - using the Toddy system.²

You buy a special plastic brewing container, it holds about a half gallon of water and one pound of coffee. There's a hole at the bottom of the container, which takes a plug, and has a place to lay a filter which is about 1/2 inch thick, made of some kind of fiber.

You let the whole thing stand for 3 or 12 hours (depending on whose instructions you're following) and then pull the plug and put the plastic container on top of a carafe designed to fit under it. Let it drip for about 1/2 hour and then put the carafe in the fridge.

The next morning it's cold and ready to make into iced coffee, or to be diluted (it creates a concentrated coffee) and zapped in a microwave.

Toddy Cold Brew.³

During the cold-brew process, time replaces heat. Todd Simpson, a chemical engineering graduate of Cornell, and who developed the Toddy cold brew system, discovered that high temperature facilitates the release of undesirable flavor elements.

Deceptively simple, cold water brewing extracts the delicious flavor compounds (and some of the caffeine) from coffee beans, but leaves behind myriad bitter oils and biting fatty acids, including undesirable elements such as ketons, esters and amids.

These are the same bitter acids and fatty oils that surface to the top of your hot cup of coffee, and give hot-brewed coffee that familiar 'bite' (thus the reason that some 8 out of 10 people attempt to soften the acidic taste by adding milk or cream to their coffee).

Zingerman's Brewing Methods.⁴

French Press Pot
The ever popular French Press (or Plunger Pot) offers up a lot for the coffee lover. By letting the coarse grounds steep in the water and filtering them out using only a fine mesh screen, coffee prepared this method is a very dense and heavy cup. It’s a simple and dramatic way to brew coffee.

Chemex
Originally designed by a chemist, this gorgeous glass pot brews an incredibly clean cup of coffee. That is due to the shape and weight of the filter, which is heavier than a regular Melitta filter.

Drip Cone Filter
Perhaps the simplest way to brew a cup of coffee, a drip (or pour over) coffee gives you a single cup with all the control your normal pot brewer doesn’t. This is a great starting place for the person who wants to make a great cup of coffee that doesn’t come out of a machine.

Clever Cone Dripper
A recent addition to the coffee world, the Clever Cone Dripper was produced to make an evenly extracted cup. The valve on the bottom keeps the coffee in the cone to steep and releases as soon as it’s placed on top of a cup. It’s the best of a press pot and a cone filter.

Vietnamese Drip
For such an under-loved brewer, this little guy can make one potent cup. A little top screws down the grounds between two wide mesh bits. When the water hits the coffee, it creates a reverse pressure and slows the speed of brewing, which can take up to six minutes.

Siphon Pot (Vacuum Pot)
This is the science project of coffee makers. Using a heat element to force the water up into the top compartment, the grounds steep with the water and as soon as the heat source is removed a vacuum occurs and pulls the brewed coffee down through a cloth filter leaving the grounds up top. A must have for those who love pomp and circumstance.

Aerobie Aeropress
A newer member of the brewer family, the Aeropress is a quick and delicious method of making coffee, making it ideal for espresso, americano and coffee lovers alike. The way it is designed, air forces the water through the grounds and a filter for a shorter extraction time thereby keeping the temperature up.

Ibrik
A beautiful bell-shaped pot that’s as old as specialty coffee brewers get. A traditional brewing technique in the Middle East, the Ibrik (e-breek) is designed for coffee prepared with powder fine coffee grounds, which is meant to be consumed along with the coffee beverage.

References

¹ June 2007 - NY Times - Iced Coffee? No Sweat

² July 2007 - Scripting.com - Cold-brew coffee

³ Why Toddy Cold Brew?

⁴ Zingerman's Coffee Bar

⁵ Recipe - Cold-Brewed Iced Coffee

Toddy system recipes for cold-brew coffee and tea - pdf file

Easy Cold-Brewed Coffee Recipe

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