I had just read Ken Davids explaination of methods for preparation of coffee
concentrate in his book "Coffee: A Guide to buying, brewing and enjoying" - pgs
133-135, 235. He appears to be preferential to a hot water extraction, as more
flavorful, especially when used as an ingredient for cooking:
"To make a hot-water concentrate, use 8 cups of water to a pound of finely
ground coffee and brew in your customary fashion. If the coffee maker is unable
to handle a pound at a time, halve the recipe, or brew twice. Store the
resulting concentrate in a stoppered bottle in the refrigerator; to a preheated
cup, add about 1 ounce for every 5 ounces of hot water. A bartender's shot
glass holds an ounce and makes a convenient measure."
He describes another alternative to buying a cold water brewer:
"You don't have to buy a cold-water brewerer to enjoy cold-water coffee,
although the storebought brewers are more convenient than any expedient. To
improvise, you need a glass bowl, a large coffee cone and filter, and a bottle
with an airtight closure (snap on plastic won't do) in which to refrigerate the
finished concentrate. Take 1 pound of your favorite coffee, regular grind. You
can use any coffee, any roast. Put it in the bowl, and add 8 cups of cold
water. Poke the floating coffee down into the water, so all the grounds are
wet, then let the bowl stand in a cool, dark place for 10 to 20 hours, depending
on how strong you want the concentrate. When the brewing period is over, use
the cone to filter the concentrate into the 2nd, airtight container, and store
in the refrigerator. For hot coffee use 1 to 2 ounces per cup.
Concentrate keeps it's flavor for months, if the bottle is tightly capped,
but it is best to make only as much as you will drink in a week or two.
Instructions for the cold-water Toddy brewer suggest freezing the concentrate,
but I've found it loses some of it's much-needed flavor, and I suggest you
simply halve the recipe if you can't drink 8 cups of concentrate in two weeks."
"...The cold-water method produces a low-acid, light bodied cup, that some find
pleasingly delicate, and others bland."
As for my own travel coffee kit, I have a small leather tennis ball bag
(Wilson), made for 2 cans that's about the size of a toiletry bag. It holds
about 4 or 5 of my 4 oz of my asst'ed Popper roast baggies, a small 12 oz SS
bullet therm I got on the Net for $12, plus a SS Bodum therm Travel Press
plunger pot (12 oz/$20 - Starbucks -- A cool looking plastic version of the
Travel press is at www.Bodum.com for $10). In a side pocket is a CampMor
backpackers adjustable burr grinder ($14.95), also found on the Net. Which
leave room for a baggie of home ground convenience quick-brew or a couple
Biscotti. I smell like a Roaster on the move when I go by. Amusing to me
anyway. As for a source of good stoppered glass bottles for concentrate, how
about those Dutch Groelsch beer ceramic stoppered, rubber gasketed, elaborate
wire clamped beer bottles? Very cool looking.
- chris smith
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