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Tag: cold brew

How to Brew With the Toddy Cold Brew System

Autumn is right around the corner but the cold brew craze is still going strong. Before the days turn from muggy to brisk, I want to squeeze in one more cold brew post, this time about the Toddy cold brew system.

The Toddy cold brew system is an extremely popular way to make cold brew. I don’t own one (I certainly have too many brewing apparatuses already) but was able to borrow one for most of the summer to play around with.
Here is my two cents about the Toddy, its pros and cons and my go-to Toddy recipe.

What is the Toddy Cold Brewer

The Toddy is a device that makes brewing large batches of cold brew (just over 1.5 liters) pretty much as close to effortless and mess free as something gets. The classic Toddy cold brew system consists of a large plastic vessel for brewing and a glass carafe for storing the cold brew once it is filtered.

Are you new to cold brew? You can read more about cold brewed coffee here and here.

The Toddy is designed so that the brewing vessel sits securely on top of the carafe. The brewing vessel has a spot at the bottom for a small hockey puck shaped filter (about the diameter of an Aeropress filter) to sit above a hole that is blocked by a removable rubber stopper. When brewing is complete, filtering out the coffee grounds is as easy as unplugging the stopper and setting the brewing vessel on top of the carafe.

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How to Cold Brew Coffee 2.0- Three Cold Brew Hacks that will Start Your Summer Right

The average daily temperature is rising, you can hear the drone of lawn mowers throughout the neighborhood and, most likely, your urges to sit outside and drink a cold refreshing coffee drink have returned. It is cold brew coffee season again (I’m a little late actually).

If you have never made cold brew at home, it is one of the more simple brewing methods. You need minimal equipment and experience. I recommend starting with my Introduction to Cold Brew Coffee post. This will give you a basic understanding of the process and a recipe with an equipment list. If you have never read it, go now and get started.

If you have brewed a batch or two of cold brew or are just looking for some ways to experiment with your coffee, this post is for you. I am upping the cold brew ante and sharing a couple of my favorite cold brew hacks to get your summer started off on the right foot.

Here are three cold brew techniques that will help you take your cold brew coffee to the next level (or at least give you some fun experiments to try).

Easy Kyoto Style Cold Brew

Credit for this technique goes to Prima Coffee and this sweet post featuring a DIY Aeropress Kyoto method (and a Hot Bloom recipe) from last year.

Kyoto Style Cold Brew is a different take on cold brewing coffee. I like to think of it as the cold brewing equivalent to a pour-over (since most other recipes are full immersion). For this brewing method, ice cold water is dripped over a coffee bed for a period of hours and the cold brew slowly drips out of the bottom of the coffee bed into a collection container.

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An Introduction to Cold Brew Coffee

It’s time to talk about cold brewed coffee. If you didn’t know or haven’t heard, it is pretty wonderful. It is a refreshing drink on a warm day, an easy hack for bypassing your horrid office coffee and actually a great way to get into manual coffee brewing with pretty much no specialized coffee equipment.

While I must admit, I typically prefer a hot brewed cup of coffee. It is a great brewing method and sometimes it just hits the spot. You owe it to yourself to try it if you never have and it never hurts to have a fool-proof cold brew recipe in your back pocket.

What is Cold Brew

Cold brew is an immersion brewing method where cold water is added to ground coffee and steeped for a long period of time, usually between 12 and 24 hours. The result is a cup of coffee that is less acidic, lacking in aromatics and has a slightly different chemical composition than a cup of coffee brewed with hot water.

Cold brew is often incorrectly used interchangeably with the more general term iced coffee. Iced coffee refers to cold brew as well as a few other brewing variants of coffee served over ice*.

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