- Posted by Lisa
- Wed, 07/07/2010 - 15:29
My experiment with iced coffee
Recently on the Roaste Facebook page an article was posted about making iced coffee the "cold" way. This intrigued me. The formula given is 1/3 cup ground coffee beans to 1 1/2 cups of water (can be doubled or tripled). This interested me because I love cold coffee. I made a pitcher of it last night and let it sit for fourteen hours before the temptation overtook me and I had to try it. I put the grounds in last and stirred (the grounds of course floated to the top). I used Armeno Coffee's India Mysore Nuggets.
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I was not sure how good this would taste when I brought the pitcher out of the fridge. I was not crazy about the smell. To me it smelled stale. A nice foam has formed overnight (I again could not resist the temptation so I tried it - yum!). I stirred and waited for the grounds to settle (the foam had reformed).
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I then realized I did have a problem - I could not find my mesh strainer. To counter this I slowly poured the coffee into a carafe (trying to keep as many grounds as possible in the original container). I then used the basket of my coffee maker as a strainer. I (slowly again) poured the coffee into the basket, waited for the coffee to drip into the carafe then added more.
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After what seemed like a long time (it probably went faster than I thought) I got to sample. During this time my father was going through his ritual to make his normal hot morning coffee (we have two coffee makers that we use - sometimes at the same time). Both the hot and iced coffees were ready around the same time. He used the same coffee for making hot coffee that I did for making cold.
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I was pleasantly surprised by the iced coffee. The "stale" smell was gone and instead I has the very appealing smell of fresh coffee (I really need a perfume that smells like that). It was very mellow and not as strong as I thought it would be. I tried it and my father's hot coffee side by side. I used more coffee to make the iced version but they tasted pretty close.
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I decided to take the experiment a bit farther. I warmed up some of the iced version.I wanted to see how heatingcold made coffee would compare to chilling hot made coffee. It tasted just as good hot.
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I am happy with the results of my experiment. I am not sure how often I will do it - it takes more coffee than the hot version but it is an option. If I had known about this the time I went camping I would have made coffee this way then. I will keep it in mind for the future. I do want to experiment with other coffee types (and amounts of coffee used) to see if that will make a difference.
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REVIEWS & COMMENTS
A VERY INTERSTING EXPERIMENT!
Son Ton | Mon, 02/06/2012 - 02:03Thank you for doing a very interesting cold brew experiment. I have never try cold brewed coffee before and your post really inspire me!
COOL - OR SHOULD I SAY COLD
Wakeknot | Sun, 10/02/2011 - 21:32Iced coffee is refreshing especially in the summer.
ICE COLD
EricBNC | Mon, 09/05/2011 - 20:19The drink in the photo looks awesome - lately Iced coffee has been very much in style!
CONCNETRATED COFFEE
Jules Kragen | Thu, 07/08/2010 - 17:19Hello.
It's good to see somoene else with the love of iced coffee who understands just how good cold brewed coffee is.
I won't hide the fact that I work for a company that makes great cold brewed concnetrated coffee. Quite the contrary, drop me an email with your address and I will send you a bottle to play with.
You'll never look for that strainer again.
Jules Kragen
Ryan Coffee Co.
jkragen@ryancoffee.com
COOL EXPERIMENT
biscotti | Wed, 07/07/2010 - 17:54A topic never covered on ROASTe, Lisa. Brava! Great first post.