Cold Brewing Coffee

Here's a Video! Article follows...

I really like some aspects of "simple living" and/or the Minimalist Lifestyle. It's more just something to think about and occasionally aspire towards, not necessarily a lifestyle movement to which I'm fully subscribed -- just bits and pieces. Years ago my drip coffee maker broke, and that gave me a chance to simplify a little bit -- clear counter space, eliminate an appliance, rely less on machines, etc. I ended up doing two things. I got a small French press for brewing just a few cups, and I also started keeping instant coffee on hand.

Here's the thing. Most mornings I would get up and want, say, a cup, or even half a cup of coffee. Using the full coffee machine just didn't make sense. But that was just how you made coffee, as far as I knew. So I would end up making half a pot, either drinking it all myself or wasting some of it. Or I would make it and leave it and drink it tomorrow. (That actually was a pretty good solution, and already indicates some "minimalist" tendencies.)

My first attempt at making machine free coffee.
Good... not great.

So I would make a cup of Trader Joe's instant coffee sometimes, and use the press other times. You can still serve coffee for 2-4 people with the press, so it was more than adequate. Cleaning it is kind of a pain, but you can just rinse it day to day and thoroughly clean it every week or two.

Recently, however, I dropped the glass pot from the press and it shattered. It's really no big deal because there's a coffee shop half a block from my house. But still, sometimes the point of having the coffee is to have it before leaving the house. So, yeah, I can pop into Crazy Mocha any time I want, but I still have to have a way to make coffee at my house.

A day or two after the press broke, I woke up one morning and went in to make some coffee. I pulled out the grounds and spoon before I remembered I didn't have any way to make it. I had just gone to the coffee shop the previous day or two, but this particular morning I had my mind set on making my own damn coffee. So I started thinking I really just needed boiling water with the coffee grounds and maybe a paper towel to filter it. I could heat water in the tea pot or boil the coffee in a pot with water. I have a large glass measuring cup, rubber bands, a ceramic pitcher, glass jars, paper towels, etc. So I started thinking I should be able to make the freakin coffee myself.

At first I tried boiling the coffee and then pouring it through a paper towel. That worked ok. I kind of tried doing this method in various ways, and it more or less worked, but ended up spilling a lot of coffee. 

When I looked online people had described and posted videos for all sorts of different methods. The best thing I saw was people who were saying, look, you don't need anything except the hot water and the coffee. Boil it in a pot, let the grounds settle to the bottom, then pour it slowly and carefully and you don't even need to use a filter. Brilliant! Simple. It wasn't an ah-hah moment, it was just a duh! moment. What I thought was interesting was that even while I was trying to "simplify" and minimize -- stop using the machine -- I was trying to replicate the machine's process for making the coffee -- heating the water, brewing it, and dripping it through a filter. I wasn't thinking broadly enough about the task. The task was simply to make coffee -- not to make drip coffee maker style coffee by hand, haha.

My first batch of cold brewed coffee!
Really smooth taste

Then, as I settled into this method for a day or two, I started reading about cold brewing coffee. When I had first looked up cold brewing a long time ago, I saw tons of ads and websites offering their "cold brewing systems." Initially I thought it was a more complicated process, using who knows what, pumps or carbon dioxide, or whatever. So I had never really looked into it. But it was always in the back of my mind until recently.

What I read about the other day sounded really really simple. You simply let the coffee grounds and water sit and soak overnight. Then you strain it and prepare the coffee any way you like. Obviously this works best for iced coffee, since it's not hot, but if you're not opposed to using the microwave you can just heat it up. What this method does is greatly reduce the amount of acid in the coffee. The first time I did it and tasted it, I was blown away by how smooth the coffee tasted. It was by far the smoothest coffee I had ever made at home. 

Cold brewed coffee lasts for a week so you can make a large amount (or a concentrate) and keep it in your fridge. Simply grab the container and pour your coffee -- it's like getting juice or water from the fridge. What I've done the last two days is pour it into a mug, heat it in the microwave, then add my almond milk. It's smooth, really good, and extremely easy.

I'm really enjoying it so far, and it does feel good to make another notch in the minimalist bed post, so to speak.

And, just for fun, here's the video again!