Cold Brew Home Brew: A Barista’s Cardinal Rules & How-to Guide
Spoiler Alert: It’s Way Simpler Than You Probably Think
It’s that time, when the ranks of insulated coffee cups, steam wafting atop, start to thin out, replaced by their clear, tall counterparts, straws peeking out just so. In other words, it’s turning prime time for cold brew.
While the street-level evidence is far less visible this spring due to our current unfortunate circumstances, our yearning to move from hot brewed to cold steeped coffee is no less palpable. With it has come a deluge of questions about how to do cold brew the right way at home – and with them, lots of answers…too many answers that too often conflict with the last thing you heard, and that are often too complicated.
As a coffee professor, mixologist and former barista champion, I’m here to tell you that it’s not tough at all to make really good cold brew in that kitchen of yours…chances are, using stuff already sitting on your shelves and countertops. Just follow these simple rules and you’ll be savoring the good, chilled stuff come the morning.
Beans Single-origin people, stick with me for a minute. Go with a blend of high-quality, fresh Arabica, and you won’t go wrong. Why? Because blending beans from a variety of origins (in illy’s case, nine of them) adds complexity from a wider range of elements to extract. Cold brew’s long steeping time means more extraction time, and more notes coming forward like you’ve never tasted.
If you insist on going single origin, choose Brazil. The dry processing method used by growers throughout the country after harvest produces a delightful natural sweetness, with pronounced chocolate and caramel notes that emerge fully during overnight cold-water steeping.
Roast Cold brew calls for a medium roast, once again owing to how the process’s length accentuates flavors. Darker roasts are naturally more bitter and lighter roasts are naturally more acidic. Either can be a delight in a rapidly brewed cup of hot coffee, but these characteristics get amplified beyond their pleasurable limits after soaking at length in cold water.
Grind & Time Here you have some latitude, depending on how long you have to steep. A finer grind like illy uses to make cold brew is better-suited to shorter steeping times – 12 hours in our case. A coarse grind like you’d use for French Press can go as long as 24 hours. Just adjust time accordingly for grinds along the spectrum.
And no matter how long your coffee steeps, make sure all the magic happens in the fridge, not your countertop.
Coffee-to-Water Ratio The golden rule: for cold brew, use 70 grams of ground coffee for every liter of water. What’s that, you don’t have a scale? And you hate the metric system? Fear not. That ratio translates to the amount of ground coffee that completely fills an 8 oz. cup for every 33.8 oz. of water.
Important: this ratio produces unconcentrated cold brew, ready to drink once fully steeped. Do not add water. There’s nothing technically wrong with making a concentrate by using less water during steeping and then adding water at the end. For me, using all the water at the start makes for a more forward and uniform taste, kind of like the difference between fresh juice and juice made from concentrate. It also takes less guesswork when it’s time to enjoy.
Also important: use only cold water, ideally filtered, or ever better, bottled spring water with a mineral content about 150 mg.
Equipment Let’s take all the mystique out of cold brew, right now. You can make it in just about anything that will hold your desired volume of liquid. Add the water to the ground coffee, cover and put in the fridge. Once fully steeped, strain the mixture through a filtering device dense enough to trap the grounds.
If you’re thinking, “Hey, my French Press sounds perfect for that,” you are correct. Just make sure to save the plunging (and re-plunging) till the end! For my money, French Press is about the best value for your coffee gear dollar, and certainly the most versatile.
And there you have it: DIY cold brew in just a few easy steps. Did I mention the whole prep process takes about three minutes, from measuring to grinding to sticking in the fridge? The hard part? Trying to get some sleep just thinking about what awaits you in the a.m.
Not quite ready to brew for yourself? illy has just the thing: a brand new, ready to drink cold brew that can be delivered right to your door.