Make cold brew coffee with this easy recipe
In the last five years, cold brew coffee has shot to prominence here in the UK and appears to be the most significant speciality coffee trend since the Flat White broke into mass appeal and was widely adopted from high street cafes to ready-to drink supermarket consumer brands.
Due to its proliferation, you can imagine the forms cold brew can come in are many (tips below on how to play around with these) but the fundamentals for brewing remain the same. Cold brew coffee literally means just that - the absence of heat.
All coffee is about using water to dissolve the soluble parts of roasted coffee and while making cold brew coffee follows the same principles there are a few key differences with the outcome.
- No heat means that the brewing process takes longer. Sometimes this can be 12-24 hrs. A slower brewing method also means you can't really mess it up.
- No heat also means only a portion of the total spectrum of flavours inherent in roasted coffee is accessed. This means a slightly less expressive total picture of the coffee is captured but also means the flavour compounds at the extremities are left in the ground beans which is deliberately sought out and can be a little 'softer' to suit some people's preferences.
Pro tip - grab yourself some muslin cloth for making cold brews. It's the easiest way to keep the coffee separated from the water much like you'd use a bouquet garni in cooking.
Ingredients:
- A large brewing vessel, this could be a large Cafetiere, water jug or Tupperware container or if you want to invest could try a Toddy Coffee brewer.
- Coffee ground for filter brewing. We like the Central/ South American types such as our The Mount Blend or Piemonte.
- Filtered water
- Muslin Cloth for a clean final brew (or cafetiere can work too)
Method:
- Weigh out and grind coffee coarse for filter brewing. We'd use 70g / 1litre of water as a starting point.
- Put the coffee inside a fine muslin cloth and close tight using string or a rubber brand.
- Cover in filtered water in a brewing vessel and set aside for 12-16hrs.
- taste samples using a teaspoon to decide when the taste has reached your desired profile
- Separate and decant for cold storage.
- Serve over ice and enjoy
Pro tip - There's not a great deal of manipulation the brewer can impart on the flavour make up of cold brew coffee without introducing heat but you can play around with the concentration. The above recipe will create a final brew with a similar concentration to hot brewed coffee but with less acidity and a softer flavour profile. This means it's ready to drink with no dilution.
If using as a concentrate (e.g. with milk or even espresso martinis) try doubling the dose for brewing. In the case of the above recipe, this would mean 140g of ground coffee.
