Advanced Cold Drip Techniques
Hi coffee lovers!
Welcome back - we hope your foray into cold drip coffee has been fun and enlightening. Today we are going to cover some advanced techniques for getting a little more flavour out of your cold drip brew. For more on the cold drip method, read our Cold Drip Method post.
First things first, you really need to know the coffee beans that you are using. Having the cupping notes is great, however having cupped the beans yourself and knowing what flavours you could taste in the bean is even more helpful. Take note of the fruity and citrus flavours that you taste, as these are the flavours you’re going to enhance with your cold drip extraction.
Infusion
The first alternative technique we are going to introduce you to is Infusion. You have most likely come across Infusion techniques in some shape or form before, such as flavour-infused water. Tea bags are also used often in the infusion process.
Infusion is the process of extracting chemical compounds of flavours from plant material in a solvent, such as water, oil or alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent for a period of time. You can add beautiful flavours to your cold drip coffee using infusion techniques, like the one below.
Step 1 - Get your cupping notes
Grab the cupping notes you have for the coffee beans you want to use. Ideally you should cup the beans yourself to see if you can taste the flavours described, or if there are any more flavours that you can taste (some people’s palates are more expansive). When cupping the beans ideally cup them as black coffee, either traditional, filter or espresso - this way you can get a better idea of the flavours that will come through in the cold drip. Take note of the fruity and citrus flavours that you can taste most.
Step 2 - Choose your flavours
Now that you have cupped your beans and know what flavours come through most in the coffee, it’s time to pick one or two of these fruity or citrus flavours, and find the freshest fruits possible for your infusion. We have found that our favorite fruits for infusions are berries and citrus fruits, (lemon, lime and orange), but work with your beans, and be sure to pick based on what flavours you wish to enhance.
Step 3 - Infusing the brewing water
Time to work your magic now! For reference we are using a 1 Litre brew with an approximate yield of 920-950mls of cold drip coffee, which can be stored in the refrigerator. Prepare your room temperature water (we used exactly 1 Litre), and add the fresh fruit to it. Some key points so that you don’t get any imperfections in our extraction:
Rinse all of the fresh fruit under running water first
Don’t use any bruised or damaged fruits
If the fruit has an imperviable skin (e.g. banana), remove this first
With the citrus fruits (lemon, lime or orange) ensure you remove the rind to avoid any bitterness infusing into the water.
You want as much surface area as possible in contact with the water, so cut your fruit into small pieces
After ensuring all of the above, add all of the chopped fruit to the water and let sit to infuse for approximately 1-2 hours at room temperature. The 1-2 hours will depend on the fruit and the quality of water, so it takes some some experimentation! How much fruit should you add? Realistically you can’t overdo it using room temperature water, however we have found that 1-2 serves of each particular fruit generally turns out well.
Step 4 - Make your cold drip
Prepare your cold drip extraction using the method mentioned in our Cold Drip Method post, but this time using your newly infused water! Let us know how your new infused cold drip brew tastes by leaving your feedback via Facebook or Instagram!
Maceration
The second technique we are going to introduce you to is Maceration. Maceration is the softening and breaking down of skin from prolonged exposure to water - in this case, fruit skins. In food preparation, this process mostly occurs when soaking fruit in sugar, alcohol or other flavoured liquids. This process is slightly different to the Cold Drip Method post process due to the extended brewing period.
Firstly, follow the previous steps from the Infusion method, until you reach Step 3 - Infusing the brewing water.
Step 1 - Add the fruit
Rather than putting the fruit in with the water, you are going to place the fruit in with the coffee grind! You will be placing the fruit at the bottom of the coffee beaker, but on top of the ceramic filter.
Some tips for preparing the fruit:
Rinse all the fruit under running water first
Don’t use any bruised or damaged fruits
If the fruit has an imperviable skin (e.g. banana), remove this first
Firstly, when putting the fruit in, ensure you are only using enough for a nice even layer of about 0.5cm thick. Secondly, the key for the maceration process to work effectively in cold drip is to make sure that you damage the cell walls of the fruit before we put it in the coffee beaker. Therefore this process is a lot more effective with berries as they are easy to crush. To damage the cell walls of the fruit we recommend crushing them with the flat blade of a knife - you only need to damage the cell walls a little, you don’t want to crush it into a pulp. Once you have crushed the fruit slightly, place it in a nice even layer on top of the ceramic filter.
Now continue on with the rest of the steps to cold drip brew your coffee!
Let us know how your flavours worked!
The Infusion and Maceration processes are similar, and will often produce similar results. However, those who love to develop their palate will enjoy tasting the little nuances that can occur between the two different methods. Be sure to let us know how you went and what you think about these two advanced cold drip methods! Don’t forget to come in and taste our latest cold drip brew.
See you soon at Kiwanda Café.
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