Friday, July 19, 2013

What's the Best Way to Quickly Chill Coffee?

In the heat of summer, hot coffee just won't do. If you properly plan ahead, you can have the cold stuff sitting in your fridge when you wake up. But if you forget to prep ahead of time, it's time to brew and chill quick. Stack Exchange users provide a few tips on getting a cold fix, fast.

I brew coffee using a french press. After I've pressed it, how can I make it chill fast?

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Brew it strong and then add ice. Alternately, freeze some coffee in ice cube trays and use those frozen coffee cubes to chill the new batch without diluting it. Agitation (shaking) with cubes is a good substitute for crushed ice—both ensure that the hot coffee meets the cold surface of the ice quickly. If you sweeten your iced coffee, using chilled simple syrup will help cool the brew and avoid problems getting the sugar to dissolve (sugar doesn't dissolve well in cold liquids).

You could try the cold-infusion technique described by Harold McGee at the New York Times: You can improvise a cold-brewing system using a French-press pot or just a pitcher or bowl, with fine sieves, cheesecloth, or cloth or paper filters to strain out the grounds. Infuse coarsely ground coffee overnight in cold water, about 5 cups for every 1/2-pound of coffee, then press or filter the brew from the grounds. In my experience this can become tedious because fine particles clog the filters.

Make your coffee hot, then combine several easy methods to dissipate heat:

Pour your hot coffee into a metal cup (or a martini shaker), which has better heat transfer properties than ceramic or glass. For even quicker results, plan ahead by frosting the metal cup in the freezer.Put the full metal cup in an ice bath. For an even colder ice bath, add salt, which can lower the temperature due to an effect known as freezing-point depression.Dip a metal spoon in and out of the full cup. (Note: dipping is more effective than stirring.) If making hot coffee cold quick is what you're after, you'll have a hard time finding a more effective method than this.Find more answers or leave your own at the original post. See more questions like this at Seasoned Advice, the cooking site at Stack Exchange. And of course, feel free to ask a question yourself.


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