Cold Brewed Coffee

I made my first batch of cold brewed coffee today.  It was good but to be honest I want to play with the ratio more and use a different coffee so that I have something to compare it with - stay tuned.

I used my 8 cup French Press coffee maker and filled it with 1-Cup of coffee grounds.  Then I filled the rest with room temp filtered water and let soak for 24 hours.  I stirred it once at 12 hours because the grounds made a sort of crust on the top and I wanted to make sure that all the grounds were being steeped by the water.  After I stirred the grounds they did not form a crust again but rather sank to the bottom and steeped fully for the last 12.

I used an initial 1 to 3 concentrate to hot water ratio to make the coffee but then I landed on a 2 to 3 ratio.  It was good coffee.  There was no bitter and the acidity seemed non-existent.  In the morning I am going to try a 1 to 1 ratio and see how that works out - I am expecting great things.  I liked that the coffee was immediately drinkable as the hot water mixed with the cool concentrate made it nice.  i suspect that tomorrow's 1 to 1 ratio will make the coffee too cold as the concentrate is in the fridge tonight so it will be cold rather than room temp and the 1 to 1 ratio will make there be more cold in comparison to the hot.  If I like the flavor better using a 1 to 1 ratio then I will have to make a more dense concentrate and go from there.  Again, stay tuned.

3-Keys to Great Coffee

There are really only three keys to a great cup of coffee and I am going to share them with you here...

1.  Coffee must be fresh!  

Some coffee brewers promote the freshness of their coffee because it is brewed a few minutes before you get it and then it is poured into the drain when it becomes so-many minutes old.  That is commendable but it is only half of the fresh equation - the other side of the fresh coin is that the coffee needs to be roasted fresh. Coffee begins to stale the very moment that it is cooked.  It oxidizes from the air just as metal begins to rust. The process of staling coffee is impeded in a variety of ways but stale it still goes. (And the freezer method to keep coffee fresh is little more than a mythical hope).  I give coffee 14 days before it goes off, not Cinderella off but off enough that one can tell the difference. 

2.  Coffee must be made with good water!

Coffee too easily takes on the flavor of the water that is used to make it with.  I once made Michigan Snow Coffee and I also made coffee using good old-fashioned rain water - I don't suggest it without good filtration because it was nasty. Even with the tap water you can tell the difference between filtered and non-filtered--So get yourself a Brita or something like it if for nothing else but your coffee.

3.  The Coffee-to-Water Ratio must be Correct!

And here is the greatest of the three...We've all done it. We get the coffee container out of the freezer and use a spoon to fill the filter with grounds, we stop adding grounds only when we "feel" like there is enough caffeine and from pot-to-pot we wonder why we cannot get it to taste the same.  The fix to this is to weigh your coffee (ie. For every ounce of water you need a set amount of grounds to go with it).  I use a standard .042oz. (by weight) to 1oz. of water (by volume) for my ratio.   

Of course, coffee flavor will always be subjective according to the tastes of the person drinking it. There are a thousand things that factor into the flavor of your coffee (what you ate earlier, the roasting profile of the bean, the origin of the bean, the specific crop that the bean has come from, the blend, the cleanliness of the cup that is used, etc. etc.) but getting these three keys under control are huge and will lead to consistency and a better cup of brew.

For those who are purists:  Although I did not include it here there is something that needs to be discussed in another post - The idea of the Single Origin bean. Just as a single-malt scotch is preferable to a blended scotch or how a bottle of wine is known for the specific grape that is used to produce it so also a single-origin coffee bean is preferable to the blended grind.  At least that is my position as a coffee snob. ;-)

Coffee Like Motorcycles - Improve Your Coffee Part 1...

Ratio is a key to good coffee.  


When I had a 4-wheeler with a 2-stroke engine I had to mix oil with the gas.  There was a certain percentage of oil that had to be added to the gas for the engine to run properly: Add too much oil and it smoked - Add too little and it seized.  Coffee is the same.  Add too much coffee to your water and it is too strong (I know, hard to do but follow me here will ya?) - add too little and you're lucky to get bad tasting tea.


What ratio of grind:water do you use to make coffee?  You have likely learned that you just throw so many scoops in and hit the button right?  Try weighing your coffee.  I know this is a pain but really, you will thank me.  


1. Find out how many ounces of water you use in a pot of coffee.  
- Cups of coffee are 5 ozs. each.  So if you have a 12-cup pot you have (12 * 5) 60 ozs. of water.  


2. Now multiply the ounces of water with .042 ...  This results in a number that indicates how much grind (by weight) to use for your pot.


- 12 C = 2.5 oz
- 10 C = 2.1 oz
- 8 C = 1.7 oz
- 6 C = 1.25 oz
- 4 C = .85 oz
- 3 C = .65 oz
- 2 C = .40 oz


As a disclaimer, coffee tastes are subjective so you may be used to just heaping the coffee grind into your maker as drinking strong coffee.  Using the lower ratio may indeed make you think that the coffee is too weak.  Actually, your coffee is fine it's just that your 2-stroke engine is not smoking as much.