The Hubbs and I have a very cool next door neighbor, Matt, who seems to know how to do everything. You'll get to meet him soon as a guest blogger. But for now, suffice it to say that he's the bomb. I've learned more about cooking and music and all kinds of stuff from him in the last four months than I've learned in total in the last four years (sorry, Hubbs - I know you taught me a lot about Wilco. It's ok. They're a great band.).
Matt is the creator of obsessions. For me. Not only did he teach me how to produce the yumminess we're going to learn about here today (cold brew coffee), but he gave me his starter set. See! I told you he was awesome (his wife Sandra is equally as awesome, btw).
What is cold brew coffee, you may be asking (if you aren't a hipster and/or don't live in Brooklyn, then ok, you're allowed to ask. The rest of you? Where the hell have you been?!)?
It's coffee that doesn't use hot water to extract the flavor from the bean/grounds. It's the bomb, tastes amazeballs, oh, and it's also 67% less acidic. And did I mention it tastes better than "regular" coffee? Waaaayyyyyy better.
And just because we're friends, I'll take you through it step by step.
*note the Lark the black lab in the background. I think she's stalking my coffee. Or she wants dinner. Either one.
First tip: Buy good coffee! This may seem like a no brainer, but I will admit to trying to be budget conscious and I bought some less expensive stuff. No bueno. Blech. So, do yourself a favor and buy the decent stuff. It can be already ground or whole bean if you have a grinder and are willing to grind a pound of coffee yourself. Shocker = I went the easy route (already ground). The stuff in the photo is my FAV! It's locally roasted (a woman who's daughter goes to school with the youngest bonus daughter roasts it herself) and sold here in Wake Forest. I like to shop local. You can buy her stuff here. She'll ship it to you.
Tip B: Buy a cold brew system (duh!). Yes, you could probably rig something up yourself, McGuyver. But with Amazon out there just waiting to drone-dropship you something, why take the time?
And if you aren't an Amazon Prime member - you're missing out. Free shipping on all kinds of stuff with one annual fee. Stuff like this cold brew system: Yay Cold Brew! This is the exact system I have. I'm sure there are others. But my system would beat your system up. Maybe.
Tip iii: Make sure you use good water. The water out here at Casa Callahan is AWFUL (yes, I'm looking at you, Tom Roberts, President of Aqua). So, we filter it first.
Now that you have your pre-work out of the way, LET'S MAKE COFFEE!
First things first. Avoid disaster. Put the included stopper in your brewing container and then make sure you have the included filter secure at the bottom. I'm not saying I've forgotten one or maybe both of the steps before. Nope. Not sayin'.
Now add about two inches of room temp filtered water (or tap water if you have good stuff).
Open your one pound package of coffee (I'm assuming you're lazy like I am and bought the already ground stuff) and pour about half of the package in, on top of the water. Take a spoon and gently mush (yup - technical term) the grounds down into the water. Add a little more water (you're on your own here for how much "a little more is" - maybe half way up the container?? You'll know it when you see it.). Now add the rest of your ground coffee. And then fill 'er up to the top with water. More spoon mushing just to make sure all of the grounds are wetted, and you're good.
I always lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the top, just to keep random bonus kid stuff from falling into it. Like cookie crumbs. Or iPods.
Now here's the hard part. You let it sit for 30 hours. Yeah, yeah. I know that's a long time. But once you get going with this, you'll learn to judge when you're closing in on being out of coffee and you'll make more. I promise.
And just like on those cooking shows on TV, just l like that you're 30 hours are up. Now what? You can use the Bodum glass container that came with the kit or skip that crap like I did and just go straight to a big jug. You see, you're going to need to mix water with your very strong brew at this point. And keeping it in the fridge in its strong state makes it harder for me to get it going in the morning when I have half an eye open. I make it easy on myself (see the theme here??) and mix it all together now.
Ready? This is the trickiest part of the whole thing. Balance the brewing container over whatever you're going to drain it into (see my nice $15 glass container with a spigot from BB&B - I tried to find it online for you but it's not on their web page). If you're using the Bodum container it will balance on there just fine. BUT back to the tricky part - you have to also have one hand under the brewing container so you can pull out the rubber stopper and let the coffee drain.
Now for some of you, that may be an easy task. Let's just say it's not so easy for ALL of us and leave it at that.
Some days it drains out really fast. Some days, really slow. If there are any physicists that read this blog, can you please tell me why in the hell that is down in the comments?! It keeps me up at night.
It usually takes about 2 hours to fully drain. Sometimes less. Sometimes more. Here's a picture after about 10 minutes.
The final step is to double the volume with filtered water and voila. Coffee!
Ok, you caught me. I poured a big cup full (or two) before I remembered to take the photo. Whatevs. It was full. Trust me. We're friends here.
I drink mine cold with some vanilla flavored coconut creamer (damn dietary restrictions). The Hubbs likes to warm his up and dump about a pound of sugar in there. We debate often on which is better. But either way, our coffee kicks your Keurig's butt.
I'm on giant cup #2 for the day, so I'm going to go run circles around the block now. You're welcome.
I love Trader Joe's Cold Brewed Coffee BUT this is even better. The very best thing about it, besides the fact that it's delicious is that I can make it decaf. THANK YOU!
ReplyDeleteI do love the decaf option too. And I know exactly what is going in my coffee (what kind, what water, what additives later). All the better in my mind. Thanks for the comment!
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