This week is a momentous week in the cycle of the Bix Casita — switching from hot espresso drinks to cold coffee concentrate drinks. By rights we should have switched sooner, as the mercury has been creeping upward in the Vegas valley and we’ve already seen many days with highs in the 90s and it even hit 100 once, but we had made a substantial order of espresso beans when we bunkered down for the pandemic, and they are too oily to use for cold brew, so we’ve been just making hot coffee to use them up.
Once the last espresso shot had been pulled, Esteban made some of that Dalgona coffee that’s been a darling of the quarantine. He brought it to me proudly and I took one taste and absolutely died from the harshness. It looked gorgeous and the texture was amazing, but holy shit, so bitter. I tried another sip, working up my courage and nope. Nope. Nopetty nope. I hated to disappoint him, and he insisted that I go onto the internet and announce that I don’t actually like coffee — which I did, because honestly? There has never been any doubt of that fact.
But now it’s cold brew season and I couldn’t be happier. I love cold brew season so much — the cold extract is so much smoother and less bitter on my palate. I actually don’t like coffee very much, and in fact, most of my coffee situations are 95% Not Coffee and only a splash of actual coffee. Basically I like caffeinated milk shakes with a coffee aroma.
Our cold brew efforts are dead simple easy — here’s how we do it. Take a pound of coffee grounds, soak them at least 12 hours (we do this in the evening so that it’s ready for the morning), and then filter or drain them. That method creates a concentrated cold brew extraction (about the same ratio of an espresso shot) which you can then add water to for cold coffee, or you could create iced lattes by adding milk.
Folks in Louisiana have been doing their cold brew concentrate extractions in half gallon Mason jars for years, and you could do that too, doing the soak in a mason jar, and then affixing a cheap coffee filter with the Mason ring screw top, then let gravity do the draining.
If you don’t want to deal with that mess or just like a neater solution, there are plenty of commercial options available. We tried the Takeya pitcher first — it comes with its own filter and is absolutely the most elegant solution because when it’s done extracting, you just pull the coffee ground chamber out and it becomes its own vessel. However, it was imperfect — you can’t make new coffee while you’re also drinking coffee unless you decant it, which defeats the purpose. Also, we drink more coffee than this thing can make which meant we were constantly waiting for another extraction with zero coffee for our morning cups, so we went bigger and got a Filtron system. This was so great that when we lost the plug for the bottom during a move, we ended up buying a second system (and then only too late realized that you could buy replacement plugs), so now we have more production than we can possibly outdrink, as well as a second carafe.
We add chicory to the cold extraction because I really love the flavor of chicory in my cold brew. It just adds this extra something that is so fantastic, a depth of flavor that is absolutely delightful. We also reuse the grounds for a second round immediately after draining — refilling the water and letting it sit for 24 hours that time, and draining again for more concentrate.
We have a complete bar of coffee syrups to add to our morning blends — all sugar free, because that’s our business (TM Tabitha Brown) — that range from Almond Roca to Salted Caramel to White Chocolate to Peanut Butter. With cold brew, I tend to mix it with a caramel protein shake rather than milk because not only does it have fewer carbs than skim milk and serve as a filling and efficient replacement for breakfast, it tastes fecking delicious and hides all evidence of coffee from my persnickety tongue. However, I’ve also used flax, oat and coconut milks here as well. If I was feeling extra decadent, I top it with a little bit of creamer. I used to do fat free half and half, but then I discovered that Nut Pods creamer is so flipping delicious that I use that instead.
#bixquestions: What is your summer morning routine? How do you take your coffee? What is your morning deal breaker?
One Comment
My routine never varies summer or winter. I drink instant black coffee, a mix of regular and decaf, Mount Hagen which is the Rolls Royce of instant coffee. (Believe it.) My indulgence, sadly enough, is a giant package of disposable paper cups from costco. I can take my coffee in a paper cup to work and toss it out when I’m done so I never worry about keeping track of or washing out a reusable travel mug.