Cold brew is one of the most popular coffee drinks in coffee shops. It’s also the go-to coffee drink to brew at home during hot weather. It’s simple to make and packed with caffeine and flavor.
Preparing cold brews at home can save you time and energy. You don’t need any coffee-making machinery to make it. It is also one of those brews you can pre-brew without destroying the flavor and aroma of coffee beans.
You may confuse cold brew with iced coffee because of the term “cold .”But these two coffee drinks are not the same.
What is Cold Brew?
Cold brew is a robust coffee drink prepared for several hours without heat. It involves soaking coffee beans or grounds in water for 12 -14 hours, resulting in a brew that’s low in acid and high in caffeine and flavor.
You should use a medium dark roast to brew cold brew coffee. Their bold, chocolate flavors make outstanding cold brews.
The best grounds to use when preparing cold brew are coarse coffee grounds. These ground sizes allow for the free flow of water during cold brewing, ensuring you get a highly flavored, aromatic, and richly caffeinated brew.
Using fine coffee grounds to make cold brew only results in bitter flavored coffee due to over-extraction.
How to Make Cold Brew?
Since you are used to making coffee using hot water, you may wonder how cold water will extract coffee from your coffee grounds. Well, coffee grounds absorb water which extracts the coffee flavor in the grounds that is then released into a coffee brewing carafe or jug.
All you need when making cold brews is ground coffee and water to the ratio of 4:1. Which means you should soak one cup of coarse coffee grounds in four cups of water which is about a liter. Pour this mixture into a jug and cover it with a muslin cloth.
Put it in the fridge for 12-14 hours, and you’ll get a brew packed with flavor and caffeine. You can store cold brew coffee for up to a week in the fridge.
Cold brewing is the ideal way to make coffee when you don’t have a coffee machine or time to brew coffee using your machine. These brews are excellent for hot summer days when drinking a cup of hot coffee will only make you uncomfortable.
You can also use a French Press to make cold brew coffee. You need coffee ground and water in the ratio of 1:2, which means 1 cup of 100 g coffee grounds for 2 cups or 500 ml of water.
Using a French press makes the process of straining out coffee grounds easier. All you need is to mix the grounds and water in your french press machine and leave them for 14 – 24 hours.
Once the brewing time is over, push down the plunger and strain out the cold brew. That will create a concentrated cold brew coffee that you can mix with water, milk, flavored syrup, or creamer.
You can also use drip coffee brewing to make cold brews. It is a slow process requiring you to drip ice water over coarse coffee grounds, while slowly collecting the resulting liquid in a carafe below. You can get a cup of medium-bodied coffee in as little as 3 hours using this method.
Cold brew has a reputation of being dull in flavor. You can improve the flavor of cold brew by hot blooming the coffee grounds before leaving them to release their flavor in the fridge. That will require you to pour hot water over coffee grounds to prime them for extraction, helping you to loosen more of the subtle flavors in the grounds.
Best Coffee Beans for Brewing Cold Brew
The best coffee beans to use in cold brewing are single-origin coffees with a distinct flavor. Dark roasts are also ideal because they give cold brew coffee rich chocolate, earthy, nutty flavors that most people prefer.
However, you can also use light to medium roast to get some of the natural acidity from coffee beans in your brew. Here are some coffee brands that are known to make excellent cold brew.
1. Colombian Supremo coffee
Colombian supremo coffee is single-origin coffee that produces a brew characterized by bold flavor notes. These flavors come out perfectly when you use these beans in cold brewing.
The Colombian beans used in cold brewing are usually dark roasts that produce well-balanced coffee. They are characterized by chocolate, caramel, and fruity notes.
2. Organic Light Roast Coffee
Organic light roast coffee is for cold brew enthusiasts who prefer to brew their coffee with organic beans.
These beans are made from 100% Arabica single origin beans. They produce cold brew coffee that is a bit acidic but packed with flavor.
3. Cold Press Organic Coffee
Cold press organic coffee is for coffee drinkers who prefer ethically produced coffee.
It is a blend of high-end Ethiopian light and dark roasts that produce sweet-tasting, rich coffee with subtle fruity or floral notes.
4. Peet’s Baridi Blend
Peet’s Baridi blend is a coffee made explicitly for cold and ice coffee brewing. These beans are a blend of coffees from East African countries such as Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania.
They produce a bold, slightly sweet brew that’s packed with aroma.
5. Coffee Bros, Cold Brew Blend
Another blend made specifically for preparing cold brews is Coffee Bros, Cold Brew blend.
It is made of 100% Arabica coffee beans sourced from Ethiopia and Brazil and is characterized by chocolate and brown sugar flavors.
What Sets Apart Cold Brew Coffee from the Rest?
Brewing coffee using low temperatures may be new to you if you make your coffee with a machine. There is quite a difference between the 195 -205 degrees Fahrenheit that we use to brew hot coffee and the 35 -70 degrees Fahrenheit that we use to make cold brew.
The low temperatures we use when making cold brew necessitate using twice as many grounds as those used in the hot coffee brewing process.
That’s a disadvantage, but you can make up for it by using the coffees we’ve suggested above to make your cold brew excellent. These types of coffee have been tried, tested, and seen to produce the best cold brew you can find anywhere.
Conclusions
That’s a bit of information on how to make cold brews and the types of coffee to use. While we’ve given you a few tips on how to make cold brews, it’s up to you to experiment using different beans and brewing styles to find what gives you the best-tasting coffee. You can also invest in a cold brewing kit to ease the process of making cold brews.
Cold brewing is one of the best ways to make coffee concentrates that you can dilute with hot water, milk, or cream. Some people add spices and flavored syrup to cold brew too. Try it; it may give you an unforgettable coffee drinking experience.
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