With summer temperatures on the way, Cold Brew will again be a focus of coffee drinkers wanting to cool off but stay caffeinated.
Why cold brew? Cold brewing coffee uses time (rather than heat and pressure) to brew your coffee. The result is a coffee that is lower in acidity and sweeter than espresso. This makes it ideal for iced coffee drinks, for example, iced lattes.
Our favourite way of brewing is with the Toddy system. It’s simple, and it looks like a bucket with a filter in it, which it is. It makes 2 litres or 10 litres, depending on your unit.
What is the process? Take 350g of coarse-ground coffee, put it in the Toddy with 1.6 litres of water, stir a bit, then wait 12 to 24 hours. That is a brew ratio of 1 gram of coffee to 4.5 grams of water. The resulting coffee is pretty strong and can be diluted with both ice and your choice of milk.
At home, you can use any kind of glass jar or jug. As long as you can filter the coffee particles out of it, you are good to go. You can even experiment using a plunger. Just use the same brew ratio above as a starting point, around 1 gram of coffee to 4.5 grams of water.
If you like to drink cold brew black, then you can dilute that ratio a bit.
To serve, you can work on engaging your cocktail skills. Think cold brew served with sparkling water, vanilla syrup, cocoa nibs, ground spices, ice cream, the list is only limited by your imagination!
