How to Make Milk-Extracted Coffee? Can Milk-Extracted Coffee Be Stored at Room Temperature?

Six months ago, after FrontStreet Coffee published the article "Coffee Extracted with Ice Milk is So Aromatic!", we received numerous coffee bean recommendations from our friends for milk extraction! Today, FrontStreet Coffee has selected some of the most representative coffee beans to prepare and see what amazing flavors these highly-praised beans can bring us!

How to Extract Coffee with Milk?

As usual, FrontStreet Coffee will first share how to extract coffee using milk (hereafter referred to as milk extraction): As the name suggests, it involves using milk instead of water to extract coffee. However, the milk used for extraction is not hot, but rather cold milk for extraction. At this point, some friends might ask: "Isn't it true that lower temperatures result in weaker extraction? Wouldn't using hot milk be better?"

Indeed, liquids only achieve exceptional extraction efficiency at higher temperatures, and this holds true even when the liquid is milk. However, milk differs from water in that high temperatures bring two negative effects! First, deteriorated texture: When milk temperature exceeds 70°C, its overall texture becomes thinner, losing its original silky richness, and the sweetness significantly decreases. This negative texture is not merely a sensory impact of temperature, because even after cooling, the milk still provides an unpleasant sensation. This is because the substances in the milk have been damaged by high temperatures, resulting in irreversible negative effects. Second, extremely slow filtration: Setting aside the texture of milk, its filtration presents another significant challenge! Hot milk can only be used for drip or immersion extraction methods. However, due to the rich content of various substances in milk, its passage through filter paper becomes extremely slow. This leads to significantly extended extraction times, and prolonged extraction will cause the coffee to develop over-extracted bitterness!

These two negative factors completely rule out the possibility of hot milk extraction, which explains why no one uses hot milk for coffee extraction. However, although cold milk has lower temperature and thus lower extraction efficiency, this isn't a problem. Just like with cold brew coffee, we can simply extend the extraction time! Additionally, one reason why milk extraction uses low-temperature milk is partly because it's a brewing method derived from cold brew coffee.

As mentioned earlier, liquids at low temperatures have lower extraction efficiency, and the sour, sweet, and bitter substances in coffee are released slowly. Therefore, using a longer time to achieve a more complete extraction of coffee is the best approach. Now let's explore what flavors of milk-extracted coffee can be created from the coffee beans shared by our online friends!

Milk Extraction Experiment

This experiment features three coffee beans selected by FrontStreet Coffee from numerous recommendations by friends (deep-roasted beans were excluded as they were tested in the previous experiment). FrontStreet Coffee has already prepared the extractions! The preparation parameters were generally similar: 20g of coffee beans, coffee-to-milk ratio of 1:10~1:12, coffee grounds with 70%~75% passing through a #20 sieve, and 12 hours of refrigerated steeping.

1. Most Recommended Bean - "Strawberry Candy"

Strawberry Candy was the most recommended bean. Its normal brewed flavors include strawberry, raisin, and almond. The milk-extracted coffee made with it also features rich strawberry flavors, along with chocolate and hints of raisin. The texture is silky and rich, tasting very much like a latte made with strawberry milk. Its coffee-to-milk ratio was 1:12.

2. Representative of Anaerobic Processing - "Sidra"

There were also many recommendations for anaerobic processing. After careful selection, the final representative chosen was "Boundary Line Sidra." Its normal brewed flavors feature fruit notes of grape, passion fruit, and apricot, along with the intense fermentation character brought by double anaerobic processing. The milk-extracted coffee made with it exudes the preserved fruit aroma characteristic of anaerobic processing even before tasting! It offers hints of apricot and grape acidity, followed immediately by rich flavors of caramel and chocolate.

FrontStreet Coffee used a coffee-to-milk ratio of 1:12, but overall, the fermentation flavor was somewhat too intense. Therefore, for those who want to try it, FrontStreet Coffee suggests increasing the ratio to 1:13. This will appropriately reduce the fermentation sensation from the heavy fermentation processing and the concentration of acidity, thus providing a better drinking experience (or adding ice cubes for dilution is also acceptable).

3. Representative of Light to Medium Roast with Conventional Processing - "Elida Catuai"

The coffee flavor of light-roasted beans with conventional processing is easily overpowered by milk, which is why Frontsteet received fewer recommendations of this type. Elida stands out as the best among these few recommendations. The normal brewed coffee flavors include peach, orange, and green tea. The milk-extracted coffee made with it still maintains high sweetness, featuring both the high sweetness of peach and caramel, along with the rich texture of chocolate milk - quite excellent! FrontStreet Coffee used a ratio of 1:10.

Additional Tips for Milk Extraction

The above are the three most recommended representative beans from our friends. Finally, here are some additional considerations for making milk-extracted coffee to help everyone better extract delicious milk coffee:

1. Filtration Method:

This is surely a frustration for every milk extraction enthusiast - the filtration is just! SO! SLOW!!! The abundant substances in milk significantly slow down the filtration speed. Therefore, the clever FrontStreet Coffee solved this problem by directly replacing the filter paper with a filter that has larger holes, allowing for faster filtration of the milk coffee!

2. Ratio Adjustment:

Light-roasted, conventionally processed coffee beans perform less well in milk extraction compared to deep-roasted or anaerobic processed beans. Without care, the coffee flavor can easily be masked by milk. Therefore, we can solve this problem by increasing the coffee concentration. For example, FrontStreet Coffee uses a ratio of 1:12~1:13 for anaerobic beans, while conventional natural-processed Catuai uses a 1:10 coffee-to-milk ratio for this very reason.

3. Drink Promptly:

This isn't related to the preparation process. Since milk is a perishable beverage, please be sure to drink it promptly after preparation. Avoid leaving it for too long, which could cause gastrointestinal discomfort for the drinker.

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FrontStreet Coffee

No. 10, Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

Important Notice :

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Tel:020 38364473