Compared with hot hand brewing, ice hand brewing obtains a richer coffee liquid by reducing the ratio of powder to water, and then uses ice cubes to cool down and dilute it. In order to make up for part of the extraction rate lost by reducing the amount of water, the grinding degree will be slightly finer than that of hot hand brewing.
Even if the ice hand brew has been adjusted to increase the extraction rate, from an extraction point of view, it is still a hot hand brew that lacks the later stage. In other words, it is "under-extracted." Therefore, we will find that when using the same coffee beans, the fullness, sweetness, layering and aftertaste of hot hand brewing are often better than those of ice hand brewing.
So, some friends asked Front Street: Is there any way to make iced coffee rich and sweet enough without being too extracted? The requirements are indeed a bit high, but it is undeniably a topic worth discussing.
Front Street has mentioned many times that the time points for the release of a large amount of sour, sweet and bitter are different, and the release of sweet substances often occupies more in the middle and later stages. However, with the ice hand brewing method that requires less water and shorter time, the sweet substances may not have time to dissolve, and the extraction process is over. Wanting to capture the sweetness in coffee during brewing means improving the extraction of sweet substances, that is, finding ways to buy more time for them to dissolve into water, thereby increasing the proportion of sweet substances in coffee.
To capture the sweetness of coffee, it is best to buy low-bitter and low-acid coffee beans such as Front Street Blackberry, Front Street Oiran, Front Street Hija, and Front Street Mozart, which have rich fruity aromas and fermented aromas.
This time, Front Street uses Costa Rica’s Front Street Strawberry Candy coffee beans as a demonstration. This is a unique Geisha blend with flavors of strawberry fudge, ripe tropical fruits, and raisins. The sweetness is highly recognizable and is very suitable for making ice cream in summer.
Front Street first tried to extend the extraction time by adjusting the grinding degree (EK43 scale 8.5) (the grinding degree in daily production is 9.5). The finer the coffee grounds, the slower the water will drop and the extraction time will be longer. However, because the particles were too fine, the extraction rate was too high. After adding ice cubes to dilute and cool down, the aroma and sweetness of the coffee were not improved, and it also showed a slightly over-extracted bitter aftertaste. Therefore grinding too finely is not feasible.
Then Front Street took another approach: filling it with water in more sections. Except for the steaming stage, the more stages with the same ratio of powder to water, the more times the powder layer is washed and stirred, the total extraction time is longer, and more substances are released in each stage. However, the more segments there are, the less water is injected into each segment, making the operation more difficult during ice brewing. Therefore, it is necessary to appropriately increase the amount of water that can be distributed, that is, increase the powder-to-water ratio to 1:12. As the amount of water increases and the concentration decreases, if you directly add ice to dilute the coffee, it will easily become "tasteless", so Front Street adopts a more luxurious method of rapid cooling: over-icing.
Test parameters: 91℃, 15g coffee powder, total water volume 180g, grinding degree EK43 scale 9, four-stage water injection: 30g+50g+50g+50g.
In terms of technique, Front Street also tried to improve the extraction of coffee substances by adjusting the size of the water flow. First use 30 grams of water to simmer for 30 seconds, fill the first section with water to 80 grams, and use a small circle of water from the center to scoop out the bubbles;
In the second section, add water to 130 grams, and use the same small flow of water to circle outwards, trying to wash away all the powder; in the last section, increase the water flow at a fixed point in the center, and add water to 180 grams. The water injection stops at 1 minute and 35 seconds, and the time for all the coffee liquid to drip is 2 minutes and 05 seconds.
Rinse the extracted hot coffee into a large amount of hard ice cubes, repeat several times until the temperature drops to about 5-10 degrees, and finally get about 200 grams of iced coffee liquid.
Then pour the coffee into an ice cup that has been placed in the refrigerator in advance to maintain a cool taste. The strawberry candy brewed in this way has a very full flavor, a smooth texture, and a clear sweetness from the preserved fruit. The fermented aroma is similar to fruit wine, mixed with a bit of floral aroma, and the aftertaste lasts in the mouth.
Of course, the solution tried here is only the result of adjustments based on the extraction logic of Front Street and the understanding of the flavor of this bean, and is not an absolute standard answer. Front Street believes that there is no universal brewing formula in the world. The meaning of hand brewing is to change the brewing method every time so that you can get more novel extraction angles and appreciate the more diverse flavor aesthetics of coffee.
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
