Coffee is the answer to all your problems, but you like your coffee cold and aren’t fans of bitter flavors or hot coffee? Well, me too. What if I tell you that some cold brew coffee is all you need to satisfy your cravings?
In this article, we will talk about making cold brew coffee simply at home with ingredients and equipment that are readily available, the multiple ways to enjoy your cold brew coffee, why you should pick cold brew coffee over other beverages, and also address the myths about coffee that have been floating around.
1. Why Cold Brew?
Cold Brew Coffee is your way out of the overly bitter or watery cup of disappointment you might have been drinking till now. With this cold brew coffee recipe, you can get a smooth, strong, and sweet drink on your hands.
This homemade cold brew coffee will taste equally as good as any machine would make, if not better, as it is custom-made for you.
With this great recipe for making cold brew coffee, you can control how long you let it brew, and you can alter how strong or weak you would like your cold brew coffee to be.
Not only does making cold brew coffee like this allow the true flavor of caffeine to seep into your coffee, but it also makes it less acidic as the cold water filters away the bitter compounds that otherwise remain present in hot forms of coffee and often tend to take away the best flavor of Sweet Caffeine from you.
Cold Brew coffee is as refreshing as it sounds. One batch can last you a week, unlike iced or hot coffee, as the freshness of a cold brew coffee remains for a long time, making it the perfect everyday iced caffeinated drink.
Cold brew coffee is the better alternative to iced coffee, as not only is it stronger or custom to your liking in terms of caffeine intake, but it is also less bitter and acidic than iced coffee, and it is hence important that you learn how to make cold brew coffee at home.
2. Cold Brew Coffee: A Health-Conscious and Refreshing Alternative
Trista Best, an Environmental Health Specialist, Adjunct Nutrition Professor, and Registered Dietitian at Balance One Supplements, supports cold brew coffee consumption for a health-conscious preference:
“Cold brew coffee can be a health-conscious choice when consumed in moderation due to several factors.
Its distinct brewing process involves steeping coarsely ground coffee beans in cold water for an extended period, resulting in a smoother, less acidic beverage.
This method retains beneficial compounds like chlorogenic acids and antioxidants [found] in coffee, offering potential health benefits.
Additionally, the lower acidity of cold brew may be gentler on the stomach, reducing the risk of digestive discomfort.
Moderate consumption of cold brew can contribute to improved mental alertness, enhanced mood, and even support physical performance due to its caffeine content.
As with any beverage, moderation is key to avoiding excessive caffeine intake and potential negative effects, but [overall], cold brew can be a refreshing and health-conscious alternative to traditional hot coffee.”
3. What Do You Need to Make Cold Brew Coffee: Ingredients and Equipment?
The best ratio recommended to make the perfect homemade cold brew coffee is 4:1 water-to-ground coffee. For every portion of coffee grounds, you add four parts of water.
This gives you a coffee concentrate strong enough to taste the essence of coffee but not too strong. To dilute the taste of coffee, you can always add ice, cold water, milk, and creamer, among others, to your cold brew coffee.
3.1 Ingredients:
- Coarsely ground coffee beans of your choice – 1/5th of your container.
- Filtered, room-temperature water – 4/5th of your container.
- You can add ice, milk, creamer, water, or any other mixer to your drink later.
3.2 Equipment:
You don’t need any special equipment. The things required to cold brew coffee at home are those you’ll easily find lying around. These include:
- A jar or container, its size depended upon how much coffee you’d like to make at once.
- Something to gently stir your drink with; a simple spoon would also do the job.
- Coffee filter paper, a cheesecloth, or a fine-mesh sieve to filter away the excess and obtain a smooth liquid.
- Use a large measuring cup to check the number of your ingredients.
4. Recipe: Pick your ratio
For a balanced brew
When making cold brew coffee using the recipe of 4:1 ratio for your cold brew concentrate, you can take reference for the number of ingredients to use from the example mentioned below.
A quart Mason jar holds 32 ounces or 950 ML, translating into four servings. For this, you will use 25.6 ounces or approximately 760 ML. (3 ¼ cups) of water and add it to 6.4 ounces or 182 g approx. (12.5 tablespoons) of coffee grounds.
While this is the best-recommended recipe ratio for those who enjoy a balanced presence of coffee in their drink, for others who wish for a stronger or weaker caffeine intake, two other ratios are recommended to make their cold brew.
4.1 For a stronger brew
Those who would like their cold brew to be even stronger can try a 3:1 ratio recipe of water to ground coffee for every three portions of water; you add 1 part of ground coffee beans.
Remember that this recipe will give you a very strong cold brew coffee, and to balance out the same, you will have to add more ice, water, and milk to your drink than your cold brew.
For example, if you use a quart mason jar, it holds 32 ounces or 950 ML, translating into four servings. For this, you will use 24 ounces or approximately 710 ML. (3 cups) of water and add it to 8 ounces or 227 g approx. (15 tablespoons) of coffee grounds.
4.2 For a less caffeinated brew
Lastly, those who wish to enjoy a slightly less caffeinated drink can try a 7:1 ratio of water to ground coffee for every seven portions of water, and you add 1 part of coffee.
This recipe would give you a slightly less caffeinated drink, but you would still be able to enjoy the taste of coffee in your cold brew.
I’d recommend not adding more water, ice, or milk than your coffee concentrate while mixing your beverage, as it might become too diluted and take away from its original flavor. The best way is to add equal parts or fewer mixing agents to your cold brew liquid of this ratio.
Taking the above example again, if you use a quart Mason jar, it holds 32 ounces or approximately 950 ML, translating into four servings. For this, you will use 28 ounces or 829 ML approx. (3.5 cups) of water and add it to 4 ounces or 114 g approx. (7.5 tablespoons) of coffee grounds.
Now that you know what and how much to mix for your perfect cold brew, let’s look at how to brew your coffee through a few easy steps.
5. Simple Cold brew coffee in 5 easy steps
You can learn the preparation of cold-brew coffee by simply following these five easy steps.
- Coarsely grind the fresh coffee beans of your choice.
- Transfer the coffee grounds to the jar or container and pour room-temperature filtered water over it while stirring gently for a few minutes.
- Cover the jar or container with a lid, let it seep into the water, and leave it at room temperature for 12-15 hours or overnight, depending on how strong your coffee is.
- Strain the excess through paper filters or a fine mesh strainer that is thin enough to let the smooth cold brew concentrate get through and trap the excess.
- Now store the smooth, strained coffee in the fridge, have it last week long, and enjoy as you please!
6. Tips to remember!
- While you can pick any coffee for a cold brew, medium-roasted coffee beans with sweet and fruity flavors have proven to give most people the experience of the perfect cold brew coffee.
- 2. You must use pre-ground coffee or grind your coffee beans to a fine powder as then they tend to lose the oils necessary to bring out the true flavor, color, and rich effect of coffee beans.
- Another important tip is to avoid leaving the ground coffee in water for longer than 15 hours, as it may allow some of those bitter compounds we are trying to avoid to get through.
- Make sure to filter and re-filter till you get the smooth liquid and the excess is strained away. This will add to your experience of having a cold brew coffee.
- Measure and add to your liking the amount of ice, water, milk, or other things that you might mix in your cold brew as they add to its taste and dilute the caffeine from your drink.
For your convenience, some ways to enjoy your cold brew coffee have been discussed below.
7. Brewing Brilliance: Exploring the Optimal Coffee Roasts for Cold Brew Mastery
James Hyslop, the founder of The Coffee Folk, shares their experiments with different coffee bean roasts for Cold Brew:
“For traditional Cold Brew (steeped in cold water over 12-24 hours) [we] have found that Medium to Dark Roasts work well.
[Traditional] Cold Brew is made with a fairly coarse grind and then placed in room temperature water to steep for usually [anywhere] between 12 and 24 hours.
As such, the brewing process has an almost flattening effect. Instead of highlighting the specific flavor notes of different beans (say pour over), it [tends to produce] a fairly generic tasting cold and refreshing coffee.
We have found that the best-tasting Cold Brew made this way is medium-to-dark roasts and often blend instead of Single Origin. Very light roasts tend to produce an overly acidic cold brew, which simply isn’t all that enjoyable.
The other way to make Cold Brew is the way advocated by James Hoffmann for years now is basically pouring over ice. In that method, the coffee is ground medium to fine and then brewed in something like a Kalita Wave with hot water over ice.
This also produces a form of Cold Brew, [but] one far different from traditional Cold Brew. Instead, like pour-over, it excels in highlighting specific flavor notes.
[As such] this type of Cold Brew works brilliantly with Single Origin coffee and can deal with lighter roasts also. For this type of Cold Brew, my favorite beans [to use] are from Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia, and are light-to-medium roast.”
8. Ways to serve cold brew
Two ways suggested for storing your coffee concentrate in the fridge include making ice cubes out of the filtered liquid and adding those later to milk or water as per your liking or simply storing the liquid in any container in the fridge.
Cold brews can be enjoyed in several ways. A few popular ones have been listed below:
- By simply adding ice or cold water, you can dilute your cold brew coffee to your liking and savor the refreshing beverage almost as it is.
- Another way is to add to its taste by adding milk or creamer to it; this would taste like a cold coffee, only much richer and less bitter!
- Cold brew also pairs well with smoothies to give a fruity breakfast treat spiked with caffeine.
- Certain cold brew cocktails have also made their way into cafés, and you can attempt those at home, too! You can experiment with your cold brew by adding alcohol such as tequila, vodka, or bourbon.
- Other alternatives include non-alcoholic mixers such as tonic water and topping it off with a lemon peel. Grapefruit juice or maple syrup, soda water, and an orange slice also pair well with cold brew.
Beyond this, cold brew is also often useful for baking or cooking sauces to top off meats.
9. Coffee and Health
While sipping on that cold brew coffee, we must think about, address, and break the myth against coffee intake.
To do the same, we need to be aware of what we consume, whether it is healthy for us, and the right amount of caffeine intake for an average human.
9.1 Nutrition information:
Coffee is a source of Vitamin B2(Riboflavin), Magnesium, Caffeine, and certain plant chemicals – polyphenols like chlorogenic acid and quinic acid and diterpenes, including diterpenes cafestol and kahweol, which are all beneficial to health if taken in the right amounts.
An eight-ounce cup of coffee contains about 95 mg of caffeine; dietary practitioners have recommended about 3-5 eight-ounce cups of coffee, which is the intake of around 400mg of caffeine in a day, as a healthy nutritional practice.
9.2 Breaking the myth:
This beverage has been the subject of an ongoing debate. Understudies about coffee have often bred myths like too much coffee can cause cancer or cardiovascular diseases, which have managed to infect our minds with alleged risks of coffee.
It is common knowledge that excess intake of anything is harmful. On the contrary, recent reports have proven that coffee may be good for you. The same goes for coffee, but when taken in appropriate amounts, it has proven to prevent the growth and spread of cancer cells.
Coffee intake has ensured a lower risk of type 2 diabetes in the long run. It has also shown neurological benefits in some people by acting as an antidepressant or protecting cells that produce dopamine. By reducing inflammation and insulin resistance, coffee also interferes with disease development and lowers the risk of early death.
While coffee offers these health benefits, it’s also important to understand when it can harm you. Individuals who suffer from symptoms of jitteriness, anxiety, and insomnia or those with high blood pressure may not be able to tolerate higher levels of caffeine.
Coffee can also lead to pregnancy loss and low birth weight. Hence, pregnant women are advised to intake a limited amount of caffeine after consultation with doctors, as it may vary from person to person.
Bottom Line
It is also necessary to consider how you enjoy your brew, as extra calories often come in excess milk, sugar, and whipped cream that you might add to your drink and offset the benefits found in a basic black coffee.
The type of bean used, whether it’s roast or ground, steeping time, and brewing method also come into play when you want to reap the benefits of coffee.
Keeping these things in mind, cold brew, therefore, becomes one of the very few forms of coffee that, when consumed in its original form, can help you gain most of the benefits of coffee without affecting your health.
So, you must switch to cold brew from your other forms of coffee and attempt to learn how to make cold brew. Through this article, let us know if you found it helpful.
Guest Author: Saket Kumar
Last Updated on by Sathi Chakraborty, MSc Biology
