Cold Brew Coffee: How to brew it at home?

It behooves a coffee lover, one who also writes a food blog to know what cold brew coffee is. But I didn’t, until now! In New York city where we have it easy to find cold brew coffee everywhere. How hugely convenient, especially in the summer months? That cold, rich, and refined flavor of a coffee drink — at your whims.

In the heat and sweat of summer, the good-old reliable latte or espresso needs to come down in temperature — in the form of a cold icy drink. Besides, it takes more than putting ice in a shot of espresso. Mind you, that’s not cold brew; that’s ice coffee.

Jamie Oliver tells us that cold-brewed coffee is ground coffee steeped in cold water and strained, and iced coffee is generally brewed hot and poured over ice. However, there is a world of difference in terms of flavor between the two.

Jamie recommends using a large mason jar to make the cold brew. I put the coarsely ground coffee in a tall jar fitted with a tea infuser (made for ice tea). That saves me the few extra steps of straining ground beans from the coffee brew. The tea infuser seems to be up to the task of doing double-duty as a coffee strainer.

The first thing you realize is that cold brew is much sweeter than coffee made conventionally. Because of the intense and rapid extraction of flavor from the coffee beans by the hot water, regular coffee has a bitter taste to it. On the other hand, the gentle and slow infusion process of cold brew, which requires an overnight brew, brings out the natural sweetness of coffee. At the same time, cold brew has significantly lower acidity.

There is another advantage of cold brew other than the coolness and sweetness of it. When the outside temperature drops and you want to go back to a cup of hot coffee, you can pour hot water in the cold brew and serve it hot. Cold brew has a wonderful keeping quality. Due to its low acidity and the coffee grind has been removed, it can stay fresh under refrigeration for a month.

So the theory goes! There is not a chance that any cold brew would remain in my fridge for a month!

Print Recipe

Cold Brew Coffee

Ingredients

• 4 oz of coffee bean, coarsely ground
• 32 oz (4 cup) of cold water
• milk, for serving

Instructions

1

Set your grinder to its most coarse setting, and check a little of its output before doing the full grind – you are looking for roughly the same consistency as breadcrumbs. Any finer and you risk cloudy, grimy-tasting coffee.

2

Sterilise a large mason jar (or any large receptacle with a lid). Working to roughly a 1:8 coffee-to-water ratio, place your grounds in the bottom of the jar, and cover with cold water.

3

Stir gently until well combined, then cover and leave to steep for 18-24 hours, either in or out of the fridge.

4

When brewed, strain into a large bowl through a sieve to remove the larger grounds. Discard these (ideally into compost), and then, tucking either your muslin or a few sheets of paper towel into the cleaned sieve, strain back into the jar.

5

Repeat two or three times, until you are seeing no murky residue at the bottom as you finish your pour. If you cannot seem to sift it all out, don’t worry – it simply means your grind was too fine. Practice makes perfect with these things.

6

Serve over ice, with milk and sugar, if that’s your thing. Cover and refrigerate the rest – the wonderful thing about this stuff is that, if stored properly, it will stay good for a month or so due to the brew’s low acidity.

7

Brew your cold-brew strong enough and you can even mix it with boiling water and serve it hot. This is a really special way of doing things – the gentle, sweet flavours survive being combined with hot water because there aren’t any grounds left in the mix.

Notes

https://www.jamieoliver.com/features/how-to-make-cold-brew-coffee/