Some friends may think that cold brew coffee is just coffee powder soaked in cold water for a long time? Actually it’s not! Delicious cold brew coffee not only needs to consider these parts, but also needs to pay attention to some small details to assist our extraction. But if you do it right, we can easily brew delicious iced coffee in just a few steps. Here, Front Street has summarized several important details about the steps for making cold brew coffee. Friends at home may wish to check on their own, which will help us make a cup of ice-cold and fragrant standard cold brew coffee.
Different from ordinary hot water brewing coffee, the so-called cold brew mainly uses cold water (normal temperature water) and coffee powder to mix, let it stand for several hours in a low temperature environment, and finally filters out the coffee grounds to obtain an iced coffee liquid. With a bag of coffee, a clean, airtight container, and a refrigerator, you can achieve the freedom of cold brewing at home.
In fact, compared to the strict parameters of other coffee extraction methods, cold brewing is very compatible. From the selection of coffee beans to the sealed container, to the ratio of powder to water, grinding thickness, and soaking time, it has a wide range of control. In other words, as long as the parameter combination is not particularly extreme, you can make good iced coffee.
The soaking time should not be less than 8 hours and not more than 18 hours
In hand brewing, we pay special attention to the water temperature and time, because water is the main brewing medium, and the temperature directly affects the extraction efficiency of coffee. If it is too high or too low, it will change the taste of the coffee. Since cold extraction is only in contact with low-temperature water of 4-10°C throughout the process, the extraction efficiency is very slow. Therefore, it is necessary to extend the soaking time to release more aroma substances, thereby allowing the extraction of sugars, organic acids and other compounds more fully, and the resulting coffee will be more balanced in terms of acidity, sweetness and body. Under normal circumstances, it is usually recommended to control the soaking time of cold brew coffee between 8 and 18 hours.
Front Street once conducted a cold brew experiment with time as a variable, soaking a coffee for 6 hours, 10 hours, 16 hours, and 24 hours respectively. Finally, it was found that the taste of the 6-hour coffee was too thin and the aroma was bland. The cold brew soaked for 24 hours was obviously bitter and showed signs of over-extraction. The 10-hour and 16-hour groups showed the best flavor, with rich aroma and rich taste.
Coffee beans that are too fresh can also affect extraction
In many high-temperature brewing conditions, fresh roasting is often the first factor that many people consider. Firstly, the aroma of beans that are not in the tasting period will be greatly reduced. This is a consensus that everyone has reached. Secondly, the discharge of gas allows us to intuitively judge whether the beans are fresh or not, such as the concentrated oil in Italian and the bulge during steaming. It also shows that the coffee is at the peak aroma stage.
As the coffee beans continue to be heated in the boiler, the freshly roasted beans contain a large amount of carbon dioxide. If you want to extract the aromatic compounds inside, they must be discharged first. Cold brew itself is a relatively static extraction state, and low-temperature water inhibits the release of this part of gas to a certain extent, so the brewed coffee will easily become weak over time. Therefore, Front Street recommends using coffee beans with a roasting date of more than 10 days to make cold brew, which is more conducive to making coffee with rich aroma.
Stir thoroughly before and after extraction
Many newcomers are quick to do this. After adding water, they just cover it and put it in the refrigerator. The surface of the coffee powder looks wet, but in fact, some parts of it are not exposed to water, so the dry part of the coffee is obviously not involved in the extraction. In addition, after a night of standing, most of the particulate matter has settled at the bottom of the container. If you pour it out and filter it directly, there is a high probability that you will only get the upper layer of light-colored liquid, which will probably taste bad.
Judging from previous experience, if you use a pot with a larger capacity, you can use a stir stick or a long spoon to stir the coffee powder and water evenly before placing it in the refrigerator. After taking it out, stir it for a few times before filtering. When you are using a sealed water bottle, just shake it up and down gently after capping.
Filter out the powder residue and make cold brew taste better
There are also many options for filtering coffee grounds, such as the built-in filter of the cold brew pot, metal filter, filter paper, and flannel filter cloth. The size of the filter pore structure is different, and the particulate matter that can be effectively blocked is naturally different.
Take the cold brew pot used by Front Street as an example. The mesh size of the filter is 245 mesh, which is considered a relatively high-density type. However, fine powder and ultra-fine powder may still precipitate out. If it is not filtered again, there will be a layer of flocculent oil on the liquid surface. The flavor of the coffee is not much different from that after filtering, but the rough feeling left on the tongue when swallowing is relatively obvious. After drinking, there are some powdery residues visible to the naked eye at the bottom of the cup.
For a better drinking experience, Front Street will use higher-density filter paper to sift it once, which can not only effectively filter out the ultra-fine coffee powder, but also block more than 80% of the oil. After separating out the powder residue, Front Street will also put the cold brew coffee liquid into a sealed refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours, until the flavor substances are further precipitated and matured. In this way, the cold brew tastes full of flavor, clearer in taste, and more transparent in acidity.
After the cold brew is brewed, do you need to refrigerate it?
For the cold brew that the store usually produces, Front Street will seal and refrigerate it in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours after separating the residue, and then sell it.Although the refrigerator at home may look clean on the surface, there are still many microorganisms that are difficult to detect with the naked eye. If you are not careful, it may cause food spoilage or deterioration. Therefore, in order to ensure that the coffee is not contaminated by the outside world, the containers we use must be well sealed and clean. Low-temperature storage is not only to inhibit the reproduction rate of certain bacterial colonies, but also to allow the substances in the coffee to undergo a slow and controllable fermentation process. This also explains why the longer the ice drops are left, the stronger the fermentation flavor of the coffee will be.
Compared with ice dripping extracted at room temperature, cold brewing in which water soaks coffee powder all night already has a relatively complete flavor. At this time, re-icing the coffee liquid for a few hours is more to allow the water-soluble substances to further ferment to bring a more transparent and mellow coffee taste.
How long can cold brew be stored in the refrigerator?
Front Street noticed that many friends who are greedy for convenience will brew a large pot of coffee at once and store it in the refrigerator, and then pour it out whenever they want to drink. This also leads to the fact that if there is no mark, it is easy to forget how many days the coffee you made has been in the refrigerator and whether it will go bad.
First of all, the fermentation process of low-temperature extraction cannot be interrupted. Refrigeration only slows down the fermentation speed of coffee. As time goes by, the substances dissolved in the water continue to change, and eventually it will spoil. In addition, every time we open the bottle cap, the coffee liquid will actually come into contact with the air. This will not only cause the aroma to dissipate, but may also bring bacteria into the container. Generally speaking, for the sake of flavor experience and health and safety, whether it is ice dripping or cold extraction, as long as the extraction method is carried out in a low-temperature environment, Front Street recommends that you drink it within 5 days (counted from the production date).
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
