Typically I’d make a pour over or espresso, but my A/C is out and I can’t even think about hot coffee. What is your favorite way to make iced coffee in a Chemex? I’ve got light roasts from Costa Rica, Burundi, and Ethiopia right now.
Typically I’d make a pour over or espresso, but my A/C is out and I can’t even think about hot coffee. What is your favorite way to make iced coffee in a Chemex? I’ve got light roasts from Costa Rica, Burundi, and Ethiopia right now.
Thanks for the tip! I tried this and ended up with an uneven extraction and slightly bitter cup—although that may be more due to the ratio than the brewing method. I typically brew pour overs at 1:17, but the recipe I found online was 1:4:7 ratio (48g coffee to 212g ice and 340g water). Since coffee extraction is non-linear, I don’t understand how brewing with half the hot water yields the same extraction (based on the dynamics of coffee extraction). What brewing ratio worked produces a more balanced cup for you?
EDIT: I should add I ground medium-sized (3 on a Fellow Ode Gen 1) and used 99° C water.
When I do japanese iced, I usually grind a tiny bit finer, and pour as slowly as I can. Just so the brew time isn’t halved. Not sure how proper that is, but it seems to work.
I follow James Hoffmann’s Japanese iced coffee recipe for V60 which for me yields a sweet, fruit tea-like cup with light roasts.
Tetsu Kasuya’s recipe of stuffing the brewer full of ice cubes and slowly letting them melt over the grounds would be hella fun to try though…
I’d also recommend Hoffman’s method, I grind quite a lot finer than I normally do, use closer to 1/11, and bloom for about a minute plus a slower pour.
Also I hold back 2-3 ice cubes and put them directly in my cup after serving. So instead of getting a lot of small almost melted cubes you have a few big ones making it nicer to drink.
I believe it’s because I mostly drink delicate light roasted Ethiopian coffees that are a bit harder to extract for ice coffee.
I tried the Hoffman method today and it’s quite good (provided you pour the iced coffee over additional ice before drinking). I didn’t quite get a sweet fruit tea-like cup (like I usually do with a hot pourover light roast), but I certainly got more of the origin characteristics I was looking for.
I usually do the 4:6 method when brewing pour over. Yeah it’s older but I feel I get a more consistent cup even when I’m half asleep making it. Allowing most of the water to drain between pours seems to help with that. I’ve also done some wet WDT if the brew seems to stall to help make sure I meet my target brew time.