What Coffee Beans Make the Best Cold Brew? A Guide to Grind Size, Steeping Time and Parameters

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The Awakening of Insects has passed, and temperatures are warming up. People in the Lingnan region have already begun searching for ways to beat the heat. In conversations with several friends who visited our shop, FrontStreet Coffee found that cold brew is the most popular iced coffee they make. Common iced coffee preparation methods include cold drip and cold brew. Cold drip requires specialized equipment and regular adjustments to the dripping speed, making it a more expensive option.

Cold brew involves steeping coffee grounds in cold water for an extended period. The container can be as simple as a mineral water bottle or as specialized as a professional cold brew maker. This method requires relatively less investment and is simpler to operate, only requiring proper control of coffee bean grinding, water quantity, and steeping duration. As for which coffee beans are suitable for cold brew, FrontStreet Coffee believes that single-origin beans marketed as pour-over suitable are all appropriate. From light-roasted Geisha with floral and fruity notes to deep-roasted Mandheling with rich bitterness, each creates distinctive flavors when prepared as cold brew.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommendations

If you want to try a refreshing taste, you can choose light-roasted washed coffee beans, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yirgacheffe, FrontStreet Coffee's Boquete Geisha, or FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Butterfly coffee beans. If you prefer a juice-like quality and sweet brightness, you can select light-roasted natural process coffee beans, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Queen Coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Small Tomato Coffee, or FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Duncan Estate.

If you want to make an impressive cold brew, you can choose FrontStreet Coffee's Honduras Sherry Coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Mozart Coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Rose Valley, or Flower Moon Night. If you don't like any acidity in your coffee and prefer a balanced "coffee flavor," you can select FrontStreet Coffee's Papua Bird of Paradise, FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Tarrazú, or FrontStreet Coffee's Hacienda La Esmeralda Diamond Mountain.

Bean Freshness for Cold Brew

FrontStreet Coffee has also learned about some friends' approaches to making cold brew. Typically, they buy a bag of coffee beans, use them for pour-over when fresh, and only use the beans for cold brew when they're about a month old. This approach has merit because when coffee beans are too fresh, they contain too much carbon dioxide, which actually hinders cold water extraction of coffee compounds. After resting for about 20 days, when the gases have mostly dissipated, the cold brew extraction yields richer flavors.

However, FrontStreet Coffee doesn't recommend letting coffee beans sit for too long, because as gases escape, coffee flavors also dissipate, resulting in less flavorful cold brew. Generally, keeping coffee beans within 45 days is ideal. (There are exceptions though—FrontStreet Coffee has tried cold brewing a 90+ Geisha that was three months post-roast, and the flavor remained excellent.)

FrontStreet Coffee's Cold Brew Method

As for cold brew methods, many can produce excellent results. FrontStreet Coffee will introduce one of them for your reference.

You can use a mineral water bottle or a glass bottle, as long as it has a sealing lid. The coffee grounds should be ground slightly finer than pour-over, approximately 85% passing through a #20 sieve. Using 50 grams of coffee grounds as a standard, place them in a glass bottle, then add 400 milliliters of room temperature water and 200 grams of hard ice cubes (if no ice is available, cold water can be substituted). This gives a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:12. Stir the coffee grounds and water evenly with a stirrer, then seal and place in the refrigerator.

Cold brew time should be controlled between 12-24 hours—the longer the time, the stronger the coffee flavor, but FrontStreet Coffee doesn't recommend exceeding 24 hours. After refrigeration is complete, use filter paper to strain out the coffee grounds. FrontStreet Coffee suggests bottling the filtered clean coffee liquid and refrigerating for another 4 hours before drinking, as this will make the cold brew even more aromatic.

Important Notice :

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