In my humble opinion, the best coffee in the world is cold brew coffee. It has all of the flavor and caffeine of hot brewed coffee but without 67% of the acid. Easy on your stomach!
Here’s some quick and easy steps to get started.
Prep for Cold Brew Coffee
Grind or have your whole beans ground coarse. Use a French Press grind or even a bit more coarse. We grind our own at home with a hand-driven grinder. We bought a Wondermill Junior several years ago and it still works great.
Use a strong coffee, like a French or Italian roast. You can adjust the intensity of the flavor — milder or more robust — when you make your cup of coffee to suit your taste because this recipe brews a coffee concentrate to which you add water for a hot cup of joe.
As we’ve aged, we only drink decaf. I know, I too used to say decaf was for weenies. But we found a French Roast that has great flavor — we can’t tell the difference. Check out San Fransisco Bay Coffee. Yummy stuff!
The ratio for brewing is one to two — for every one cup of ground coffee, add two cups of water. Brew your coffee in a glass or stainless steel container on the countertop for fifteen (15) hours. Filter the coffee concentrate from the grounds. Then, put the grounds in your compost heap or container.
Enjoy a Cup of Cold Brew Coffee
Here are the ratios of concentrate for a hot cup of coffee or an iced coffee:
Hot Coffee
One quarter cup (1/4) of concentrate to three quarters cup of boiling hot water. The beauty of cold brew is that you can adjust the mix to suit exactly how you like your coffee. Use less concentrate if this ratio is too strong for you. Use more concentrate if you like your coffee more beefy.
Iced coffee
If you’d like to have an iced coffee in the afternoon, use one half (1/2) cup of coffee concentrate and one half (1/2) cup of milk or half-n-half with a touch of some sweetener like stevia. Or cold brew some hazelnut coffee and use it for your iced coffee — you probably won’t need any sweetener.
Important Tips:
After brewing and drinking cold brew coffee for years, here’s what we’ve learned:
- You can buy a cold brew system ready to go, but for a fraction of the cost, I initially bought several glass juice containers (two quart) from Walmart and a large plastic funnel — less than $10. Currently I use a large stainless steel stock pot from a beer brewing website and it makes enough cold brew concentrate to last us about four weeks.
- I have made up to three gallons of cold brew at one time with no loss of quality, so I can confidently say that the one cup of coffee to two cups of water is a good ratio no matter what volume you brew.
- You can use something as simple as paper towel to act as a filter (in your plastic funnel), but I was always worried about the chemicals in the paper towel leaching into my coffee. Currently I use an organic muslin bag and it works great. There are also providers online who sell hemp bags designed for home-making almond milk that would work just as well.
- Brew your coffee on the countertop but refrigerate it after brewing. I’ve had coffee in my fridge for up to six weeks with no loss of flavor or quality.
- Buy a manual grain mill and grind your coffee by hand to the texture you desire. If the electricity ever quits for an extended time period, you can still brew coffee.
Cold brew takes a little effort but will return much pleasure every time you take that first sip. Enjoy your coffee . . . living on the patio.
Please Leave a Comment: Cold Brew Coffee
Please post a comment below to tell us how this recipe worked for you. What’s your ratio of cold brew concentrate to water? Did you make the iced coffee? Was it good? Please share and post a photo of your brew set-up.
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