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With the exception of the best store-bought cold brew, most canned cold brews won’t taste as good as the fresh version. If you didn’t know, cold brew is made by extracting ground coffee beans in cold water for an extended period of time — in other words, exactly the way its name sounds. This process gives it a distinctly strong yet smooth flavor, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires canned cold brews to be pasteurized. While this does make them safe and ready to drink for an extended period of time, the catch is that they never taste quite as good as fresh cold brew.
Pasteurizing involves heating the coffee to a temperature of over 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit), and while it does successfully do the job of killing any and all bacteria or contaminants — namely botulism and listeria — that could be floating around and festering in cold brew’s naturally low-acid environment, it also alters the taste. One consumer on Reddit described it as tasting “off” or having a “weird artificial taste.”
Even Tasting Table’s very own taste testers picked up on these odd extra flavors in their review of Starbucks’ canned cold brews. Canned cold brew also has an odd smell that scientific studies have gone as far to investigate solutions for. While it might seem hopeless, the solution to this problem is actually incredibly simple: You can order cold brew fresh from a coffee shop or make your own at home. Fortunately, it only requires two ingredients, and it’s incredibly easy to pull off with the right equipment.
Making cold brew at home is easy, and it tastes even better
Knowing that store-bought canned cold brew will never taste as good, homemade or fresh cold brew from a vetted coffee shop will be your best options. The good news is that, not only is it a fairly common drink found on coffee menus, it’s also incredibly easy to make yourself. Requiring just two ingredients — that being water and a bag of coffee beans — all you need to make homemade cold brew is patience and a medium to dark roast, coarsely ground and combined with a ratio of 1:8 coffee to water. Then, simply steep it inside of your fridge for anywhere from 18 to 24 hours, strain it, and transfer it to a pitcher. After that, your fresh cold brew will last you up to a week in the fridge. Try this bold cold brew recipe to get started.
You can, of course, adjust that ratio depending on how strong you like it. In fact, if you break the ratio down to anywhere from 1:4 to 1:2 coffee to water, you can create a cold brew concentrate. The catch is that it will take a lot longer to steep, but an easy way to speed it up is to grind your coffee a bit finer and let it steep at room temperature rather than in the fridge. Prepared this way, you’ll have a cold brew concentrate in as little as 12 to 18 hours. But, no matter what, you’ll make your job a whole lot easier by purchasing a set of plastic kitchen funnels and fine mesh strainers from Amazon.
