Question about cold brew ratios I finally figured out

I spent like 6 months making cold brew that just tasted like sad brown water. Kept using a 1 to 4 ratio with coarse grounds because that's what the internet said. Then last week I grabbed the wrong bag of beans and accidentally did a 1 to 3 ratio instead. The difference was night and day, actually got some chocolate notes out of a Costa Rican roast I'd written off as boring. Does anyone else tweak their ratios depending on the bean origin or is that overkill?

3 comments

3 Comments

nora11016d ago

Actually that 1 to 3 ratio is more like a concentrate... so you're really doing closer to a 1 to 4 or 1 to 5 after you add water or milk. But I get what you mean about the flavor change, it's wild how much difference a few grams makes. I find that lighter roasts need a higher ratio of coffee to water because they're denser and don't extract as fast. For darker roasts I actually back off a little since they're more soluble and get bitter if you push them too far. So yeah, I definitely adjust based on the bean origin and roast level, it's not overkill at all, it's just learning what works.

harpery4716d ago

Yeah that totally matches my experience too. I started keeping a little notebook of what ratio I used for each bag of beans I got, and it helped me figure out that Ethiopian light roasts need like 10-15% more coffee than a Colombian dark roast to taste right. Once I got that dialed in I stopped having those mornings where my coffee came out either sour or burnt.

diana_west2716d ago

@harpery47 same here, that little notebook trick saved my mornings too haha