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June, July or August are the months when it’s winter in Latin America and you want a hot coffee, whereas in much of Spain temperatures are increasingly warmer
June, July or August are the months when it’s winter in Latin America and you want a hot coffee, whereas in much of Spain temperatures are increasingly warmer (although summer seems to be delayed). If you love coffee, you will have a hard time because it is not the drink you want most in the heat. But there are various recipes for preparing a fresh coffee that tastes great. And no, I’m not talking about the bar iced coffee they serve with two iceberg-sized cubes in a glass filled with water.
One of them is cold brew, a cold brewed coffee I must admit that I didn’t like it when I saw it in commercial coffee chains, but since I got a piston coffee maker for home, I’ve come to love it. If this ‘cold brew’ or ‘piston coffee maker’ thing doesn’t sound familiar to you, read on because this type of preparation has become a daily occurrence since I discovered it a few years ago.
It must be admitted that the French were great at inventing simple machines, but they worked great. The guillotine is an example, but so is the piston coffee maker. The device, also known as the French press, was patented in the mid-19th century and its design has not changed since then. You don’t need this either.
This type of coffee maker is even simpler than the Italian moka pot, since its design does not require a special part for the hot water that allows the extraction of coffee to come out. It is a carafe with a metal mesh filter inside, which rises or falls depending on a piston placed in its upper part.
This is a current French press:
This is the patent of Jacques-Victor Delforge and Henri-Otto Mayer dated 1852:
And yes, okay, there may have been some changes to the design over the decades or due to patents from other manufacturers, but basically The news in the press remained largely unchanged. And the process is extremely simple: we pour the coffee with medium-sized beans into the jug and pour hot water at a temperature of about 95° to carry out the extraction.
Each master has his own manual, but the common ratio is about 30 grams of ground coffee for 500 milliliters of water, but here it depends on whether you like it more or less mild and the result is … a coffee brew. . The result in the cup will be (depending on the coffee of course) a drink with an almost reddish hue.
After about five minutes have passed, we push the plunger almost all the way in and pour the coffee into the cup. There are some tricks to make it taste bettersuch as steeping for four minutes, removing the foam that forms during the extraction process, which can give it a bitter touch, and letting it brew for a few more minutes before drinking. But hey, the basics and preparation are dead simple.
If you do not know this method, I assure you that it is very different from other machines used to prepare coffee, it is gentle and extracts many nuances from the coffee that we do not notice in the Italian coffee machine or espresso machine.
The good thing about this machine is that you can play with it and one of the results is cold brew coffee or cold brew. We usually think that you need hot water to get a good coffee shot and yes, this is true when it comes to preparations like percolator, moka, Aeropress or espresso machine, but we can also brew with cold water.
This will allow the coffee to acquire new nuances, usually with a naturally sweeter taste (as long as we have good coffee, of course, if it is typical roasted coffee … it will taste just as bad, sorry for those who do this, I love roasted coffee). And preparing this cold coffee is very simple:
Once that time has passed, if we want to start drinking that fresh coffee, we need to filter it through a muslin cloth, paper filter or something like that, but I use the French coffee maker.
And besides drinking it on its own (possible due to the natural sweetness achieved in cold brew), you can use cold brew to make ice cubes, prepare a cocktail, or mix it with milk or vegetable drink.
Buying a French press to use as a backup when making cold brew is a waste, and to be honest, that’s not what I originally bought it for, but to make hot coffee, although it’s gentler than other methods. But once I discovered cold brew, this piston coffee maker became a staple in my year-round preparations.
Besides using it to filter cold brew coffee, The French coffee maker also has other uses. It can be used to froth milk by introducing milk and hitting the plunger. Also for preparing teas and infusions. Of course, if you are going to prepare an infusion, make sure that there are no coffee beans in the filter, as the result can be a little unpleasant.
And if you don’t think you’ll get the most out of it but cold brewing still appeals to you, there are alternatives – for example, mugs with built-in filters that allow you to brew cold brew straight from the can without filtering it afterwards.
There are similar models from Hario that do the same thing, but they are not airtight and are slightly less ideal options due to what has been said about coffee smells coming from the fridge. For this, it is better to put the French press directly in the refrigerator and that’s it (and I admit that I do this, because if the refrigerator is clean and the drawers are well closed, there will be no problem with the smell).
Or you can also make an ultrasonic coffee maker to speed up the process and take just three minutes to make cold brew espresso.
Images | Alejandro Alcolea, KoeppiK
At Xataka | I had a donut mixed with milk coffee. It was so delicious I won’t make it again
Source: Xatak Android
Ashley Johnson is a science writer for “Div Bracket”. With a background in the natural sciences and a passion for exploring the mysteries of the universe, she provides in-depth coverage of the latest scientific developments.
