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Am I the only one who thinks cold brew is way better if you skip the 24 hour steep?
I spent 6 months doing the standard 24 hour cold brew steep in my French press and it always came out bitter. Last week I tried a 12 hour steep at room temp instead and it was way smoother with way more flavor. Anyone else experimented with shorter steep times or is the long soak the only real way to go?
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hayes.joel28d ago
Mitchell.lee mentioned "chalky taste" and that's exactly what I got with the long fridge method too. Here's the thing nobody seems to talk about - the grind size matters way more with cold brew than people realize. I started doing a coarser grind with my 12 hour room temp steep and it totally solved that bitterness issue. Like if you use a fine grind for a long steep you're basically over-extracting from the start, no matter how long you wait. So maybe it's not just the time but how you prep the grounds that makes the shorter steep work better. I've been doing 10 hours with a medium-coarse grind for a few months now and it's honestly better than anything I got from a 24 hour soak.
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mitchell.lee29d ago
Dude same here. I tried the 12 hour thing on a whim with some Colombian beans and it was night and day different. No more of that weird sour bite at the end, just smooth coffee flavor all the way through. I was doing 20+ hours in the fridge and getting that chalky taste too. Now I just do 10-12 hours on the counter, filter it, and it's ready to drink right away. Haven't touched the long steep method since.
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