Keeping Your Coffee Habit During Summer

by Skunkie

Two Toddies

Two Toddies Brewing in a French Press

It’s been freakin’ hot lately here in Southern California. And when it’s hot, the last thing you want to think about is brewing coffee. Fortunately there are some things you can do to keep your coffee habit and chill out at the same time.

Enter the Toddy

This method of coffee brewing is by far the simplest. If you own a French Press/Press pot, you’re good to go. The only down side to this method is; it’s gonna take over night planning to achieve. So lets get started. First thing to know, a Toddy is concentrated coffee. So don’t go pouring yourself a nice tall glass of this stuff. You might just end up with a massive caffeine overdose. But don’t worry, this does pack a mighty punch. The idea here is coffee grounds to water should be about 1 to 2 ratio. So when following these steps, make sure you keep that in mind with the size press you’re using.

  1. Grind your favorite dark roast a little coarser than you usually would. The darker the roast the better, French Roasts or even the dreaded Starbucks dark roasts tend to do very well. I actually liked doing this with Starbuck’s Sumatra blend (this was before I started home roasting).
  2. Go ahead and place that at the bottom of your press like normal.
  3. Instead of heating up water, you’re going to add room temperature water in a 1 to 2 ratio, coffee to water here.
  4. Let sit on the counter for 10 hours. Best to keep it room temperature during the brew period.
  5. After the 10 hour mark you can go ahead and press the coffee and pour into another container.
  6. Go ahead and pour some into a glass adding milk or water to your own taste. Don’t forget the ice! Chill the rest in the fridge.

Now the ratio can vary a bit as well as the steeping time. The longer it steeps the more bitter the coffee will get. The coffee to water ratio is how strong your going to like your toddy. Play around with the ratio and steeping time to find something you like. This is purely based on what PolyVector and myself have found works best for us. The over all flavor of the coffee is quite different than what you’re going to be used to. The concentrate by itself is intense and extremely bitter, but once water or milk is added the true flavor is brought out.

Other Iced Coffees

There are lots of other ways to do iced coffee. My current method involves espresso (naturally). It’s pretty simple, basically taking an americano (1oz./shot espresso to 5oz. of water) and adding ice. Other options are espresso with milk on ice. Some people have even done this with orange juice. Another really cheap method of coffee brewing is using an Aeropress and brewing straight over ice.