Stick ground coffee in some filter bags and put it in some cold water in the fridge. Come back the next day and drink it. Leave it in there however long you want.
It’s obviously weaker than hot coffee, but though I drink my hot coffee black, I prefer a weaker iced coffee with a bit of milk or cream. The only way to get a really strong iced coffee is either to brew hot and let it cool before pouring over ice or to make coffee ice cubes, both of which are too much trouble for me.
So between pouring stronger hot coffee over ice which melts a lot of the ice or pouring weaker cold brew over ice and melting less ice, the dilution ends up about the same, but the flavor profile is different with the cold brew being more subtle and less acidic. Truthfully I enjoy it both ways. Just depends on my mood.
The Aeropress is very flexible. Experiment with it. No one brew will work for all beans/roasts. I’ve found some beans/roasts taste better brewed at 175° and others at 190°. Besides the Aeropress, the thing that upped my coffee game the most is an electric kettle.
Other than percolated, there’s almost no brewing method I don’t enjoy. I use an Aeropress most of the time, but I also make coffee in an ibrik, a mokapot, a Chemex, a simple silicone pour over mold; it just depends on my mood.
The only style of coffee I gave up on at home is espresso. I was just never able to pull consistent shots and got tired of how much work it was to clean the machine and the space it took on my counter. And before you say it: I just can’t countenance pod machines.
(Just saw you use room temp water; I use hot and let it brew for like 2min. Do you get a strong enough extraction? How long do you let it go for?)
The gist of it is: 1. Grind finer (like, nearly espresso fine) 2. Steep for much much longer (like 10 minutes) 3. Don’t press too hard
(3) is generally applicable advice and may already improve your current results. Pressing too hard results in channeling and uneven extraction.
Of course, goes without saying, use good coffee and an appropriate grinder.
Do you use a metal mesh or paper filter?
Do you get enough pressure from your Aeropress? I've had several over the years and sometimes the plunger heads (the rubbery part going towards coffee) could be too loose as they can become weak over time.
Or your coffee is ground too coarse perhaps?
The point is you need proper pressure and a slow push. The plunger and ground size impact the pressure most IMO.
Of course, without the filter you won't get pressure at all :) And if you use the inverted method and forget the filter (like me, several times), once you flip over the Aeropress, your kitchen ends up smelling awesome.
The water temperature should not be boiling or you'll burn the coffee, possibly making it taste bad. I tend to use 94-95 degrees Celsius unless advised otherwise.
An Aeropress won't create a flavor smash like espresso, there's not enough pressure for that. But for my admittedly crude and uncultured taste buds it can basically beat a coffee machine.
For espresso-like strong coffee, I just use the good old Moka pot. Slightly more work than Aeropress, especially regarding the cleanup, but not that much.
Also, a tip about the ice cubes: make strong coffee with the Moka pot, freeze, then dump the cubes into a smoothie blender (with milk if you like) before drinking. Saves you the mindfulness exercise of watching ice cubes melt.
Later on the trip I bought a Turkish coffee maker, which works on the same principle, so it's not so much an innovation as it is a hotel survival tip.
Glad you prevailed! My nightmare scenario is having coffee, but no way to grind it.
And the cupping procedure doesn't even do that, but still produces reliable tasty cups.
Use the fridge - trust my experience. It may take a bit longer to brew at colder temperatures, due to decreased convection of the liquid, but it will taste much better, as it prevents bacterial and fungal growth.
More here - https://kitchenappliancehq.com/can-cold-brew-coffee-mold/
Not saying that mold is impossible, but I don't think the solutions is to buy their amazon affiliate coffee maker and special coffee butter.
If you have mold issues after 24 hours of cold brewing I think you have some deeper issues at play. Consider getting mold tests for your house, sterilizing the tools/containers you use, and switching out your beans.
I generally face it 3-4 days in, not 24 hours.
Wet coffee grounds will grow mold quicker than any other food product I've seen.
Even a pot of coffee will get mold on the top within like a week.
That water turns out fine, often for weeks at a time.
Store the cold brew out of direct sunlight, don't leave the grounds in for a super long time, and you'll be fine. It's not like brewing alcohol, you're not adding a bunch of sugar to it or anything like that. The coffee grounds you're adding are shelf-stable, the water you're adding it to is shelf-stable, you're not introducing any real food for bacteria/fungus. Water will eventually go off if you leave it in direct sunlight (mostly due to algae), especially after introducing extra organic matter, but the actual risks of following established methods for brewing cold-brew at room temperature are very low in my opinion. Especially chlorinated water like you probably get out of your pipes.
>> "Furthermore, the liquid phase’s alkaloid content, analyzed by reversed-phase liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry, is dominated by caffeine and trigonelline and is comparable to traditional cold-brewed coffee rather than hot-brewed coffee. Furthermore, analyzing the head-space of the prepared coffee variants, using in-tube extraction dynamic head-space followed by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, gives evidence that the lack of heating leads to the preservation of more (semi-)volatile substances like pyridine, which provide cold-brew coffee its unique taste. "
This is why temperature / pressure / flow rate are so important to good espresso - some of the heavier compounds taste very bitter and including much of them in the brew makes for an unpleasant drink.
Sure, you can just make some that will be ready tomorrow. But if you want some right now, it seems legitimate that being able to press a button and get cold brew is novel.
If that doesn't sound like you, don't buy it.
Cafes will make an effort to increase extraction yields 1% because that means 1% less coffee needed over the many pounds used per day.