How to Make the Perfect Iced Americano? How Much Ice and Water Should You Add? How Much Espresso Do You Need for an Americano?

Frankly speaking, making an iced Americano is quite simple. We just need to pour extracted espresso into prepared ice water, and the iced Americano is complete.

However, as FrontStreet Coffee has consistently shared in our views, while making it is simple, making it well is quite challenging. Although the preparation of iced Americano only involves ice water and espresso, the selection of these ingredients and their proportions can directly affect whether the coffee tastes good. The proportion affects the coffee's concentration, while the choice of ingredients determines the coffee's flavor and mouthfeel. Therefore, to make a good iced Americano, we need to pay attention to the proportions and ingredients used. Today, FrontStreet Coffee will share with everyone what considerations are needed to make a delicious iced Americano.

1. Water

As we all know, in coffee extraction, the hardness of water affects the dissolved substances and influences the final flavor of coffee, so everyone pays great attention to water quality when brewing coffee. The same is true for making Americano! Although most of the water in Americano doesn't participate in extraction, it still affects the coffee's flavor and mouthfeel.

This is easy to understand, just like we can taste the difference between bottled waters in our daily lives. Due to different water sources and qualities, each bottled water has obvious differences: some water tastes smooth, some tastes astringent... Setting extraction aside, Americano uses a large amount of water to dilute the espresso concentration, so the texture of water directly affects the coffee, impacting its mouthfeel and flavor. FrontStreet Coffee has used different brands of water to make Americano for comparison, and the results indeed show significant differences. Taking Yibao and Nongfu Spring as examples, Americano made with Yibao has a relatively high sweetness, while Americano made with Nongfu Spring tastes smoother with higher body.

Therefore, when making iced Americano, if you want to further enhance the overall texture of the coffee, you can make choices about the water source. How to choose the water source can depend on your preferences and coffee beans, as everyone's taste preferences are different. Of course, there are also formulas you can follow. Currently, popular formulas online are based on the roast level of coffee beans! Medium-dark and dark roast coffee beans are paired with water below 100ppm to make Americano, while medium-light and light roast coffee beans are paired with water in the 100-200ppm range for Americano preparation.

2. Ice

Recently, FrontStreet Coffee has often shared with everyone how the quality of ice affects coffee. The size and hardness of ice cubes determine their melting speed, which is exactly what we need to consider when making iced Americano. Because as ice melts, it both cools the coffee and dilutes its concentration. As the ice gradually melts, the concentration of Americano becomes lower and lower. If we don't want to end up with an iced Americano that tastes as weak as water, it's best to have a relatively high concentration (not too high) in the initial stage, but how high specifically depends mainly on the melting speed of the ice.

Simply put, we need to determine the preparation ratio of iced Americano based on the melting speed of the ice. Easy to understand! For example, smaller ice cubes or those with lower hardness usually melt faster. When using this type of faster-melting ice to make Americano, we can appropriately increase the amount of ice and reduce the proportion of water in the overall mixture. This way, the iced Americano will have a sufficiently high concentration at the beginning, and as the ice melts, the concentration of the Americano will quickly approach normal levels. Suppose FrontStreet Coffee uses 20g of coffee grounds to extract 40ml of coffee liquid in 30 seconds, paired with smaller ice cubes that lack sufficient hardness. Then the amount of ice would be 120g (or more), paired with 130ml of water (or less). This ratio will give the freshly made iced Americano a higher concentration, and because the ice melts faster, the concentration will approach normal levels after a short while.

When the ice cubes are larger and harder, their melting speed is usually slower. So if using this type of ice, we don't need to worry about it melting quickly in a short time and diluting the coffee concentration. Naturally, the initial concentration of the Americano doesn't need to be as high. The specific approach is to reduce the amount of ice and increase the amount of water compared to the previous parameters. Still taking FrontStreet Coffee as an example, the ice used by FrontStreet Coffee has the above characteristics - slower melting speed. Therefore, when making iced Americano, FrontStreet Coffee uses 3 ice cubes weighing about 90g, paired with about 160ml of water. This ratio allows the resulting Americano to have a high concentration but not too high, making it very drinkable. Due to the slower melting speed of the ice, from start to finish, the coffee's concentration and flavor won't change significantly. And after finishing, we can even see ice cubes remaining in the cup.

The above examples are for reference only, because everyone uses different coffee beans, extraction environments, and taste preferences, so the ratio needs to be adjusted according to your own coffee. You can also follow FrontStreet Coffee's formula above to see if it suits your preferences. It's worth mentioning that because ice melts back into water, we can also be particular about the water quality used to make ice~ But whether it's necessary varies from person to person.

3. Coffee

Needless to say, the choice of coffee beans determines the flavor direction of Americano. Lighter roasted beans will produce Americano that is more acidic, refreshing, with less crema; darker roasted beans will produce Americano that is richer, more bitter, with more crema. Regarding beans, since FrontStreet Coffee has already shared related content, interested friends can move to previous articles for detailed explanations, so we won't elaborate too much here. What FrontStreet Coffee wants to share here is more about extraction details~

Compared to lattes, Americano preparation can be more "free." Here, "free" mainly refers to the extraction of espresso, because Americano doesn't need to consider whether the concentration of the espresso base will affect the coffee's mouthfeel, after all, we can adjust it by changing the amount of water added. Therefore, espresso used for Americano can have fewer extraction limitations. When extracting espresso for Americano, we only need to focus on one key point: to dissolve as much coffee substance as possible. Without over-extraction, the more coffee substances dissolved, the more aromatic and rich the coffee we taste will be.

Taking FrontStreet Coffee's classic Italian blend coffee beans from our menu, which feature rich crema, as an example - to accommodate latte preparation, FrontStreet Coffee adjusts according to the golden ratio of 1:2 during morning calibration. The espresso extracted at this ratio has notes of hazelnut, dark chocolate, and cream, and both Americano and lattes made with it taste excellent. However, for iced Americano, our extraction can be even more. Because low temperatures reduce our taste buds' ability to detect bitterness, even if the extracted coffee is slightly more bitter, it won't be noticeably apparent, and might even give the coffee a more intense aroma and flavor. Without changing parameters such as grind size and dose, FrontStreet Coffee increases the extraction rate by adjusting the liquid ratio to 1:2.2, meaning 20g of coffee grounds extracts 44g of liquid - 4ml more coffee liquid than before, and the time increases by 2 seconds.

When this espresso is made into Americano by adding water, although its overall flavor profile doesn't change significantly, the coffee's aroma and taste become more pronounced, especially the aftertaste, which noticeably lasts longer. So, that's all for this article! When everyone combines the above three points, you can easily make a delicious iced Americano~

- END -

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473