There is no denying it, cold brew just hits different. If you walk into HQ around 1pm on any given day you are sure to find the entire team having their afternoon cold brew pick me up, we love it!
Best of all is cold brew is very versatile and so easy to make at home.
Why is cold brew different?
Cold brew is made with no heat being applied during the entire extraction process. Other iced coffees are made by chilling hot espresso or adding ice to hot brewed coffee.
The process of using time instead of heat to extract the oils, sugars and caffeine creates a much smoother, sweeter and less acidic beverage. Cold brew can be made double strength and mixed with any number of things to create your desired beverage. The only downside, is you have to be organised. The amount of time needed to properly extract cold brew means you need to start making it the day before you want to drink it. It will last a week in your fridge once made up so you can make a weeks worth at once potentially saving you time in the morning rush to get out the door
What you need
Course ground coffee. We recommend O.G. ground for plunger.
Filtered water. To enhance the flavours in the coffee further we use aquacade minerals.
A french press.
(If you don’t have a French press you can use any container such as a glass jar. You just need a way to strain out the grinds.)
Now this is really simple, all you’re going to do is mix your coffee grinds and room temperature filtered water together, we are using 150g of coffee to 750g of water and let it sit for 12-15hrs in the fridge (24hrs won’t hurt it if you didn’t time it quite right). Once the coffee is extracted you just need to filter out the grinds. Here is where the french press is handy. Just push down on the filter and the coffee will be pushed to the bottom and you can decant the coffee concentrate into an airtight bottle or jar, the grinds left in the bottom of the press can go into the compost. If you don’t have a french press you just need to find something to filter out the grinds you can use a paper coffee filter or just a tea towel in a colander.
Now for the fun part!
Now it’s time to get creative and make your cold brew. We recommend a 50/50 mix, 50% cold brew and 50% what ever you would like to mix it with. The list of what you can mix it with is endless, the classic is to mix it with water to enjoy the full flavour of the beverage, adding a little milk or cream to build the mouthfeel.
My favourite is a cold brew latte, in a glass of ice add half cold brew and half milk of your choice. Adding coconut water is so refreshing on a hot day or try sparkling water with fresh citrus slices to fancy it up.
It is really easy to control the strength of your coffee, if it is too strong add less cold brew and more mixer or if you are needing a bigger caffeine hit just add more cold brew and less mixer. It is completely customisable.
You can even take your cold brew from your morning brew to the evening by using it to make cold brew martinis. Go check out our socials for the recipe.
We love seeing what you guys are making but with the current lockdowns and border closures we can’t all get to HQ so be sure to share online and tag us in your posts so we can stay as connected as possible.
If you would like to get more tips and tricks go check out our website and sign up for our newsletter.
Stay safe and stay caffeinated.