Ok, so the Coffee Trials are over, and if you want to cut to the chase, scroll to the end of the post!
I tried using coarsely ground coffee instead of fine ground coffee and I'm really not seeing an appreciable difference in taste.
In fact, it seems counter-intuitive to me that a coarse ground is going to extract more flavor (using the logic that a smaller particle is more easily saturated by the water, and will release more flavor as a result.) Also, it's a little harder to really ballpark the volume of coffee to water: a large ground takes up more space than a find ground of the same weight. Basically, a pound of coffee, ground fine takes up less space than if it's coarsely ground and since we're eyeballing how much water to add, it's a little harder (for me) to get the strength I wanted.
This is just a guess, but I think I'm going to switch back to fine ground coffee, if for no other reason than sometimes I want to drink the coffee hot, and when I do, I use a fine ground.
And, I decided that diluting the toddy with 1/2 water was too weak. So here's the final answer for iced-brew coffee:
ICED BREWED COFFEE
* 2:1 ratio of water to coffee (fine ground, dark roast if you're me!)
* Put it in a cup, sticck it in the fridge, go to bed or something.
* In the morning, filter the coffee (I poured the coffee sludge into an automatic drip and used the drip's filtering basket.)
* The remaining liquid (toddy) is superconcentrated. I like cream in my coffee, so I've been adding that, and then adding water to dilute it to taste. I'm finding that about 3 parts toddy to 1 part water is what I prefer. Don't come crying to me if it leaves you with a mohawk on your chest.
* Add sweetener. If you're using plain sugar, you might add it to the water you're using to dilute the coffee. I like using the sugar syrup (there's a link posted in another Drinks post to show you how.)
* Drink, and hope you don't get the shakes. Then drink some more, it's July!
Note: cold-brewed seems to take about 1/3 more coffee than hot brewed. So if you're really cutting costs, brew it hot and cool it overnight. It's still yummy, either way.
Drinks, Part III
July 7th, 2007 at 12:45 am