I had to stop making cold brew because I was overcaffienating to an extent I was afraid my molecules would match the harmonics of the ground and I would fall through to the center of the earth.
But here's what I did:
Get a big french press, a narrow mouth pitcher or a wide mouth bottle, and one of those single serving coffee maker funnels (mines a Hario, which seems to clog up more slowly).
Put about 3/4" of coarse coffee grounds into the french press. Fill it with water to a little below where the plunger sits, stir it a little, put the lid on (plunger up) and push it back under a cabinet on your counter where nobody will mess with it.
24-36 hours later, push down the plunger slower than you've ever thought you could push down a plunger. Put an unbleached paper filter in your single serving coffee funnel, put the funnel on top of your pitcher/jar, and pour. There's gonna be a lot of fines in the coffee so this may take a while. After you're done put the pitcher in the fridge.
Some people make a second pitcher from the grounds. It takes a bit longer to reach full strength the second time, so let it go for another 12 hours. But if you need the second pitcher before the first is gone your doctor may have some harsh words for you.
I suggest you try using multiple small extraction volumes instead of a single big one. The long extraction time could be shortened, and you will get less heavy molecules out (which in tea, for example, tend to make the brew taste a bit bad). See [1] for an explanation. It might just taste better, let me know if you try it!
Not who you were asking, but it's pretty much steeping coarse coffee grounds and cold water in a cup overnight, then filter out the grounds, sort of like cold sun tea. In New Orleans toss in some chicory.
I use the Toddy, which steeps 12oz grounds in 56 fl oz of water, drained through a fuzzy fabric filtering puck; the extract can be refrigerated and diluted with hot water or cold milk.
There are smaller CoffeeSocks (cloth filters) if you don't want to have a carafe of extract in your fridge for two weeks.
Here's my cold brew recipe. Note that this does create a very caffeinated brew, perhaps twice as strong as a normal espresso, so it is very easy to overdo it (one of the few times I've ever felt the effects of caffeine was with one of my early cold brew attempts, which I realised afterwards was probably equivalent to around 16 shots of espresso, and I can't say I particularly enjoyed the jittery feeling). Anyway, it is great for cold drinks, although I haven't found a way of heating it up which is as good as my espresso machine.
Ingredients
- 40g of beans (4 25ml espresso scoops)
- 250ml water
Method
- Use a grinder to course grind the beans.
- Put grinds in a pyrex measuring jug, add the water, then cover.
- Leave overnight, at room temperature.
- Filter first through a sieve to remove the coarse grinds, then through a coffee filter to remove the fine grinds (it may take several mins to drip through).
- Store in the fridge.
