FWIW cold brew coffee is extremely easy to make, gives a different flavor profile than brewing with the same beans hot, and I find it super refreshing in hot weather. My only complaint is the extraction is inefficient so you go through a lot more beans for the same amount of beverage, which irks me. But then again, sounds like you’ve got the situation sorted, that tea sounds great.
That cold brew method is how I got into coffee, since I didn’t like it much at the time, so I didn’t have a coffee machine or anything specialized. I made the extract and made cafe au lait with it.
My current method for most days is to make coffee right before I go to bed. If I want it warm to hot, I’ll Aeropress and add warm or hot water in the morning. If I want it cold, I do pour over. I put it into a mason jar, and I think it keeps the original flavor profile really well, at least well enough for when I stumble to the kitchen at 5 am.
It’s not the same as the cold brew method, but the Aeropress with a metal filter is pretty close without the extra bean usage.
Cool! For the cold, are you just saying you put water and grounds together in a mason jar overnight, then use the Aeropress with the metal filter in the morning to strain? Cuz that’s pretty close to what I do. Mesh strainer (like for rinsing fruit), then through Aeropress with paper. Maybe I should try the metal instead, paper gets pretty gummed up and impermeable.
The metal filter will let the coffee oils through along with some of the fines leaving you with more flavor and mouth feel that the paper filter holds onto.
I’ve done the method you do, and if I’m remembering right, it’s much harder to press cold for some reason. I’ve done it that way hot too with very coarse grounds to clear up cowboy coffee when I want to make a bigger batch, but the gf doesn’t like the fines.
What I do is I make my Aeropress extract as normal. I do 20g beans, 200g water, inverted for 2 minutes and extract into the mason jar, cap it and toss in the fridge right away. Then in the morning, I add 150g water at around the temp I want to drink it.
It gets it immediately to the desired drinking temp, and the extract in the sealed container doesn’t taste old/stale/flat because it has been in the sealed jar, and it’s reheated by plain water, the coffee isn’t messed up microwaving it.
I do it mainly to put the effort in while I’m awake at night, and then all I have to do is microwave some water in the AM, so it’s either ready right away with tap water or fridge water if I want it cold or room temp, or in a minute to 90 seconds if I want warm or hot.
It’s essentially regular Aeropress brewing, but split over 2 days. Especially as the gf likes my coffee but doesn’t want to follow the steps and measurements, it lets me have 2 big cups of Aeropress first thing in the morning without all the measuring, boiling, and squeezing when I’m not in the mood for all that. Since we both don’t like scalding hot, fresh coffee anyway, it works out better for us, especially if we want different temps but at the same time to enjoy it together.
Interesting! I definitely see the advantages you mention. I’m curious about the strength, though, my understanding was that the cold brew just needs much more extraction time (which makes sense intuitively from a physics and energy standpoint). And you’re not using a particularly strong ratio, I actually use 1:8 for my overnight “steep”, slightly stronger than your 1:10.
With that said, you seem experienced. Works out to pretty “normal” strength coffee (whatever that means)? I guess something I’m vaguely remembering about the Aeropress is that the pressure itself helps it extract efficiently even with lower heat, but I’m not even sure how much pressure there would be with the metal filter.
Ah, I was not clear about the brewing water. The extraction is made with water just off boil, so it is a standard hot extraction. My final bean:water ratio is 1:18 which is fairly standard. I use that to scale up recipes when I do other things.
I don’t really consider any pressure from the Aeropress. With a clean paper filter or metal one, the pressure feels inconsequential. The Aeropress benefits to me are the immersion brew method of the grounds and the repeatability and adjustability of the brew since it’s all manual. You can tweak every variable, and I’ve never ended up with anything undrinkable from cowboy coffee to wannabe espresso.
Ohhh. I see. Using the Aeropress to make concentrated coffee, letting it cool overnight, and then deciding how you want to serve it by what you add to it in the morning. Makes sense to me.
FWIW cold brew coffee is extremely easy to make, gives a different flavor profile than brewing with the same beans hot, and I find it super refreshing in hot weather. My only complaint is the extraction is inefficient so you go through a lot more beans for the same amount of beverage, which irks me. But then again, sounds like you’ve got the situation sorted, that tea sounds great.
That cold brew method is how I got into coffee, since I didn’t like it much at the time, so I didn’t have a coffee machine or anything specialized. I made the extract and made cafe au lait with it.
My current method for most days is to make coffee right before I go to bed. If I want it warm to hot, I’ll Aeropress and add warm or hot water in the morning. If I want it cold, I do pour over. I put it into a mason jar, and I think it keeps the original flavor profile really well, at least well enough for when I stumble to the kitchen at 5 am.
It’s not the same as the cold brew method, but the Aeropress with a metal filter is pretty close without the extra bean usage.
Cool! For the cold, are you just saying you put water and grounds together in a mason jar overnight, then use the Aeropress with the metal filter in the morning to strain? Cuz that’s pretty close to what I do. Mesh strainer (like for rinsing fruit), then through Aeropress with paper. Maybe I should try the metal instead, paper gets pretty gummed up and impermeable.
The metal filter will let the coffee oils through along with some of the fines leaving you with more flavor and mouth feel that the paper filter holds onto.
I’ve done the method you do, and if I’m remembering right, it’s much harder to press cold for some reason. I’ve done it that way hot too with very coarse grounds to clear up cowboy coffee when I want to make a bigger batch, but the gf doesn’t like the fines.
What I do is I make my Aeropress extract as normal. I do 20g beans, 200g water, inverted for 2 minutes and extract into the mason jar, cap it and toss in the fridge right away. Then in the morning, I add 150g water at around the temp I want to drink it.
It gets it immediately to the desired drinking temp, and the extract in the sealed container doesn’t taste old/stale/flat because it has been in the sealed jar, and it’s reheated by plain water, the coffee isn’t messed up microwaving it.
I do it mainly to put the effort in while I’m awake at night, and then all I have to do is microwave some water in the AM, so it’s either ready right away with tap water or fridge water if I want it cold or room temp, or in a minute to 90 seconds if I want warm or hot.
It’s essentially regular Aeropress brewing, but split over 2 days. Especially as the gf likes my coffee but doesn’t want to follow the steps and measurements, it lets me have 2 big cups of Aeropress first thing in the morning without all the measuring, boiling, and squeezing when I’m not in the mood for all that. Since we both don’t like scalding hot, fresh coffee anyway, it works out better for us, especially if we want different temps but at the same time to enjoy it together.
Interesting! I definitely see the advantages you mention. I’m curious about the strength, though, my understanding was that the cold brew just needs much more extraction time (which makes sense intuitively from a physics and energy standpoint). And you’re not using a particularly strong ratio, I actually use 1:8 for my overnight “steep”, slightly stronger than your 1:10.
With that said, you seem experienced. Works out to pretty “normal” strength coffee (whatever that means)? I guess something I’m vaguely remembering about the Aeropress is that the pressure itself helps it extract efficiently even with lower heat, but I’m not even sure how much pressure there would be with the metal filter.
Ah, I was not clear about the brewing water. The extraction is made with water just off boil, so it is a standard hot extraction. My final bean:water ratio is 1:18 which is fairly standard. I use that to scale up recipes when I do other things.
I don’t really consider any pressure from the Aeropress. With a clean paper filter or metal one, the pressure feels inconsequential. The Aeropress benefits to me are the immersion brew method of the grounds and the repeatability and adjustability of the brew since it’s all manual. You can tweak every variable, and I’ve never ended up with anything undrinkable from cowboy coffee to wannabe espresso.
Ohhh. I see. Using the Aeropress to make concentrated coffee, letting it cool overnight, and then deciding how you want to serve it by what you add to it in the morning. Makes sense to me.
Yup, you’ve got it!