If you are a fan of coffee, cold brew is no longer a strange term. It goes downstream as the modern beverage by the new brewing method. This drink brings a refreshing feeling that is not inferior to the traditional one, and even tastes greater.
Despite its high price, cold brew has become the best seller in most coffee shops. Yet, it is not difficult to prepare at home. Just a few minutes from reading this post to learn how to grind coffee beans for cold brew, and you can get your tasty cup every day!
How To Grind Coffee Beans For Cold Brew?
Learning grinding skills can help your cold brew perfectly keep the expected flavor. To perform it well, grind size is the main factor you must be concerned about since it decides the drink’s taste based on the extraction density.
Choose The Best Grind Size
The grinding technique can intensify the drink’s flavor, increasing the interaction between beans and water due to the expansion of the surface area.
If you are a real coffeeholic, you will indeed know how to distinguish cold brew making from the others. Instead of requiring boiled water to make a cup of coffee, the brewing process allows the mixture to pour at room temperature. With the right grind size, the beautiful outcome of cold brew satisfies even the most fastidious person.
In case you use the wrong one, the lousy result may make your mood go down. No one wants to spend 12-24 hours brewing the energy cup for the next day, then end up disappointed with a failure!
What size of grinding beans should you choose, then? A coarse grind is the best recommendation.
The reason is that brewing requires more time, at least 18 to 24 hours, for the best contact of coffee grounds and water in the pouring container.
The mixture should provide the optimal time and quality condition for filtration. Thus, the coarse grind size suits best. Compared to the others, this size performs the process in the most effective way.
Afterward, you can enjoy a variety of good flavors in the final drink with the coarse grind beans. Especially the sweet taste, or not too bitter, as many people want the cold brew to be. When holding coarse grind between your fingers, you can get the gritty feeling and hold beach sand.
Yet, is there a problem if we apply the fine ground instead? You can use it, but you can get in trouble with cold brew quality due to the ineffective extraction.
Using finer ground form can waste more time, as it decreases the flowing ability of water. Due to the high density, the mixture results in remaining on the top, then the amount of end-product may be lacking. As the water can not filter enough aroma for the drink, the taste will become bitter unexpectedly.
Choose The Grinders Suitable To Create Your Grind Size
After identifying the right ingredient, the next step is selecting the appropriate equipment. The quality of your drink also depends on whether you get the matching grinding tool or not.
You can consider these two options: blade grinder and burr grinder.
Blade Grinder
This type of grinder seems more attractive to people because of the economic price and smaller size. However, the efficiency turns out to be the opposite. Most consumers have the same misconception that using a blade grinder can make the perfect cold brew.
With the inner blade system at the bottom, the grinder acts as well as the blender. The progress is uncontrollable in speed and results in the mess of heterogeneous mixture, including many grind sizes from coarse to fine one.
Thus, it can count for the unsuccessful brewing, as well as the bad cup that you never want to cheer for at the beginning of the day.
The coffee can lose flavor even more if you use blade grinders. The machine destroys your raw materials quicker by burning them with the heat released during running it.
Since this equipment can get into too much trouble with stalling beans and inconsistent ground mixtures, buying pre-ground coffee beans seems to be a better option.
Burr Grinder
If you are looking for the name of the hero, here is a burr grinder! The two cutting discs do a good job by turning all the beans into one consistent size. As a result, you will get complete filtration for the cold brewing.
There is a clear difference in the mechanism between the two types of machines. While the blade grinder shows bad work with uneven ground beans, the mixture from the burr grinder is much more balanced, resulting in more effective brewing. We can’t deny that the burr grinder is the winner of the game.
The burr grinders are variable in price, even inexpensive, but still cost more than the blade. As the quality goes with the price, you will feel your paid worth it! They please you for the design purpose of being easy to carry on, which is your perfect partner on any vacation.
You can call them amazing grinders, as they allow you to set the size for grinding with the attachment of adjustable settings right away. Besides making a cold brew with a coarse grind, you can try another drink suited to a finer size, such as a cup of espresso.
Tips About Grinding Coffee For Cold Brew
The first tip you have to keep in mind is to follow the rule of grinding immediately before brewing. Have you ever heard that once the beans have been ground, they lose about 60 percent of their aroma within only 15 minutes? This action cuts the flavor loss as much as possible.
So, where does the aroma go? These aromatic compounds are oils, which build up the main flavor of your cup. They also evaporate easily and take the odors on everything around. This phenomenon happens even the moment you start opening the bag; that’s why we always have to store coffee properly.
Plus, grinding action directly attacks the quality of the beans. Both the oxidation and carbon dioxide release speeds up at the same time when starting to grind the beans; they become less flavored and go stale very quickly.
Remember to brew the mixture right away after grinding; it will also prevent a lot of aroma volatilization. Also, fill them with water and wait until you can enjoy the flavorsome drink.
Do not forget to take only enough coarse grind that you need each time!
How To Use A Grinder?
The grinders use electric power from the power cord. Make sure that you enter the plug into the outlet before turning it on. The device needs three to five minutes for the blade warm-up section to get ready for the grinding.
First of all, let’s start by adding the materials inside the grinder. During the whole process, you may need to hold the lid closing tightly to prevent uneven mixture dispersion around the blades.
The procedure of grinding can have a little difference between the types of grinders. In general, they all require the container, which you should insert below the spout from the beginning. Then, the progress will finish by removing all the coffee grounds down to it.
Set the Grind Size
The grinder provides different modes from lightest to strongest power for you to adjust the grind size. For the cold brew, the medium level is most suitable for use to ensure that the final grounds are neither too coarse nor too fine. Thus, the drink can reach the right flavorsome taste you want.
Be Careful With The Speed
The running speed is the extra factor you must bear in mind once you push the starting button. Please keep your eyes on it! You must stop the process at the right time unless the grounds can turn into a very gritty form, which is not good anymore.
What If You Don’t Have A Grinder?
If you haven’t planned to spend money on any new grinder yet, check these solutions below!
Using A Standard Blender
Since the blender functions the same as the blade system, it is a replacement for you to make the drink without a grinder. With the advanced ones, the manufacturer may add a particular coffee grinding mode into the devices.
Unfortunately, it works badly as the blade grinder does. You will receive a heterogeneous mixture in size, and of course, the flavor is ruined. Unless it is compulsory to choose, don’t think of a blender as your drink’s better alternative!
There is a precaution not to use it too long, or else it will go broken quicker. Since the unwanted heat can cause the oils from beans to taste overcooked and bitter, you should take the small spurt only for the grinding each time.
Using A Hammer
You may feel surprised, but yes, it’s true! With the hammer, you can better control the force to produce the right size of ground, which is medium to coarse. Although unexpected, it may be the best option to replace the grinder for your cold brew.
It seems easier since all you need to do is to put the materials into a plastic bag, then use a hammer to grind them until you feel good. You can take action from both sides to make sure the mixture is consistent.
Due to the manual performance, be careful to avoid accidents to your hands and surface damage. If you perform it well, there will be a cold-tasting brew waiting for you to enjoy.
Conclusion
Now, you can finally master how to grind coffee beans for cold brew! If you are a busy worker always with a coffee in hand, making it at home is not bad for saving time and money. It better brightens up your day since you can enjoy the drink with your favorite flavor.
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