Warm would be difficult - carbonated water degasses very quickly when heated.
Carbonated water is also acidic, so I don't know what that would do. It was just a thought that I threw out there. I've added cold carbonated water to cold coffee just to drink something other than just club soda - and I really liked it - but it was just store-bought convenience coffee.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Posted Sat Oct 27, 2012, 9:48am Subject: Re: Best Brewing Method For Iced Coffee
Adding a warm brew to carbonated water in a narrow necked vessel should outgas some CO2, which will automatically flush the container (assuming you nearly fill it, and don't pour too violently). Maybe drip brew via a funnel into half a bottle of ice cold carbonated water rather than onto ice?
I think that warm brewing has a tendency to extract less of the bitter fatty acids that high temperature brewing (>205°F) can bring out. If this allows the sweetness to shine through, then yes. I think that it also reduces the reduction of CGA into quinnic acids.
Cold brewing seems to lack a lot of what we think of as "coffee", I think because our taste definition of "coffee" contains some balance of flavors that includes bitterness. Without it, the taste profile can be off and trend toward tea-like flavor.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Mike250 Senior Member Joined: 24 Jan 2012 Posts: 36 Location: NZ Expertise: Just starting
Posted Thu Dec 20, 2012, 5:01pm Subject: Re: Best Brewing Method For Iced Coffee
I've just had a taste of a Single Origin Yirgacheffe Cold Brew and for some reason there is a strong bitter after-taste to this brew that goes away if I mix it with carbonated water and tastes very nice with hot water. Is it usual for a cold brew to be quite bitter?
Posted Fri Dec 21, 2012, 6:51am Subject: Re: Best Brewing Method For Iced Coffee
Mike250 Said:
I've just had a taste of a Single Origin Yirgacheffe Cold Brew and for some reason there is a strong bitter after-taste to this brew that goes away if I mix it with carbonated water and tastes very nice with hot water. Is it usual for a cold brew to be quite bitter?
It hasn't been my experience, but who's to say what is "usual" for a cold brew.
Does it happen from batch to batch?
Age of the beans since roasting?
How fine did you grind?
There's lots of things that change the flavor profile. As an example, simply getting a 20% difference/increase in strength (seems like a lot, but I assure you it's very possible) with exactly the same overall extraction can help you taste flavors you may not have picked up on before. Different compounds have different concentration sensitivities, so even if you're extracting the same amount of some compound, it may not show up in weaker concentration (and with your own taste bud sensitivity), but may be detectable if the strength is higher.
Consider that adding carbonated water has a prevailing taste that may mask bitterness. Also, your adding hot water (I assume) means you're diluting the strength - so it might not be a chemical reaction but simply a concentration change that makes some taste compound drop below your personal sensitivity level.
Drink for thought...
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Mike250 Senior Member Joined: 24 Jan 2012 Posts: 36 Location: NZ Expertise: Just starting
Posted Fri Dec 21, 2012, 12:59pm Subject: Re: Best Brewing Method For Iced Coffee
I forgot to add that I bought this from a Cafe, so perhaps this wasn't a good batch. The ageing process according to their website is 5 days. I will try a second batch and see if I'm getting the same results
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