I’m experimenting with cold brewing this weekend. Although there are specially designed cold-brewers you can buy, all you really need is coffee, water, and time.
For the purpose of my experiment, I bought a box of Black Mountain Gold single-cup coffee “pods” of the Kenya AA variety. I put them in a glass jar with fresh-filtered water and set the whole thing in the fridge. The results are pretty good. The coffee is strong, mellow and non-acidic. It packs a good caffeine punch, too. It’s not as highly concentrated as I would like, but I think that’s just a patience issue. If I hadn’t been siphoning off some of my brew within 24 hours and had just let everything keep steeping, it would’ve gotten much more concentrated than if I hadn’t been pouring out some to drink and topping off the jar with more water. Duh.
Since single-cup coffee pods are expensive and wasteful, I’m going to look into getting some reusable cloth bags next time I’m at Whole Foods or Central Market. I can then use whatever kind of ground beans I like for my cold brew. I also need to find a better container for it than the jar I’m using now. I’d like something I can pour from more easily, but I don’t want anything plastic. I also want to find a small container I can take to work—something I can use to make just one or two cups of coffee.
But overall, I feel like my recent coffee experiments are a success, and I love the convenience of just pouring my coffee (whether from a jar or a Java Juice pouch), adding a little hot water and being ready to go!
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6 comments:
This is why god has created the diet coke machine ;0)
I'm confused and intrigued. I've never heard of cold-brewing. Is the coffee steeped in the water and then heated, or do you just drink it cold?
How long must it steep?
Thank you for your courage in experimenting on yourself for the greater good of coffee lovers everywhere.
You can drink it hot or cold. Ideally, the coffee should steep long enough that it becomes highly concentrated so all you have to do is pour a little in the bottom of your cup and add hot water. But I haven't been patient enough, so I need about a 50/50 blend of cold-brew to water, and then I have to microwave it to get it hot enough.
The experiments will continue, though!
Please do keep us updated. I like the idea of pre-made yet tasty super-concentrated coffee. Does it avoid that foul reheated coffee flavor you get when you try to microwave a cup of regular coffee that's gone cold? Thanks for being the lab rat for the rest of us.
I'm a coffee addict, so this sounds verrrrry interesting! :)
I tagged you for a rather interesting meme. See my blog for details! :)
Crabby, there's no "reheated" burnt taste at all. It's really very nice, if only I could get it concentrated enough. The Java Juice packets I reviewed earlier contain only 1/2 oz of concentrate, but produce a nicely robust 8 oz cup of coffee. I need more like 4-6 oz of my own cold brew to make an 8 oz cup.
But it tastes good and is convenient, so I'm not really complaining.
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