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Permalink Reply by Brady on October 6, 2010 at 4:46am

I like the "Japanese" method. You use exactly the same ground coffee to finished drink ratio that you would for hot drip. Here's a good detailed process description.

In a nutshell, just replace half of the brew water with ice, which you'll place in the pitcher you're brewing into. Then brew the coffee on top of the ice with the remaining amount of water. Easy with a dripcone or if your auto brewer has the "full/half" selector switch. Say your full batch is a gallon and your half is 2 quarts. Grind enough coffee for a full batch, but select the "half" option on your brewer. Put 64oz of ice into a 1+gallon pitcher under the basket and brew. The result is 1 gallon of proper strength yet ice-cold coffee. You can do the same thing with a dripcone.

The problem with the method you've described is that the coffee has to sit for hours before it gets cold. You know how bad 3 hour old coffee tastes? Sticking it in the fridge isn't going to make it magically delicious again. Cold coffee doesn't fade nearly as quickly - fridge temps slow down some of the chemical reactions that cause coffee to deteriorate just enough to give you a drinkable product for a lot longer. It doesn't last forever... but its a big improvement.

Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Shadow on October 6, 2010 at 4:48am

Never tried cold brewing, toddy making, etc. though I'm sure those methods are quite effective based on what I've read on this particular subject. For me, whatever drip I have left over each day (kept in airpots) I chill overnight and serve over ice the next day. Works great, minimizes waste and customers seem to like it just fine.

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Permalink Reply by Jay Caragay on October 6, 2010 at 5:35am

First of all, have you actually tried hot brewing then chilling, tasting it and determining how you like it? If it tastes great for you, then go for it.

Personally speaking, I don't like coffee that way, so I wouldn't serve it that way. In the past, we've used the Japanese method described by Brady but for the past three summers we've been using a brew tower that uses the same ratio of coffee (roughly 2g per ounce) and takes 10-12 hours to brew. Capacity per tower is limited to one gallon max.

However, we charge $3.50 for an iced coffee and it's flying out the door during the summers. We can barely meet the demand and we're running four towers. Bottom line: iced coffee takes longer to prepare and, therefore, should cost more. The brew towers offer a stunning visual for the customers to see, they rally around the towers, show off to their friends and that visual justifies the price in the minds of the customers. Plus, it offers a gateway to coffee conversation.

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Permalink Reply by Noribsham Bin Ibrahim on October 6, 2010 at 5:59am

I don't know if my suggestion will help...

At CuppaChoice Artisan cafe, we are using a cold brew tower. The brand is Yami. To me, this process really really extracts the origin flavour of the coffee. Because this process takes a longer brewing time therefore the coffee has longer extraction time which result in a smoother and richer flavour compared to the traditional method of pouring a double strength hot coffee over ice. Sometimes it take up to 12 to 15 hours to get 1 litre of cold drip coffee.
Last week at CuppaChoice Artisan Cafe, brewed Papua New Guinea Sigri as the cold drip coffee of the week and this week we brewed Costa Rica SHB.

You can always do both method. Have the traditional method and at the same time have the cold drip method. Charge the cold drip method higher, let customers know that they are not just paying for the coffee but for the experience too. How time consuming it would be. Limited cold brew coffee but high in demand.

This could be part of marketing my friend. I may not a professional but this is what i think.

-sham-

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Permalink Reply by jonathan bonchak on October 6, 2010 at 10:33am

There seems to be a tension emerging between cold-brew advocates and anti-cold brewers...What I hear is that cold brewing eliminates so much of the acidity and nuance and therefore takes away from the experience of the terroir and crop-to-cup story. I think there's a lot to that notion and for some folks this will be enough for them to turn their noses up at cold brew.

However, I think we all need to be careful of following trends just for the sake of following trends. At one time cold brew was THE way to serve it, no? Jay is correct...if what you're doing tastes great to you and your proud to serve it to your customers, then cheers. But you know what....a lot of your customers, no matter how much you rant and rave still want to splash some half and half and simple syrup in there. To me, cold brew from the toddy is a great compliments to those elements.

Not all coffees are the same...not all coffee preparation is the same. Doesn't mean one is worse than the other. We all like bicycles. But some folks like fixies and others like bmx. Two completely different things, still a bicycle though.

With all that said, we've been serving pour-over Japanese iced coffee for the past two summers with great applause from our customers. This year we introduced Toddy alongside it...Japanese is still popular and the customer is given a choice of coffees to have brewed by the glass. But there's a wait time for it in addition to constantly answering questions and continuing education with customers..."what makes it Japanese?" "I don't get it...I just want an iced coffee!" --but those are always opportunities that we embrace. Our Toddy coffee however comes in two sizes, in line with the hot coffee pricing and there are no questions asked. Our barista prep the extract the day before with a coffee of their choice and the extract can never sit longer than a day, always chilled.

I think our coffees are great at what we do but there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the south. Your going to get a customer from time to time who had their first iced coffee ever from a McDonalds and are all excited. Your coffee is better than that...take the time with them to explain why and most people will get it. Yes, it's going to be more than a buck a cup...but guess what, we're not running a fast food store, right?

Not sure if that helped at all. I read on another iced coffee thread somewhere (maybe on here??!) that Aaron Ultimo posted about the way they brew at Ultimo in Philly...I think they pour french presses in Luxus urns with ice? Can't remember, but whatever he's doing is probably awesome.

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Permalink Reply by David Lanning on October 6, 2010 at 11:24am

It's ugly, and you'll want to hide it in the back room... way out of customer's view.

But, we've used a Filtron Pro for years and love it.

You'll need to experiment with ratios (about 5lbs coarsely ground coffee to 3 gallons water), but you can make up to 4-5 overnight of cold pressed coffee and store it in gallon milk jugs.

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Permalink Reply by Jackie Smith on December 17, 2014 at 2:03pm

Oh, you were just discussing сold coffee brewing,so..

What can u said about this one Cold Coffee Brewing System?

according to the description, such as very good,but would like to hear advice from experts.

thank you in advance for responses :)

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