Best Coffee

I'd like to try it. What do you mean by "rinse them a bit?" My experience is that if you just cover the coffee, the "brew" will be almost completely trapped in the coffee mound and you won't get much out.

How much liquid extract do you get from a pound of coffee?

How does this differ from putting in as much water initially as you expect to get extract out? The devil is in the details.

It has been a long time since I did this. A friend bought a setup with a filter unit and a carafe. The filter unit is maybe 2 quarts and she would mostly fill it. It has a large felt plug in the bottom which acts as the filter. Paper filters clog very quickly which is what makes this hard to do. Once you drain the liquid off add a little more water to wash out the liquid sticking to the coffee. We used to do this in chemistry to wash out the supernatant from the precipitate to help keep the precipitate pure.

The liquid you collect will be a lot stronger than what you want to drink, so you will need to dilute it to taste.

I've done it with coffee filters, but it's a bit of a bother. Starting with a fine coffee screen might work better. Then use paper to get the fine stuff out.

Sounds like a French Press using cold water.

I don't think a french press would work so well. That pushes the grounds to the bottom so you can pour off the coffee. This is going to have a lot of coffee grounds. I suppose you can make it in smaller amounts, but it has to sit for roughly 24 hours, so why not make a larger batch?

I find all coffee keeps cold. You can drink it cold or hot, some like iced coffee.

Yes, you might not be convinced until you try it. Like I said, it was the best coffee I ever tasted. I wish I had one of those filter gadgets with the felt plug. That's the only thing I've seen that makes it rather easy to make.

Do you drink it cold? Does it keep?

Could you flog it in a fancy bottle?

Providing that the beans are fresh-ground and plentiful, I'm not convinced it matters how it's brewed, unless it's boiled.

RL

This is 100% truth. I do something similar, but make it extra extra strong, then when I'm ready to drink I just pour some hot water in from a kettle. It truly is the best coffee I've ever tasted.

Friend's dad did this. It really was good, with no trace of anything bitter at all, even if you drank it strong.

I've cold brewed tea but never thought of trying coffee. I usually brew my coffee with a pinch of salt to take away any bitterness. It really mellows the flavor.

In "Breaking Bad" the assistant chemis made an apparatus that pulled a partial vacuum so he could boil it at a lower temperature.

What good does that do? If you ignore the temperature and evaporation, all boiling does is mix things up. It does provide some temperature regulation if you don't have an easier way of regulating it. Vacuum is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think about regulating temperature.

I tried the cold brew instructions from the original post. I like it. But, I can't see how it can be different from just putting in all the water at the start and letting that sit. Next experiment will tell...

I do have one concern. If there's anything "biological" growing in the coffee or in your grinder or in the water or any part of the process, boiling has a chance of killing it.

I know coli bacteria can be an issue with iced tea, probably not as big an issue with coffee since it is roasted

-Lasse

I had the same thought, but you shouldn't ignore temperature and evaporation. The partial vacuum would let it evaporate with less heating, so maybe that's worth something. Or maybe it's a work of fiction.

I think the issue with adding *all* the water when brewing is that it requires a larger container and a larger filter.

If you are concerned with e. coli in your coffee, I suggest you buy different coffee. Does e. coli live without moisture? Many organisms are fragile that way and live only a short time on dry surfaces or food. Consider cereals and the like.

Isn't "freeze-dried" freezing under a partial vacuum? ...Jim Thompson

Den mandag den 20. juni 2016 kl. 01.01.31 UTC+2 skrev Jim Thompson:

freezing then vacuum

-Lasse

The idea is that the water is extracted by sublimation with less impact on the flavor. I think it works pretty well. If you get the strength right, freeze dried coffee isn't too bad. I've never tried it enough to get the strength consistently right. Melita brewing isn't very much effort at all and it's easy to make one cup.

I make a gallon at a time and store it in half-gallon plastic milk jugs. Not much of a space problem.

I'd argue that it takes a smaller filter. If you let it settle, most of the liquid will just pour off without clogging the filter (or without filtering at all). When you get to the bottom, there ain't much left to filter. You can just let it sit in the filter until you get bored and throw out the tiny amount in the grounds. I filter with a standard wire kitchen strainer. Keeps out the grounds. But there is a bit of sediment in the bottom of the container.

It's interesting how taste is affected by your attitude... If you want flawless coffee, sediment is an issue. If you think of it as a condiment, it's all good. ;-) That also works great on freezer burn.

I had a filter problem with my Mr. Coffee. I wanted to brew stronger coffee and dilute it at the time of use. I stirred the stuff in the filter as it brewed. Filter clogged up and I had to turn off the power to keep it from overflowing. I liked the taste of the coffee, but not the half an hour it took to make a batch.

How often do you disinfect your coffee grinder? Do you have pets spreading dander in the air? Lotsa ways to get nasty stuff growing.

I used to get green stuff growing on my cheese. One day the idiot light came on. I'd been storing the 2-lb loaf in the fridge in a plastic bread bag. Guess what they use to make bread? Duh!!! No more green stuff on my cheese.

For something really different, try mixing the coffee grounds with shaved ice. Pack the mixture into a drip basket, and let it slowly melt, washing the coffee with clean melt runoff, over a few hours (overnight in a fridge?). I've not tried it myself, but it would give you another temperature datapoint.