Calling all Cold Brew: What's your method of choice? - Page 2

Coffee preparation techniques besides espresso like pourover.
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SpromoSapiens
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#11: Post by SpromoSapiens »

I like to fill a pint glass with ice and press an aeropress straight down onto that. Tiny bit of diluted agave sometimes, or even a tiny splash of Kahlua if I'm feeling like it's a freewheelin' summer vacation day. This year, though, I have discovered the awesomeness of cold brew through a nitro tap, which I think is the best I've had. Not exactly feasible to make in the average home, but stumptown has come out with an expensive nitro canned cold brew product that I'll have to try at least once.

gophish
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#12: Post by gophish »

A very crude method, but I have always had decent results using an old glass (beer) pitcher and the immersion method. I then twice filter through rinsed paper filters lining a kitchen strainer or colander. It's not the most elegant, but odds are you can do it without needing to buy any additional equipment.

Where I'm interested in experimenting is with some of the methods that bloom with or do a short brew with a portion of hot or warm water and then add cold water to slow the extraction. I haven't dug deep into this methodology but it sounds like the goal is to get a little more acidity, brighter flavors, and perhaps complexity in the cup, has anyone played around with that much?
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CrabRangoon
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#13: Post by CrabRangoon »

I used to brew Chemex over ice, but have since switched to Aeropress over ice - just updose and press slow. I've experimented with doing a hot bloom and room temp (or cold) water but I change up beans so frequently I haven't formed a solid opinion on it. The beans I tend to favor (Ethiopian and Kenyan) tend to feel quite tamed and possibly too "clean" for me when brewed over ice Japanese style, so I should probably be trying a different origin for this. Haven't done hours-long infusion cold brewing in ages, so perhaps they'll shine more this way? I actually have the wine-bottle style Hario brewer you mentioned, but we only use it for tea. I guess I'll be trying coffee in it this week, since it really never dawned on me :oops: a 4, 6, or 8 hour cold infusion of tea is most excellent in this thing, though!

I just got a big bag of beans so I'll try using the same coffee/water dose, grind size, and steep time to prep two batches (one hot bloom, one without) to compare them. In the past I'd done it just following strange recipes and thought nothing of it, but one person did bring it up in Perger's recent AMA - the hot should give it more of an edge in regards to actual extraction, yeah?
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Intrepid510
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#14: Post by Intrepid510 »

Anyone use a wort chiller?

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jesse
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#15: Post by jesse »

Aeropress w/ Able disk fine
1/9 ratio or thereabouts
Fine-ish grind
Inverted
200f
Steep for one minute, press quickly

I usually press directly into a shaker with a few cubes of ice, shake vigorously, and the resultant brew isn't exactly cold, which is how I prefer it.

Anyway, I have been kicking around the idea of a drip tower. Have heard they showcase more of a SO's subtleties than with immersion. Anyone with an opinion on that?

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jesse
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#16: Post by jesse »

Okay, so as far as immersion methods go, I just tried Barismo's with the Populace Guatemala Hunapu, and relative to the more standard, concentrate-yielding recipes out there, this is definitely showcasing more origin flavors and a more complete acidity. Reheated slightly, it's totally killing standard manual pour and aeropress preparations, which are of course already great.

I brew in a press, use something like a Chemex grind, only plunge partially when decanting, and filter through a v60 02.

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