There are sides to coffee that often get overlooked. While cold brew is not something new, it’s definitely a way of enjoying coffee that many are missing out on, or aren’t quite sure how to do. Hot coffee is just one side of the coin, and the same bag of coffee is likely to taste very different when you make a cold brew.
When we use cold brewing techniques, the process is much more gentle, and so we draw out less bitterness, and more of those aromatics. The cup we get - let’s go glass for cold brew eh - is going to accentuate the tasting notes differently to its hot counterpart. It’s the kind of thing you can batch up and have in the fridge ahead of a warm day sitting on the deck, or heading out to the beach.
To make cold brew, you’re letting fresh coffee grounds steep in cold water. It’s a much slower process than when we use hot water, but for cold brew, we’re seeking a different end result. As a general rule, a safe ratio to brew from is 25g of coffee ground coarse (think cafetiere), to 250ml of cold water, and we can scale that up or down a little to find a brew we like. The other variable to consider playing with, is time. As a rule of thumb, 12 hours is plenty for a strong tasting cold brew, but there are cold brewers available that can shorten this time significantly.
Below are two of our favourites:
THE HARIO COLD BREW FILTER BOTTLE
Looks like a wine bottle, pours like a wine bottle, but brews something entirely different. Hario is a respected name when it comes to coffee gear and this one not only cold brews your coffee reeaaaally well, but it also fits super nice in the fridge door. Holds around 750ml. It takes between eight and 20 hours to brew, depending on how strong you like it, so most people tend to set this up the night before then leave in the fridge overnight ready for the next day. The filter on this is amazing and helps give you a super clean tasting cold brew.
Need a recipe?
We brew 25g of coffee to every 250ml of water in the Hario - so 75g for the full 750ml. Grind the coffee as you would for a cafetiere - so coarse ground.
THE TIMEMORE COLD BREWER
Now this one brews a 400ml batch, which is about 2 cups worth. What’s great about this one, is that it can brew you up a batch in under four hours. It’s super durable and has an adjustable drip rate, so you can customise your brew with a bit more precision.
Need a recipe?
You can brew this one by loading ice up to the first mark on the top container. To allow for ice melt, we brew at a slightly different ratio here - roughly 40g to 400ml - and you can control the brew a bit more here with the drip rate. You want to adjust this so you get a drip every second, which will be corresponding to the grind. Again, we usually grind coffee coarse for this, the same as we would for Cafetiere.