Can You Make Cold Brew Coffee Directly with Milk? How Long Does Milk Brew Coffee Last?

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Can You Make Cold Brew Coffee Directly with Milk?

Many beginners want to DIY cold brew coffee at home, but they're not accustomed to the rich and intense flavor of black coffee right away. They want to add milk to balance the taste, but worry that incorrect proportions might affect the flavor and profile. This leads to the idea of making milk-extracted coffee—using milk directly to extract coffee flavors, which avoids diluting the coffee flavor while allowing you to adjust ratios and create a unique milk-extracted coffee profile. However, as a dairy product, milk-extracted coffee has a common drawback—it's difficult to preserve. Regular milk can be used for milk-extracted coffee, but how long can it be stored? FrontStreet Coffee is here to explain today.

The Appeal of Cold Brew Coffee

Cold brew coffee has been the trendiest drink in recent summers. On hot summer days, holding a glass of cold brew with translucent droplets forming on the surface—just thinking about it is exciting.

It's not just the visual coolness that attracts me; I've grown to love its texture—clean and refreshing, yet richly layered. Unlike traditional high-temperature extracted coffee, cold brew as a beverage that hasn't undergone high-temperature extraction tastes more "authentic."

The low-temperature extraction process can reduce coffee bitterness by 2/3, making small molecular substances easier to extract. This allows us to easily taste the inherent flavors of coffee beans, such as floral notes, with less smokiness and bitterness. The result is a coffee that appears delicate yet is full of flavor.

Milk Extraction Techniques

Use hot milk instead of hot water for brewing, rather than brewing with hot water first and then adding milk.

Brewing directly with hot milk yields a more concentrated latte.

The recommended temperature for hot milk is 70 degrees Celsius.

If you use room-temperature milk for brewing, you won't immediately get a delicious latte—it will require a longer extraction time. In summer, we can brew with room-temperature milk and then refrigerate it overnight. After about ten hours, you can enjoy an iced latte!

Milk can be whole or skim.

Since this method doesn't require frothing milk, using skim milk for brewing is perfectly fine. Simply choose milk based on your regular drinking preferences.

The recommended milk amount is between 140ml-180ml.

Coffee brewed with this ratio will fall within a range that most people find delicious. Of course, you can adjust according to your preference by adding more or less milk—it's all acceptable!

The coffee filter bag used for milk extraction can be reused once with hot water.

Some coffee enthusiasts brew this way and find it delicious while minimizing waste. We tried it too, and it offers a unique flavor. If you're interested, give it a try!

Milk-Extracted Coffee Recipe

First, you'll need a coffee grinder. For the non-woven bag, I chose tea bag style.

Select dark roast or espresso blend beans. Grind to mocha pot/espresso fineness—definitely finer than pour-over.

Choose skim milk. Fat molecules in milk can easily affect coffee extraction. After comparison, I find that skim milk provides better texture than whole milk.

Place grounds in the non-woven bag with a coffee-to-milk ratio of 1:11 to 1:13. If you prefer a stronger milk flavor, you can choose 1:14.

Extraction time is 12-16 hours. You can shake at the 12-hour mark to mix some extracted coffee with the milk, then let it rest for another 4 hours.

The milk-extracted coffee made this way is not only aromatic and smooth but the coffee flavor remains uncompromised. As for the storage time of milk-extracted coffee that everyone is most concerned about, FrontStreet Coffee will finally address this: regular pasteurized milk can be stored for a long time when refrigerated. Even after opening and making milk-extracted coffee, it won't easily spoil for three to five days when refrigerated. However, if you use fresh milk that hasn't been sterilized, it naturally has a short shelf life. After opening and cold brewing, fermentation makes it more prone to spoilage. Therefore, milk-extracted coffee made with fresh milk is best consumed the same day and is not recommended for refrigerated storage.

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473