Cold Brewing of Coffee

[haresfur]

My coffee jedi-master has a cold drip coffee system where the water is very slowly dripped through the grounds rather than the steep-then-filter style of cold brew coffee. Aside from the cool factor of the drip system, are there differences in the cold drip from the cold brew coffee?

 

I asked him about this and he says yes. He has been doing some experimenting with brewing in a french press and although the difference is hard to describe, the drip is 'more full-on'. I'm not sure what to make of that but I will continue with the french press brewing for now.

[rotuts]

it would be interesting to try two cups side-by-side of the drip vs the steep system

[weinoo]

I still use the method my grandmother used 50 years ago. And she was making iced coffee drinks in the blender back then too. Nice and frothy - I think they have a fancy name now.

 

Make more hot than you need, and put the extra in the fridge.

[kayb]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the need in a specialized brewer for cold-brew coffee. I used a pair of quart soup containers from the Chinese carryout place -- one to brew in, the other to strain the cold coffee into. I brew the quart one full, which results in, obviously about 3/4 quart strained brew. Works for me, and you can't beat the price for the system.

[rotuts]

glass might be  'better '   

 

wait for something you are about to throw away.

 

might be easier to clean.

[weinoo]

No doubt glass is better, but the larger point I think kayb is making is that we don't need no stinking badges fancy toys.      .

 

Bottom line - iced coffee's good in the summer. Make it and drink it anyway you can!

[rotuts]

I differ only in that :

 

I really really need Toys.  Cooking Toys !

 

just not the the ones I make myself.

 

I do have a 'heating-pad' not PID but seedling growers matt

 

'just right ' thick cardboard box

 

some insulation here and some there

 

where I make my own Yogurt  from 1.99 / gal  ordinary milk

 

with the live starters i been keeping a while.

 

I use 4    1 qt standard Yog's containers for this

 

 

but Pleeeeeeeeese    more toys the better

Edited August 14, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[haresfur]

I use the french press because we have one, although the dog chewed the knob on top of the press part.

 

... and on another note, cold brew topped up with sparkling water is very nice.

 

I don't mind hot-brewed ice coffee if it's doctored up with milk and sugar but find cold brew is better if you drink it with less adulteration. And cold brew with hot water is much better than reheated hot brew.

[haresfur]

I differ only in that :

 

I really really need Toys.  Cooking Toys !

 

...

 

 

but Pleeeeeeeeese    more toys the better

 

I wonder if you could do 'tepid-brew' in the sous-vide. 

[rotuts]

low-temp boiling it would be !

 

a new niche !   

Edited August 15, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[kayb]

Kitchen toys are fine things -- I have several of them. But for them to be worthwhile to me, they have to (a) do something I can't otherwise do, like the Anova, or do something I CAN do, but do it much faster/easier/better/more efficiently (like the stand mixer or the food processor).

 

I don't see the cold brew system being any easier or more efficient than my Chinese carryout soup containers. And when they get stained, it's no big deal, as they've become single-purpose containers, and when they get too disgusting-looking, I chunk them and grab two more. (We order a lot of Chinese, and the local Thai and Indian places use the same containers.)

[weinoo]

As a matter of fact, I remember a topic about coffee and salt. I find that a little fish sauce in my joe makes me good to go!

[haresfur]

I've been pretty happy with French-press cold brew, but that's never stopped me from playing with a different system, so here is my geek-brew setup.

 

Bought an overly expensive ice-tea dispenser and attached a length of drip-irrigation tube to the spout, using some heat-persuasion.

 

 

Put a plug in the end of the thick tube and run a thin drip tube down to an adjustable emitter. Fill the dispenser with ice and water and place on a high shelf.

 

 

Run the drip tube down to an Aeropress with 50 g of coffee in since I'm aiming for ~500 mL and that's the ratio I use for the French press. I put a filter on top of the coffee, too to try to help prevent preferential flow tunneling through the coffee. 

 

 

The emitter was almost all the way off at first but I cranked it open a touch after a while. Another way you could control the flow is to have the water level just up to the tap on the dispenser and fill with lots of ice so the slow melting provides the water to the dispenser.

 

Or you could change the height of the dispenser above the emitter to alter the head. Bonus points for developing a calibration curve by weighing the coffee flow vs. height. 

 

The whole contraption.

 

 

It's still dripping so I don't have a report on the taste yet.

[ChrisTaylor]

How did it turn out?

[haresfur]

Good. I'm not sure it's better than the french press - I think you would have to be careful to use the same coffee and grind. I did a decaf drip, too and it's good enough. All in all I think you need to be more of a geek than I am to get more than the entertainment value out of building a drip system. I'll probably keep using it for a while and maybe do a proper side-by side comparison next time you come up.

[ChrisTaylor]

The French press method has become my go-to coffee delivery system. In large part because there's no fluffing around in the morning: decant some coffee from a bottle into a cup, add a bit of water, push the lid down.