extraction

NCA Cold Brew Toolkit: FAQs

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New! NCA Workshop for Coffee Professionals:

The Business & Safety of Cold Brew | Nov. 6 | Sponsored by: Toddy, LLC

What is cold brew coffee?

“At its core, cold brew is a brewing method, not a serving method,” explains Mark Corey, Ph.D., NCA Director of Scientific & Government Affairs.

Dr. Corey led a team of specialized experts to develop the NCA Cold Brew Toolkit, now available to the entire coffee industry. (Read more background about the report and related food safety considerations.)

The Toolkit offers science-based technical guidance and recommended best practices – visit the NCA website for more details.

While working on the report, we received a lot of questions – from consumers and companies alike – about the beverage market’s hottest trend.

Here are some expert-approved answers to common questions about what “cold brew coffee” really means:

NCA Cold Brew Coffee FAQs

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The Science Behind Better Coffee

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Photo credit: UC Davis Newsroom

Basket Shapes & Water Quality: Filter Coffee in the UC Davis Lab

By Angie Molina

Article & photos from our friends at Perfect Daily Grind

Lee este artículo en español Filtros Y Calidad Del Agua: Café Filtrado en El Laboratorio

What do you need to do to brew better filter coffee? That’s one of the many questions UC Davis Coffee Center is setting out to answer, through a variety of research projects. After all, there’s nothing like hard science for an answer you can trust.

Professor William Ristenpart, the center’s Director, agreed to talk me through his current work and what we can expect to see in the future, from the impact of coffee filter baskets to water quality and temperature.

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Back to the Grind

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“Extraction is arguably the most important and least understood aspect of coffee brewing,” says Barista Hustle’s Matt Perger in this guide on the topic.

Put simply, extraction is the method of pulling the flavor from your coffee beans. It’s the magic that turns water and beans into a beautiful beverage. As water passes through the grounds, it dissolves all sorts of compounds that end up in your cup.

But this is where things get tricky: As Food and Wine notes, “Some of those compounds taste great, but others are kind of nasty. To get the good ones, and the right amount of them, you need to properly extract your coffee, meaning that the water dissolves the right stuff, and the right amount of it.”

As a general rule, brewing methods with longer contact time require a coarser grind (and vice versa – your espresso should be very fine). If this seems like a lot to consider before your first cup of coffee, don’t worry.
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