Every year baristas and coffee shops get more daring with cold coffee, embracing new techniques and experimenting with every possible variable. From ornate cold drip towers to the humble Toddy Cold Brewer, this versatile beverage has become a staple in many specialty cafes around Australia – especially during the scorching summer months!
Here are some popular drinks you’ll see on coffee menus, suggested recipes and places across Australia where you can sample these flavoursome brews:
Cold Drip
Cold Drip Recipe
Coffee: Mwendi Wega, Kenya
Coffee Dose: 55 grams
Equipment: Hario Drip Tower
Direct infusion (bloom): 80 grams
Water to drip: 420 grams, cold, filtered, plus ice
Speed: 1 drip every 1 second
Contact time: ~ 2 hours
Method: Rinse your filters. Weigh and grind your coffee before shaking into the coffee chamber, making sure it’s evenly distributed. Place the coffee chamber above your carafe and evenly pour the bloom water over the grinds. Position your water chamber above the grinds and set your drip rate to 1 every second. Leave to drip through, checking on the drip rate consistently and adjust as necessary.
Pop by the stellar crew at C.R.E.A.M. in Brighton, Adelaide to try their cold drip coffee. The hours of filtered iced water slow dripping through their featured Kenyan filter roast maintains a slower percolation process of the coffee. This results in an intense and concentrated beverage, with a intoxicatingly boozy aroma and a syrupy blackcurrant flavour.
Cold Brew
Cold Brew Recipe
Coffee: San Lorenzo, Guatemala
Roast level: Filter
Coffee/Water Ratio: 60g/L
Equipment: Toddy Cold Brew System
Contact time: 14 hours
Method: Weigh and grind your coffee, remembering to rinse your filter. Place ground coffee in the Toddy and pour your weighed water over, making sure to wet all coffee evenly. Stir the coffee vigorously, ~30 times around in a circle. Really get in there, making sure your paddle is going down into the sunken grounds. Cover Toddy and store in fridge for 14 hours before filtering and drinking. The lower coffee to water ratio will offer a lighter and refreshing cup!
The full immersion method offers by far the largest volume – it is the batch brew of the cool coffee world. Most commonly brewed in a special bucket (see: Toddy Cold Brew System), the variables of this brewing method are easier to control. Touchwood in Richmond, Melbourne nail this brew method, successfully bringing out the individual characteristics of origin of their coffee beans.
Nitro Brew
Nitro Cold Brew Recipe
Coffee: Vista Al Bosque, Guatemala
Roast level: Filter
Coffee/Water Ratio: 60-80g/L
Water: 10% 96 degree Celsius, 90% cool/room temp
Contact time: 14 hours
Method: Weigh and grind your coffee, remembering to rinse your filter. Place ground coffee in the Toddy and pour your weighed hot water over, making sure to wet all coffee evenly for a hot bloom. Top up with the rest of your water, cover Toddy and store in fridge for 6 hours before filtering and drinking.
If you are a fan of cold brew, chances are you have tasted or wish to taste the much loved Nitro Brew. This is a full immersion brew, that is then packed into a keg and infused with Nitrogen. Howdy Espresso in Bayswater, Perth, use pure or food grade Nitrogen to pressurise their brew. This causes their cold brew to have a super creamy mouthfeel with a long and lingering finish – think Guinness!
As previously mentioned, cold brew is typically lacking the acidity that espresso or filter coffees presents. To up your mouth-tingling experience, add a ‘hot bloom’ to commence the full immersion cold brew.
Coffee Concentrate
Cold Coffee Distillate Recipe
Coffee: Vista Al Bosque, Guatemala
Roast level: Filter
Coffee/Water Ratio: 80g/L
Water: Chilled filtered water
Contact time: 14 hours
Method: Weigh and grind your coffee, remembering to rinse your filter. Place ground coffee in the Toddy and pour over the chilled water, making sure to wet all coffee evenly for an even extraction. Cover Toddy and store in fridge for 6 hours before filtering. Once filtered, freeze the brew. Once fully frozen, begin to thaw the product, collecting only 50% of the thawed product. This 50% is your cold coffee distillate – get experimenting!
Cold brew certainly encourages a spectrum of play with everything from brewing techniques to infusions of various fruit or spices. There are many ways to serve cold brew that complement and enhances the drink, and I am not simply talking about the vessel it arrives to your table in your favourite café.
Yellow Bernard in Hobart’s CBD feature two cold brew styles; one white and one black. Their 18 hour, double filtered brew is infused with a heavily guarded blend of spices and aromatics. Bonus points if you can recreate their mouth-wateringly good brew!
Many kinds of sugars, syrups, milks, fruits, sparkling liquids, juices, liquors, and spices all lend a different angle to your cold brew. For example, explore Agar Clarification for an incredibly clean and clear brew. Further reading: How to Get Crystal Clear Coffee—Without Filter Paper! by Perfect Daily Grind.
Creating a cold brew distillate can lead to some pretty exciting uses. By creating a chilled concentrate, the end brew will be super reduced; perfect for adding to drinks, cocktails or, in our case, An Ode to Agent Cooper – our cherry coffee porter collaboration beer!
Iced Long Black
Iced Long Black Recipe
Coffee: Finca Maputo, Ecuador
Dose: 22g
Espresso Beverage: 44g
Time: 27 seconds
Equipment: Espresso machine, grinder
Method: Prepare your espresso to the above volumes, times and weight; or simply continue with your favoured recipe! Add three parts water to one part espresso, and fill ‘er up with all the ice you can cram in that vessel!
Ok, so this one is not a cold brew, however is possibly my favourite beverage on the chillin’ menu. An Iced Long Black features the hot, acidic espresso we all love poured over ice. Want to get particularly adventurous with this? Try a Tonic Long Black!
In Dural, Sydney, sit and relax in the hills at Wolfe and Co with one of their superbly prepared Iced Long Blacks.
