Cafedenda wrote:Not specifically to Tom but, when using a lot of ice does the resultant brew taste funny like if you drink water from melted ice? I have never had iced coffee made this way but can't imagine it would taste as good as just using room temperature water.

I have never made a single beverage that I care about the taste of, without having frozen the water (high quality,great tasting filtered water) in ziplock bags. Ice cubes pick up freezer funk. Even in ultra clean freezers. I don't want my drinks, (margarita's or iced coffee) to have a note of freezer funk.

Yawn--another beautiful and creative piece made by Dave
Seriously, it looks awesome! Love the chemistry look to it.
I'm feeling my Hario Mizudashi is inferior

TomC wrote:I have never made a single beverage that I care about the taste of, without having frozen the water (high quality,great tasting filtered water) in ziplock bags. Ice cubes pick up freezer funk. Even in ultra clean freezers. I don't want my drinks, (margarita's or iced coffee) to have a note of freezer funk.

Another great tip learned--thanks Tom! Off to the store to buy some large freezer bags for the ice!

I bought these and they're dirt cheap, flexible, and fit into a standard gallon zip top bag, so they don't require some odd massive bag. Being silicone makes them easier to pop out, and subjectively, they're prettier for cocktail drinks and melt slower than typical long finger like ice cube trays.

If you really want to geek out and make something pretty, boil the water first before letting it cool and freezing it, you'll get solid crystal clear cubes of ice like they show in the blended scotch ads and commercials. Makes a nice touch for a fancy presentation, but entirely unnecessary. My only point was to freeze them in the zip top bag to avoid unwanted odor in the ice.

Yep, great tip, Tom. I have never even thought about trying to reduce the smell. Will try it when I clear out the next bag of frozen coffee from my small fridge.

My ice maker is in its own sealed compartment which helps prevent the freezer funk.

My last batch of drip brew I decided to try something different with. I am taking around 5 ounces of milk, adding in 3 or 4 ounces of my coffee extract, then steaming it in the espresso machine. Then I pull a triple into that. Makes an interesting drink, clarity of the drip brew with the body of the espresso. Kind of like a 'shot in the dark' drink. You get plenty of caffeine from it.

Sounds very cool! I've done something similar by pulling a shot into a black coffee.

cannonfodder wrote:My ice maker is in its own sealed compartment which helps prevent the freezer funk.

My last batch of drip brew I decided to try something different with. I am taking around 5 ounces of milk, adding in 3 or 4 ounces of my coffee extract, then steaming it in the espresso machine. Then I pull a triple into that. Makes an interesting drink, clarity of the drip brew with the body of the espresso. Kind of like a 'shot in the dark' drink. You get plenty of caffeine from it.

Woah! Did it taste good? Good enough to drink again, or was this just for kicks experiment?

Tom, got the same trays. And that boiling water trick sounds rad for when hosting friends. Thanks!

I put one of these together. Thanks for the suggestion, Dave.

I found the glass stopcock version to be cheaper on ebay. You have to get the hang of making sure the grease is correctly applied on the glass stopcock or it leaks. Also I wonder if the drip rate is more adjustable with the teflon one or did the grease partially gum up the flow. Today with ice-water the dripping would slow down to nearly stopped unless I set it > 60 drips per minute.

I've used a Guatemalan single origin, Cafe Juan Ana (efforts 1 and 2), and Velton's Bonsai blend (effort 3) for the three batches I've made. I've had iced coffee a time or two in cafe's. Some palatable, some bitter. So I'm pleased that I liked all three batches, the iced Bonsai the best. I'll probably continue to use ice/water mixtures for my Stephens (inspired) Drip-Orr-Matic 500.

For 1 and 2 I used cool water at two different rates and for effort 3 I used ice about 250mL and refrigerated water 250mL. I weighed the resultant concentrate and stopped the process after 2-3 hours with a brew ratio of 1:4.5. My grinds holder is an aeropress with metal disc filter and a paper filter, another filter atop the column of grinds. Definitely worth experimenting.

Cool. With the days getting warmer I am playing with the brewer more. Interesting results from some coffees.

I didn't see this earlier but Chert mentioned it when he was here. So I searched and found it. Good work Dave. Now I need to build me one.