Cold brew concentrate
- Thread starter topher
- Start date
- Aug 14, 2003
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- Thread starter
- #3
I called them. First lady told me the largest toddy maker they have makes 2.5 gallons per 24 hours. I need multiple 44 gallon drums. The second time I spoke with them I spoke to a gentleman that said he would call me back with a company that does this...2 weeks no return call.
CoffeeJunky
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- Dec 7, 2012
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I thought there was a member who tried to sell that on the forum. I think few months ago.
CanadianBrian
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- Jun 13, 2012
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Hello Topher ;
I am looking forward to your future posts on this. I am curious how they handle packaging and how they handle shelf life. Keep us informed.
Brian
I am looking forward to your future posts on this. I am curious how they handle packaging and how they handle shelf life. Keep us informed.
Brian
CoffeeJunky
New member
- Dec 7, 2012
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Thank God I don't need that much cold brew... Lol... I don't know if I would trust anything that is not really made by me. However, if you need to get that much at a time, I guess we do not have much of choice. Or have Toddy lab with 50 brewers. lol.
My company, N to 1 in Oakland, CA does do this.
I will send you a PM with contact information.
For those who are interested, a little educational information on the topic follows. I apologize for the inherent self-promotion.
In order to produce much larger quantities, you need specialized equipment. Employing massive numbers of Toddy's is inexpensive, but clearly doesn't scale. Designing our own equipment allows us to modify the process to produce a better product. For example, much of our brewing happens under a nitrogen atmosphere in order to minimize the dissolved oxygen. Keeping oxygen out of the end product improves the shelf life, and shelf life is a big issue.
Although we can easily produce cold brew, our process is specifically designed for hot brewing. The choice is up to you, and depends on the taste profile that you prefer. We find that by hot brewing we can capture the much wider range of tastes available in quality beans. Cold brewing extracts mostly the "bass notes", and most cold brews that you taste have a similar profile. Choosing the beans, the roast profile, and a better brewing temperature allow you to get the most out of your product. We sell at retail a bottled iced coffee which has a very different taste than others on the market, characterized as fruit-forward and light, while retaining the typical cold-brew qualities such as smoothness and lack of bitterness.
Another consideration is the TDS (total dissolved solids) of the concentrate you purchase. Most Toddy-like systems will yield a product in the 2.0-2.5% range. There is nothing wrong with that, and it may be diluted down to a lower range for iced coffee. But if you want to use it in, for example, an iced latte, you can provide a richer end product by using concentrate with less water in it. Our process yields concentrate at 9% TDS. We can mix it with milk for a delicious iced latte, or dilute 4:1 with water for iced coffee at 1.8% TDS. Note that the concentration of the coffee is higher than the typical 1.3% TDS that you might brew in your cafe. This is possible because of the (hot or cold) brewing process which minimizes bitterness. One can set the final concentration to taste, providing a product that has more intense coffee flavor and also more caffeine while remaining smooth like most cold brews.
I will send you a PM with contact information.
For those who are interested, a little educational information on the topic follows. I apologize for the inherent self-promotion.
In order to produce much larger quantities, you need specialized equipment. Employing massive numbers of Toddy's is inexpensive, but clearly doesn't scale. Designing our own equipment allows us to modify the process to produce a better product. For example, much of our brewing happens under a nitrogen atmosphere in order to minimize the dissolved oxygen. Keeping oxygen out of the end product improves the shelf life, and shelf life is a big issue.
Although we can easily produce cold brew, our process is specifically designed for hot brewing. The choice is up to you, and depends on the taste profile that you prefer. We find that by hot brewing we can capture the much wider range of tastes available in quality beans. Cold brewing extracts mostly the "bass notes", and most cold brews that you taste have a similar profile. Choosing the beans, the roast profile, and a better brewing temperature allow you to get the most out of your product. We sell at retail a bottled iced coffee which has a very different taste than others on the market, characterized as fruit-forward and light, while retaining the typical cold-brew qualities such as smoothness and lack of bitterness.
Another consideration is the TDS (total dissolved solids) of the concentrate you purchase. Most Toddy-like systems will yield a product in the 2.0-2.5% range. There is nothing wrong with that, and it may be diluted down to a lower range for iced coffee. But if you want to use it in, for example, an iced latte, you can provide a richer end product by using concentrate with less water in it. Our process yields concentrate at 9% TDS. We can mix it with milk for a delicious iced latte, or dilute 4:1 with water for iced coffee at 1.8% TDS. Note that the concentration of the coffee is higher than the typical 1.3% TDS that you might brew in your cafe. This is possible because of the (hot or cold) brewing process which minimizes bitterness. One can set the final concentration to taste, providing a product that has more intense coffee flavor and also more caffeine while remaining smooth like most cold brews.
CanadianBrian
New member
- Jun 13, 2012
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Hello ccooper;
Just curious as to what shelf life does your concentrate usually get? Any difference between hot and cold brew? How about doing a small amount of hot water to get some of the oils going and then adding the cold water ?
Thanks
Brian
Just curious as to what shelf life does your concentrate usually get? Any difference between hot and cold brew? How about doing a small amount of hot water to get some of the oils going and then adding the cold water ?
Thanks
Brian
I have not found any difference in shelf life between hot and cold brew, but it is entirely possible that there is a difference. The reason is that there are mainly two sources of degradation in the taste over time. The first is due to bacteriological contamination, the same reason that your milk goes sour. The second is due to chemical changes, the same as you taste in a pot of coffee that sits on the warming burner for hours, but these happen slower when kept refrigerated. Hot brewing is effectively a form of pasteurization, killing bacteria, and therefore should not be subject to the bacteriological contamination that can more easily appear in cold brew if careful precautions are not taken.
As it turns out, determining the shelf life is not an objective process. The guidelines that I have seen are that a product should be considered expired when 25 percent of your customers reject it for taste. Which customers are those? Some are sensitive and some are not, and it depends on your target market. It can be like determining whether a bottle of wine is corked -- some people know, and some people don't know the difference.
The reality is that there is a continuum. Our product, and every other one on the market, tastes better when brewed yesterday than one week ago. And better yet than one brewed two weeks ago, which is better than a batch that is two months old. So you have to decide which location on that continuum you wish to say is the point that is determined as "bad", for your typical consumer.
Personally, what I find is that within two weeks I can't detect much difference in our product, and outside of that there is a very gradual change in taste. We set our pull date at 6 weeks after brewing. In reality, the product is typically consumed within one week, so it doesn't much matter. It does have to be kept refrigerated, though. If you keep it at room temperature, the shelf life could easily decrease by 75%.
If somebody knows more about this subject, I would be happy to be educated.
Chris
CanadianBrian
New member
- Jun 13, 2012
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So then you are saying that a non refridgerated product only has a week shelf life, and a refridgerated one has 6 weeks? Doesn't the government have standards as to shelf life?
Brian
Brian
That's pretty much the idea. The US government has no fixed standards about shelf life. Read the Wikipedia article on shelf life for more in-depth discussion than we can have here.
In practice, this means that one company's 3-month shelf life might be the same as another company's 3-week shelf life. I see plain cold-brewed coffee on the market now with a shelf life of 6 months, which is just absurd. For a product like milk, it's pretty obvious when it turns bad. For coffee, the descent is more gradual, and of course some products have a pretty poor starting point, but reduce the slope of the descent by adding preservatives. In the end, you have to judge by taste.
Chris
Mr.Peaberry
Member
- Aug 7, 2013
- 889
- 4
Hi ccooper...
Shame on you for the overt self-promotion!
I just became a member of this forum after finding it while searching for information on Michael Sivitz coffee extract & equipment. I used to buy his extract and would like to find the equipment in order to do this myself as a side business, and to feed my own addiction :decaf: , LOL! If you would kindly PM me your contact information, you could become my new bcbfl (best coffee buddy for life).
Kindly, Doug
Shame on you for the overt self-promotion!
I just became a member of this forum after finding it while searching for information on Michael Sivitz coffee extract & equipment. I used to buy his extract and would like to find the equipment in order to do this myself as a side business, and to feed my own addiction :decaf: , LOL! If you would kindly PM me your contact information, you could become my new bcbfl (best coffee buddy for life).
Kindly, Doug
