The EASIEST Way To Make Cold Brew Coffee At Home
When it comes to drinking coffee cold, there aren't many drinks that beat a great cup of cold brew. In this post, we are going to talk about the benefits of this extraction method & how simple it really is to make!
We will be using the following items:
Gallon mason jar
Typically in a blog post, the writers want to hide the recipe at the bottom of the page, but today we're gonna break that trend…
How to make cold brew
Using our cold brew bags, this process is so easy that it takes any guesswork out of it. No grinding beans or measuring grounds, our bags are prefilled with some amazing Colombian coffee!
Take one of the cold brew bags and place it in 1 quart (4 cups) of cold water for 12-24 hours.
Remove the bag from water and place your new cold brew in a sealed container in your fridge.
Serve and enjoy!
Make sure to not leave it uncovered as the smells from your fridge can quickly contaminate the flavor.
If you want to learn a bit more about cold brew and why it is awesome, keep reading!
Cold brew tastes better
For some people, a 10-year-old can of Folgers ground coffee is the highlight of their day, for others, it may be an exotic bean that costs $30 a bag.
No matter what your level of coffee knowledge is, everyone will agree that cold brew is just the best way to have cold coffee.
Sure, you can take your old Folgers coffee, run it through your old drip coffee maker & then put it in the fridge…you’ll have cold coffee in no time. The thing is, it won't taste nearly as awesome if you were to make a proper cold brew.
The reason is, heat alters the flavor of everything it touches. Coffee beans are sensitive, if you don't treat them with some sort of respect, you can quickly change their flavor to something undesirable.
That is the beauty of this extraction method, there is no heat involved! We will talk about how to make it further on in this post, but at the end of the day, you’re just submerging coffee grounds in cold water.
Being able to gently extract the oils means that you preserve all of the nuanced flavors that are lost when boiling water interacts with coffee grounds.
A big part of enjoying the way something tastes is also a term called “mouth feel”. When extracting coffee with this method you get this beautifully smooth and silky drink that goes down like butter!
Cold brew is stronger (usually)
This may be a double-edged sword, unfortunately. If you are sensitive to caffeine, cold brew may not be a great option for you as the content of it will be higher.
To those of us who can drink 4 espressos before bed, this may be our answer to weak coffee.
There are several reasons that your cold brew may contain more caffeine than your basic cup of drip coffee, those being:
The concentration of beans vs water
Length of extraction time
Not watering down the final product
Heat does tend to extract more caffeine, but the factors above are what really lead to a strong cup of coffee.
Typically when people make cold brew, the bean-to-water ratio is much higher than that of what you would see in a drip machine or a pour-over. This will lead to a concentrated product which is why it seems stronger.
Also, rather than a 2-4 minute extraction process, cold brew can take anywhere from 12-24 hours which gives the caffeine plenty of time to extract in cold water.
Lastly, many people that drink cold brew don't tend to water it down or mask the flavor with milk. This also leads to more caffeine as you're drinking a concentrated product rather than something that may only be 50% coffee.
Good to have around for other recipes
If you are a true coffee addict and use it to make random things throughout the week, cold brew is great to have on hand.
One of the best things to do with cold brew will be discussed in the next section, but there are so many coffee recipes out there that this can be used for.
Some of my favorite ways to use cold brew are to make ice cream or ice cubes with it for future drinks.
Making cold brew even better…
Walk into any hipster coffee shop and you may see “nitro cold brew”. Typically this is a bit more expensive and has a mystique to it.
People believe that you need some crazy restaurant-grade keg system to make this, but that could be the furthest thing from the truth.
Nitro cold brew is an incredibly simple upgrade that just involves adding nitrogen to your coffee. Now why do this? Simply put, the mouth feel and flavor are just out of this world.
I have had every sort of coffee imaginable from some of the best shops in the world, not many things beat a nitro cold brew. Pair it with some sort of tart lemon dessert and you will have one of the best flavor combos ever.
To make nitro cold brew you will need some extra gear, but you don't have to break the bank. If you just want to try it out, you can use something like an ISI whipped cream can that uses small cartridges to infuse your coffee with nitrogen.
There are also consumer keg systems for home use available that would work much better and in bigger quantities, those tend to cost around $150-200 for a decent setup.
If you love beer, you will enjoy nitro cold brew so I definitely suggest looking into it.
Wrapping up…
We hope that this recipe has opened your eyes to a new method to extract coffee. Not only is this the best drink for summer, but it may also be the easiest way to make coffee ever!
Grab our cold brew bags here
Already have a cold brew setup and just want some beans? Roast 003 is an awesome choice to try out for your next batch!
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