Three words.....
Cold
Brew
Coffee
So Michelle came home from our supermarket the other day with a few cans of High Brew Coffee. Neither of us had had it before but the wife said the shelf was almost empty so she got a few cans lol. This brand was a second winner from an Austin couple. If you have ever heard of sweet leaf tea they came up with that brand but ended up selling it off. High brew is really good, has like 3-4 ingredients you can read, and comes in a few different flavors but is 2$ for an 8oz can. This is a problem for me...I refuse to pay for overpriced coffee drinks because I know how much they should cost
So I researched several different cold brew brewing techniques. Which each utilize unique pieces of specialized equipment. Being an artist and former glass blower I liked how the Yama cold brewer looked, and all of the reviews were positive but just could not spend the jack on a process I had not tried before.
http://www.amazon.com/Yama-Glass-Maker-Straight-Black/dp/B004EBUZ1A
So I settled on the OXO good grips cold brew coffee maker. It's not so much a piece of Art that makes cold brew, rather a no frills get the job done with the least amount of pieces that aren't fragile and that wouldn't be a pain in the ass to clean. The OXO is made up of only 4 main parts...one of which is a glass beaker that holds the finished coffee.
http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Coffee-Maker/dp/B00JVSVM36/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464539463&sr=8-1&keywords=Oxo+cold+brew
I won't bore you with every detail as you can find videos and others research online. What I will tell you is the process I used (for the first time) yesterday. First I roasted 13oz of Sweet Maria's Liquid Amber beans to just before second crack in my Behmore. Second I ground in the courses setting on my Vario grinder the 11oz of roasted beans and transferred them to the OXO brewing container. Third step is putting a lid on that that has holes (they call it a rainmaker lol) and pour 5 cups of water onto it which in turn disperses the water evenly over the grounds below. Since my beans were uber fresh they needed 10 min to bloom. This is where the rapid release of co2 occurs and makes your house smell like a giant coffee bean. Then I stirred the water and grounds with a spoon to make sure it was all saturated. Last step is to wait then flip a switch on the OXO which opens up a drain valve and transfers the finished product to the decanter.
The longer you wait the more complex the flavors become. The sweet spot I keep hearing about is 16-18 hours. The 2oz I used in my drink only had a 12 hour soak and was amazing so I am looking forward to seeing hour 16...17...and 18!
So why cold brew you ask? Short answer is a ton of flavor without the acid. I will admit that the beans I roast are taken to just before and sometimes 15 seconds after second crack and produce more of a dank chocolate and brown sugar flavor. This is what I look for because 2 oz of this espresso brewed stands up well in my milk based lattes and cappa's...and no I'm not one of those people that have fishbowls full of 18 oz of milk and 2 oz of espresso either. More like a 3oz milk to 2oz espresso. This is just how I made the drink I attached below....with ice.
So 11 oz of ground coffee produced roughly 4 cups of cold brew rocket fuel extract. Which you can then dilute into 2oz of coffee to 4-6oz of cold water or milk and ice for cold drinks. Or for hot coffee just add 4-6oz of hot water to the 2oz of cold brew extract. That would equal 14 total drinks but I'm thinking 9-10 because we won't dilute that much.
What's up next? More single origin beans that Madawg and others have talked about with blueberry flavor etc. Much lighter roasts but I don't really know where I can or should stop.....I'm guessing anytime after first crack stops. Letting my beans rest a bit before grinding. This time I went from roaster right to the grinder. Making multiple back to back cold brews then diluting with water on a 1:1 ratio and putting that into my small1.75 gallon keg and carbonating with nitrogen to make a coffee that come out looking like Guinness! I talked about this awhile ago on another thread here
http://forums.cigarweekly.com/showthread.php?t=176652
Cold
Brew
Coffee
So Michelle came home from our supermarket the other day with a few cans of High Brew Coffee. Neither of us had had it before but the wife said the shelf was almost empty so she got a few cans lol. This brand was a second winner from an Austin couple. If you have ever heard of sweet leaf tea they came up with that brand but ended up selling it off. High brew is really good, has like 3-4 ingredients you can read, and comes in a few different flavors but is 2$ for an 8oz can. This is a problem for me...I refuse to pay for overpriced coffee drinks because I know how much they should cost
So I researched several different cold brew brewing techniques. Which each utilize unique pieces of specialized equipment. Being an artist and former glass blower I liked how the Yama cold brewer looked, and all of the reviews were positive but just could not spend the jack on a process I had not tried before.
http://www.amazon.com/Yama-Glass-Maker-Straight-Black/dp/B004EBUZ1A
So I settled on the OXO good grips cold brew coffee maker. It's not so much a piece of Art that makes cold brew, rather a no frills get the job done with the least amount of pieces that aren't fragile and that wouldn't be a pain in the ass to clean. The OXO is made up of only 4 main parts...one of which is a glass beaker that holds the finished coffee.
http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Coffee-Maker/dp/B00JVSVM36/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464539463&sr=8-1&keywords=Oxo+cold+brew
I won't bore you with every detail as you can find videos and others research online. What I will tell you is the process I used (for the first time) yesterday. First I roasted 13oz of Sweet Maria's Liquid Amber beans to just before second crack in my Behmore. Second I ground in the courses setting on my Vario grinder the 11oz of roasted beans and transferred them to the OXO brewing container. Third step is putting a lid on that that has holes (they call it a rainmaker lol) and pour 5 cups of water onto it which in turn disperses the water evenly over the grounds below. Since my beans were uber fresh they needed 10 min to bloom. This is where the rapid release of co2 occurs and makes your house smell like a giant coffee bean. Then I stirred the water and grounds with a spoon to make sure it was all saturated. Last step is to wait then flip a switch on the OXO which opens up a drain valve and transfers the finished product to the decanter.
The longer you wait the more complex the flavors become. The sweet spot I keep hearing about is 16-18 hours. The 2oz I used in my drink only had a 12 hour soak and was amazing so I am looking forward to seeing hour 16...17...and 18!
So why cold brew you ask? Short answer is a ton of flavor without the acid. I will admit that the beans I roast are taken to just before and sometimes 15 seconds after second crack and produce more of a dank chocolate and brown sugar flavor. This is what I look for because 2 oz of this espresso brewed stands up well in my milk based lattes and cappa's...and no I'm not one of those people that have fishbowls full of 18 oz of milk and 2 oz of espresso either. More like a 3oz milk to 2oz espresso. This is just how I made the drink I attached below....with ice.
So 11 oz of ground coffee produced roughly 4 cups of cold brew rocket fuel extract. Which you can then dilute into 2oz of coffee to 4-6oz of cold water or milk and ice for cold drinks. Or for hot coffee just add 4-6oz of hot water to the 2oz of cold brew extract. That would equal 14 total drinks but I'm thinking 9-10 because we won't dilute that much.
What's up next? More single origin beans that Madawg and others have talked about with blueberry flavor etc. Much lighter roasts but I don't really know where I can or should stop.....I'm guessing anytime after first crack stops. Letting my beans rest a bit before grinding. This time I went from roaster right to the grinder. Making multiple back to back cold brews then diluting with water on a 1:1 ratio and putting that into my small1.75 gallon keg and carbonating with nitrogen to make a coffee that come out looking like Guinness! I talked about this awhile ago on another thread here
http://forums.cigarweekly.com/showthread.php?t=176652
