I wonder if you reduce the amount of coffee to limit the infusion at room temperature you will get a similar profile as you do when you are doing cold infusion with the current amount of coffee.
Fun experiment! One note: the ice isn't just there for temperature, it also added the most important ingredient, the water. The ice in a stirred cocktail contributes a certain amount of water to the drink as it chills the cocktail. This water lowers the proof and sweetness of the cocktail and has a big impact on the taste of the drink. This is why you can't just add spirits to a batched cocktail; you have to add water too. If you really want to isolate the variable of temperature, then you need to figure out how much water melts into your cocktail, then add that amount into your room temp cocktail.
Oh yeah, good point, and you could also try it with those metallic or stone "ice cubes" meant for whisky that don't really add any water to the mix. Of course the metallic ones may react with acidic ingredients of the cocktail, but those stone ones should be pretty unreactive. That way you're really narrowing down the temperature aspect of the drink. I'm also wondering if there is any difference with just using chilled ingredients too begin with in order to just focus on the temperature.
I tried one with pisco macerated with coffee and it was mindblowing, like its often hard to nail the exact spot with maceration but this one just nailed it
JH: “I won’t be talking about cocktails because it’s outside my wheelhouse”. Also JH: “Here are multiple specific aspects of how I make a Manhattan and why”. Me: “I love this channel”.
There's a drink called "Tod vor Stalingrad" where you put Vodka in a drip coffee maker. We did the same but with Jameson and a nespresso machine. It was ok. We named it "Dublin suicide". Yes we're very immature.
perhaps the reason the room temp one infused more coffee was due to the chilled one also being diluted more, as stirring with ice also dilutes along with chilling. So, the pure alcohol would be of a higher solvency than the stirred one. Just a thought. I love this type of content.
Great video James and great idea from Cocktail Chemistry! I think we need to look into this! Oh, and I'm pretty sure that was a long twizzley whizzley spoon you were using. Keep the bonus points though, give them to someone else.
This makes sense from a chemical perspective. Utilizing alcohol to perform your extraction will tend to preferentially extract more bitter compounds (which tend to be less water soluble). Cooling the alcohol down before performing the extraction will likely decrease the quantity of these compounds in the drink, adjusting the ratio of water vs oil soluble compounds extracted, and thus the flavor profile of the drink. This is similar to what happens in a cold brew vs hot brew coffee. It would be interesting to experiment with extraction temperature, perhaps using vodka to minimize competing flavors, and see what happens with the drink. Even better, one could utilize a GC/MS or HPLC to quantify the extraction of various different flavor compounds to help dial in the precise flavor desired.
Having just tried putting 50ml of room temperature genever through 12g of coffee, I can confirm that it extracts a lot of unpleasant flavour 😬 Alcohol is a very different solvent to water.
Hi James. Big question for you. Do you bloom your washing up liquid? Quick squirt, 100ml of water to really get the greases flowing. I worry that not blooming would lead me to waste my washing up potential. Thanks.
"There is good decaf." Amen to that. Though harder to find for sure. I recently started working at a new cafe i was slightly horrified to discover that our PNG decaf was actually my favourite single origin, and not because any of the others were bad, it was just sooo good.
Great to see you respond to this. I tried the technique a couple of weekends ago with an old fashioned and loved it! Garnished with an orange peel, and the aroma played with the coffee beautifully.
Would love to see the video on good decaf! I suffer from a fairly severe anxiety disorder that is easily agitated by excess caffeine, but I absolutely love coffee and the routine of drinking it every day. A good decaf option would be perfect for me but I've not found much luck finding any in my area, and the ones I have found are either mass produced or were roasted weeks or even months ago. Dying to get your thoughts on this
Coffee subscriptions are a BIG help-either a decaf box or using their catalogue to explore specialty roasters and order what you want from them directly. Almost no mid/commercial range does a lighter decaf, or at least I haven’t seen it. Seems counterintuitive to make a charcoal roast for people only drinking it for the flavour... But what do I know.
I find it interesting as most cocktail bartenders create recipes volumetrically. To translate that into a mass based recipe you would need to look into (or measure) the density of each component and then calculate. That in itself isn't too problematic but when you consider the relationship between temperature and volume, you then have to ask the recipe developer what temperature each component is stored. A good bartender will keep their vermouth in the fridge for example, increasing its density and therefore the mass of any given volume. It may be easier to just invest in accurate volumetric tools and store each component where they should be stored. I can't wait to see a video on the reasoning behind this as I agree, in theory it does give a more accurate outcome
1018lukesmith I don’t think converting a volumetric recipe to a weight based one for accuracy makes sense. I think he’s just saying he prefers to keep his recipes by weight. For conversion, you probably would be fine just assuming a density of 1 and tweaking as needed.
4:02 Ah, the Hoffman. Great for adding a pinch of salt to cocktails when your hands are wet. Not everyone has the privilege of having a barspoon named after themselves 😌
does the amount of coffee matter? you said the Cocktail Chemistry channel used 15g at a coarser grind, and you used 12g at a finer grind. For the sake of the workflow, could you, say, use 6g on a finer grind, and then to the room temp infusion, or is this a a thermodynamic thing where by virtue of being at a higher temp, different compounds are extracted (or in different amounts) than using the pre-chilled extraction?
Was wondering the same thing - if a room temp infusion using less coffee made for a comparable final result, that would also have the benefit of not reducing the amount of coffee I can brew in the afternoon!
Rahul D'souza i understand that. My question was with regard to the room temperature extraction resulting in too much , and perhaps using less coffee overall could reduce the overall amount of extraction
I would be interested to see what impact the ice had on the infusion. The second cocktail was colder but also marginally more dilute due to the ice. If it had been cooled by being stored in the fridge and then poured through the coffee would you have the same effect?
I was going to ask exactly this as well. Since there's a difference in taste between cold brewing for hours and hot-brewing for minutes, even if the average strength of the drink might be around the same, I'd assume that it makes some difference. Question is, is the difference between icy and room temp extractions (adjusting coffee amount to attain the same average strength) significant the way cold vs near-boiling is?
Just whipped this up right now, best cocktail I've had so far in the US! So many elements to wade through with the nose and palette if you add a cherry and squeeze in some oils from an orange zest.
"There is good decaf!" Code Black Coffee here in Melbourne have a Colombia Swiss Water Decaf that opened my eyes to good "decaf" coffee. And thank you for reminding me of it, I am totally in need of some more!
@@newaziz2012 This is the best decaf I've found by a mile. In my opinion, the sugar cane EA method results in a much nicer flavour than the Swiss water process. villino.com.au/colombia-popayan-decaf/
@@newaziz2012 Glad to hear you'd like to give it a try! Code Black have a website, right here - codeblackcoffee.com.au/shop/beans/colombia-swiss-water-decaf/
@James White Awesome! Highly recommend Code Black, they have such a great team there as well. They even love James' videos! Their decaf is here - codeblackcoffee.com.au/shop/beans/colombia-swiss-water-decaf/
I can't drink as much caffeine as I use to and I do drink decaf at night, I've been eagerly waiting to see you do a video on good decaf. The best one I've found at the store is Starbucks Cafe Verona because I like dark roasts and I prepare it in a French Press. Please, if you know of other decafs that are better than what I'm using please make a video about it. I would love to know where to find good tasting decaf, even better if the decafs have a non-decaf version since I sometimes mix them in the french press if I do want a little bit of caffeine which is in the morning. Please, please make a Decaf video, I'm dying to see it.
"There is good decaf, I promise you that!" Oh man, there 100% is. Watching this while drinking a sugar cane process decaffeinated Colombia Villamaria from Gardelli. V60 over ice. Incredible stuff.
My partner and I did a cupping at home last weekend and for him it was a blind tasting. I only asked one thing of him and that was to identify which cup he liked the most. There were 5 different specialty coffees from three different roasters. He identified cup A as his favourite: the decaf. I had to agree. Colombian (Popayan, Cauca) using the sugarcane process. He was really surprised that a decaf could be so good! I drink it every day as I really only want “proper coffee” first thing in the morning. I am really looking forward to the decaf video as I know James will do an excellent and thorough job of covering the topic. My main concern is the extra energy and resources involved, so I’d love to learn more.
After watching Nick's video I was waiting for your response, James. You did not disappoint. I am glad you tried the pre-dilution infusion. Many of us were hoping for a side by side comparison. By the way there is one other solution to your coffee/cocktail conundrum other than decaf. Brunch. A coffee infused boulevardier would be a welcome respite from mimosas or even the French 75.
Wow ok - I was thinking a warm infusion and then chilling the cocktail when I saw the video from Cocktail Chemistry. But thanks for making a video on it. I can see now why a cold infusion is going to be better. I will try it this friday
I'd be interested in the difference between a room temp infusion (or only infusing part of the cocktail liquid rather than infusing the whole cocktail) with a smaller amount of coffee vs the cold infusion of a larger amount of coffee. It seems like it'd be a way to reduce loss in the grounds & gain a similar effect for less raw material. But maybe I'm missing something obvious.
Have done this in a flair espresso maker while on holiday in bali. Extremely tasty, and a neat trick to connect with fellow travellers who were keen to test it out as well!
Not gonna lie, I put a splash of rye whisky into my porridge the other day and it was really, really good. I mean, I also added apple, banana, toasted walnuts, maple syrup, cinnamon, and milk... but I swear, the barrel flavours from the whisky are what took it over the top. I’m thinking of calling it “oakmeal.”
obviously the cold infusion has more water in it (as the cooled down mix has diluted ice in it before pouring over), and if that is the difference what we can see in the glasses, it's quite a lot... maybe this explains the weaker bitterness, too (not only the temperature while pouring over)...
Haha. Its a Hoffman barspoon. I've worked a lot with coffee in cocktails and for me personally, you can control your results better if you infuse just the base spirit and adjust your modifiers accordingly. Alternatively, you could make a strong coffee tincture and add it via drops or dashes.
I love me some coffee cocktails. My best results were with Gin and Tonic + Coffee ( I tried it with cold brew and with coffee infused gin) both were pretty good but i am partial to the cold brew. But my best result was with Caipirinha wich is probably the exact oposite of what James recomended in this video. My loose recipe since there is no point in giving you exact mesurements since there ar a lot of ingredients local do Brasil. Lemon and orange muddled with a little sugar, fill the glass (or shaker) with Ice then add 50ml of oak aged cachaca and 30ml of cold brew concentrate.Traditional Caipirinha is made with lemon only and non aged cachaça, but i think the orange and the aged spirit work a lot better with coffee. My next experiments will definitely be with your espresso tonic recipe and I wanna try some cocktails poured over coffee. Thank you for sharing your experiments!
I have a feeling it might just as well be the melted water as the temperature that makes the biggest difference in the extraction of the coffee. The yeild from the precooled one looked much higher from the video, assuming the glasses were identical. I suspect that is because of the higher volume of room temp liquid to melt the ice.
Wow! Im getting really eager to try this Manhattan out! And I have a great tip for an refreshing drink. I found it at steampower coffe in Verona, an great roastery, coffe shop and bar! They had a couple of different coffe drinks but what really took me away was their steam-spritz which is an aperol spritz but instead of the small splash of soda you put in a good fruity medium acidity cold brew coffe. It’s not often I find citrus blend well with coffe but man the orange and small turn towards the coffe flavor was great. I took this concept home with me and made a tons of steam-spritz. It’s a great drink if you want a refreshing after work drink in a hot summer day. Here is the recepie I use for it! I prepared a Ethiopian or Kenya AA coffe by your v60 cold brew recepie and kept it cool for the drinks. You build the drink in the Glas! Take a chilled wineglass filled with ice cubes pour 4cl of aperol and 1-2 cl of cold brew coffe stir well, pour 6cl of dry Prosecco. Garnish by sticking in 2 orange slices, this also gently mixes the Prosecco with aperol coffe. Enjoy it! Hope you will try it! I think orange Is hard to mix with coffe but in this drink it was great!!
I think you could still batch it and get good results. Make a big batch of your cocktail of choice - maybe two drinks' worth at a time, stirring with fresh ice as you go to achieve the proper level of dilution - then either pour the whole thing through coffee and store it in the fridge, or put it in the fridge and pour through coffee a drink at a time before serving. I generally prefer rye for a Manhattan, but I think the sweetness of Bourbon probably works well with the coffee here. I also generally prefer a twist of lemon, but I think a good cherry might also play well with the coffee. Regardless, I'm anxious to try.
This is great. I just had a boulevardier, stirred with ice and poured through a v60, and it was pretty revelatory. A couple points: let me join the clamoring throngs and request your decaf video NOW. And: dilution from stirring adds about 20% of a cocktail’s original mass to it, and probably does extract very different things from the coffee. What happens if a cocktail, with an addition of water at about 20%, is put through the v60 at room temp, then chilled in the freezer and/or served on the rocks? This is how I already batch cocktails for groups, and I’d think it really changes the extraction. But yes, stirred first with 12-15 grams is already pretty great, so there’s a lot of research still to be done. Thanks again for this!
I was just thinking recently it would be nice to see James Hoffman video on decaf coffee. I tried some really good light roasted decaf and absolutely loved it.
So there's a community of people watching Mr. Hoffman's videos at 1.5 speed. From videos that are normally calm cool and collected, at 1.5 speed he is a comic genius. Laughed till my stomach hurt, imagining he drank to much coffee that morning. 😭
I made his Cognac/Banana liquor/chocolate bitters drink with a washed Guji from Heart (15g at probably a similar grind setting to yours) and it was good but I think the bitterness could be mitigated to make it better. I stirred down the drink cold and it was about a 3 minute extraction, which was not surprising. Looking forward to trying other drinks as well.
Hi James! It would be awesome to hear your thoughts about decaf, in particular I personally would like to hear your opinion on: - what are the differences between the ways coffee can be decaffeinated? Does that influence the taste or the quality, in your opinion? - what are your favourite decafs or your favourite roasters selling decaf coffee? - why does it look like the vast majority of good, filter roasted, decaf coffee in Europe comes from Colombia? (At least, that's what I've noticed)
I just got back here from checking out Cocktail Chemistry and I noticed that Nick likes to mix up his measurements, volume, mass and the "just give it 6 seconds". lmao. As an engineer I have to say that mass is the only way to go. Interesting also that the cold infusion was less bitter. I think it is also lower in caffeine. I am quite sensitive to caffeine and so when I am out of decaf beans I will discard the first 2 seconds of an espresso pull to achieve a low caffeine shot. I've have tasted the discarded brew and it is very bitter. Anyway, I sometime have a cold brew in the afternoon and find that it doesn't have the same effect as a "full espresso", ie. sleeplessness. I would also be interested in a discussion of decaf. Great channel James. Thanks.
While I'm sure temperature has quite a lot to do with the difference, I would also suggest the water added during stirring down will make a likely even bigger difference. I would be interested to see making a large batch of Manhattan and adding a volume of water to it. Pour half through a V60 immediately and refrigerate. Refrigerate the other half and then pour through.
Ever looking forward to that decaf video!! A roaster local to me, Caffe Lusso, makes a decaf that I have really been enjoying. And while its image is gimmicky, Found Familiar (D&D themed coffee) makes a decaf blend called "False Life" that is also delicious.
Interesting. I've actually started measuring my shots on scales rather than using my eye after your arguments for never using scoops for coffee. Glad to see you also do it for cocktails.
It's also possible to batch chilled cocktails by simply scaling up the amounts, adding the appropriate amount of water and chilling. No stirring necessary.
Yes James. Excellently done. I often pour my straight whisky/whiskey over coffee. The taste is simply smooth n finer. Please try once James. Namaste from Nepal
Watching this I was super happy to hear that you are planning a decaff video as I do like the flavor of coffee a lot that I do tend to drink it at night too
Would love to see a video on what to look for when shopping for decaf - I can’t handle caffeine at all and I’ve had SO much terrible coffee as a result
I love you James and I love your obsession with measuring by weight, i always do the same. I even measure bottom shelf vodka by weight, just because I like to know precisely how much i'm dosing
I follow both you and Cocktail Chemistry so it’s really cool to see you both building on each other’s work. I have a theory for why the cold extraction worked better. Alcohol is a far stronger solvent than water for aromatic compounds like those found in coffee. Our intuition from extracting with water would say that the cold extraction is going to be too cold to properly extract coffee flavors. But because a Manhattan has such a high alcohol content, the room temperature extraction probably just over-extracted the coffee. I’m guessing the dilution from stirring down the chilled Manhattan tempered the extraction rate as well. What do you think?
My favorite cocktail that I haven't been able to replicate properly is an espresso old-fashion. Must be something about my ratios or possibly the bourbon/whiskey I use. But I would recommend trying it out James!
Ok what about if you want to do a shaken drink or a drink with some fruit in it but the main "liquid only" aspect is what is used in the brew. Like a Old Fashioned has muddled cherry and orange along with simple syrup. Just run the whiskey through the coffee then use it to make the total cocktail. Would this be a bypass to the fruit chunks left in the brew aspect?
Very interesting. The type of solvent used (water vs alcohol) will extract the solute (coffee) differently. Using water at room temp. would make complete sense, if you were going after the water-soluble constituents of the coffee. The alcohol will extract the lipid-soluble constituents; which I am guessing have a much more robust flavor, to begin with. The chilled extraction would tone that down a bit. Thank you for another great video.
It is, but honestly most people's scales aren't accurate enough and if they dose until it registers 0.2g then they'll have overdosed. I probably should have added a caveat!
James Hoffmann Makes sense! (And was meant as banter anyways) However...you could probably still add repeatable precision by embracing precise volumetric measurements for this...the sodium and chloride ions should be evenly distributed in the water so that concentration is the same throughout...so if you used a fine enough pipet...?
Don't be too hard on volumetric measurement. I am a pharmacist and we use a lot volumetrics. Even opioids dosages are measured by using drops so it should be ok for saline in a drink 😉
Wouldn't it disrupt certain flavor compounds in the alcohol by pouring it through a paper filter? I guess it may not matter as much in a mixed drink but I would just always assume it would be a better option to make a concentrated dose of coffee to add in to the cocktail as an ingredient, whether you make an espresso or brew a cold brew concentrate at refrigerator temperatures or whatever.
Some of the other commenters have already commented in this direction; If one prefers RT extraction one might attempt a statistical design of experiments approach with e.g. coffee amount and coarseness as variables, not to mention time, which will be confounded with amount (more coffee = longer filtration time). Just brainstorming, seems like a project for someone with more than a passing interest in coffeeing up a drink.
Tried this just now with some kind of rum manhattan and I like it! I kind of wonder how it would work if you froze coldbrew into cubes and stirred a cocktail with those. You'd usually want to dilute the cocktail anyway, maybe use normal ice for half the cubes and frozen coffee for the rest. I have to try when I have the time! I suppose you could just add a small amount of coldbrew but you want to dilute AND chill so you would still have to stir it with regular ice and then you might overdilute it.
Japanese bar spoon! At least how I know it. Anyway, this is the closest I could've got from a collab regarding precisely the type of cocktail I'm working with lately. Your input is worth gold, mate. Cheers.
Had a question re: Coffee-Infused Booze, Tequila in particular. Do you have any insights on these sorts of things? Whole coffee beans?? Cracked?? Ground?? Duration?? Would a Blanco or Reposado be better-suited??? Thoughts on Ratios??? I'm considering Milk-Washing the entire thing as well, so an overt-astringency may be tempered. I'd be eager to hear your thoughts. Cheers!
How much coffee do you use, and what grind (is it normal v60 grind / amount)? I watched the video. 3 times with my 1 year old next to me so I’m not sure if I missed it or if you left it out
A little unrelated to the video, but James have you heard of the Osmotic Flow series filter papers made by Cafec that are specifically made for different roast levels (light, medium and dark)? Do you reckon that they actually do anything? It would be awesome if you could get your hands of them.
You probably get a different extraction with the higher amount of alcohol, the one where you add the ice later. Maybe if you just add some water before extraction, in stead of ice, and chill it in the fridge you can make large batches with the same taste.
Love the experiment. Wonder if you could still get the benefits of the room temp pour and balance out the coffee flavour by using less coffee, at less of a fine grind so you get a faster pour, less bitterness and less infusion.
Additionally to the lower temperature, the unstirred drink contains more ethanol, which is a much better solvent for many of the flavor compounds you'd find in coffee.
Nice one James! I love that you did a controlled experiment for cold and room temp extractions. Cheers!
Two of my favourite UA-camrs combining two of my favourite passions. Thank you to both of you!
I wonder if you reduce the amount of coffee to limit the infusion at room temperature you will get a similar profile as you do when you are doing cold infusion with the current amount of coffee.
Yes, but with the ice he introduces a new variable that is the added water from the melting ice. So we would need one more control
I think this video combining both of your channels will make me smile for the rest of my day, Can't wait to try it for myself!
@@carlojovel3092 yes, this video def needs a revisit
if he keeps on dropping hints to a decaf video without actually doing it I'll smash a v60 i swear to god
Actually got a damn good laugh out of me. Great stuff,
Put the v60 down ! It's not worth it! We can talk about this!
And that’s why you should use decaf
Mello... you sound a little peaky 💋
Wendermesh yes, but... we don’t know which decaf yet!
Ah ... yes
Fun experiment!
One note: the ice isn't just there for temperature, it also added the most important ingredient, the water. The ice in a stirred cocktail contributes a certain amount of water to the drink as it chills the cocktail.
This water lowers the proof and sweetness of the cocktail and has a big impact on the taste of the drink. This is why you can't just add spirits to a batched cocktail; you have to add water too.
If you really want to isolate the variable of temperature, then you need to figure out how much water melts into your cocktail, then add that amount into your room temp cocktail.
Oh yeah, good point, and you could also try it with those metallic or stone "ice cubes" meant for whisky that don't really add any water to the mix. Of course the metallic ones may react with acidic ingredients of the cocktail, but those stone ones should be pretty unreactive. That way you're really narrowing down the temperature aspect of the drink. I'm also wondering if there is any difference with just using chilled ingredients too begin with in order to just focus on the temperature.
Yeah, I'd love to see this getting mixed with ice before vs. after extracting.
I thought of this as well. Thanks.
I was looking for this comment! i'm just 7 months late to the vid and comments and i know there is no follow up :(
He still mixes both with ice though, so shouldn't make a difference...
I’ve tried a coffee negroni that was made cold in an aeropress! I think the pressure helped extract the coffee flavor. You should try it
btw that’s known as a ballerina spoon. at least here in brazil hahaha
@@Antonsklv is this comment in the right spot? Send like you replied to the wrong one
I gave an old fashioned a go but I had the negroni in mind.
I tried one with pisco macerated with coffee and it was mindblowing, like its often hard to nail the exact spot with maceration but this one just nailed it
Making cocktails on a scale in next level precision. You're making all of us look bad, James! 🙂
JH: “I won’t be talking about cocktails because it’s outside my wheelhouse”. Also JH: “Here are multiple specific aspects of how I make a Manhattan and why”. Me: “I love this channel”.
James: I hate volumetric measurements
Also James: 3 drops of saline
Me: Well I don't know if I can get over this betrayal, James
I am glad someone else caught that.
I am even happier how you worded it
He just needs a more sensitive scale.
😂
This is why I came down the comments haha! How DARE you James!
I feel like a drop is an adequate measurement. No ones weighing that. It's a standard pipette design you get on most.
Now to buy vodka and a moka pot and invent the Russian Express.
That would make the biggest Russian explosion since 1986.
@@nunyabidness8870 😂
You absolute genius
I'm always in need of a good laugh when I get up in the morning. Thank you for being that source for me today. That sounds wonderful.
There's a drink called "Tod vor Stalingrad" where you put Vodka in a drip coffee maker. We did the same but with Jameson and a nespresso machine. It was ok. We named it "Dublin suicide". Yes we're very immature.
perhaps the reason the room temp one infused more coffee was due to the chilled one also being diluted more, as stirring with ice also dilutes along with chilling. So, the pure alcohol would be of a higher solvency than the stirred one. Just a thought. I love this type of content.
Great video James and great idea from Cocktail Chemistry! I think we need to look into this! Oh, and I'm pretty sure that was a long twizzley whizzley spoon you were using. Keep the bonus points though, give them to someone else.
This makes sense from a chemical perspective. Utilizing alcohol to perform your extraction will tend to preferentially extract more bitter compounds (which tend to be less water soluble). Cooling the alcohol down before performing the extraction will likely decrease the quantity of these compounds in the drink, adjusting the ratio of water vs oil soluble compounds extracted, and thus the flavor profile of the drink. This is similar to what happens in a cold brew vs hot brew coffee.
It would be interesting to experiment with extraction temperature, perhaps using vodka to minimize competing flavors, and see what happens with the drink. Even better, one could utilize a GC/MS or HPLC to quantify the extraction of various different flavor compounds to help dial in the precise flavor desired.
Having just tried putting 50ml of room temperature genever through 12g of coffee, I can confirm that it extracts a lot of unpleasant flavour 😬 Alcohol is a very different solvent to water.
4:02 that's the Hoffman barspoon!
Hi James. Big question for you. Do you bloom your washing up liquid? Quick squirt, 100ml of water to really get the greases flowing. I worry that not blooming would lead me to waste my washing up potential. Thanks.
I think of it more as a french press than a pour over. Soo no bloom on this side. Do the experiment and let me know your results. :)
I do my dishes in an aeropress
@@BibleStorm Pfft, a true officionado of the dishes would only use a steam wand. Amateur.
"There is good decaf."
Amen to that. Though harder to find for sure. I recently started working at a new cafe i was slightly horrified to discover that our PNG decaf was actually my favourite single origin, and not because any of the others were bad, it was just sooo good.
What is it? And how can I buy that Decaf?
Yeah would love to hear James' thoughts on decaf
Great to see you respond to this. I tried the technique a couple of weekends ago with an old fashioned and loved it! Garnished with an orange peel, and the aroma played with the coffee beautifully.
Would love to see the video on good decaf! I suffer from a fairly severe anxiety disorder that is easily agitated by excess caffeine, but I absolutely love coffee and the routine of drinking it every day. A good decaf option would be perfect for me but I've not found much luck finding any in my area, and the ones I have found are either mass produced or were roasted weeks or even months ago. Dying to get your thoughts on this
Coffee subscriptions are a BIG help-either a decaf box or using their catalogue to explore specialty roasters and order what you want from them directly. Almost no mid/commercial range does a lighter decaf, or at least I haven’t seen it. Seems counterintuitive to make a charcoal roast for people only drinking it for the flavour... But what do I know.
"classic cocktails are very easily unbalanced" - will be expecting a making cocktails by weight vid, when you're ready...
I find it interesting as most cocktail bartenders create recipes volumetrically. To translate that into a mass based recipe you would need to look into (or measure) the density of each component and then calculate. That in itself isn't too problematic but when you consider the relationship between temperature and volume, you then have to ask the recipe developer what temperature each component is stored. A good bartender will keep their vermouth in the fridge for example, increasing its density and therefore the mass of any given volume. It may be easier to just invest in accurate volumetric tools and store each component where they should be stored. I can't wait to see a video on the reasoning behind this as I agree, in theory it does give a more accurate outcome
1018lukesmith I don’t think converting a volumetric recipe to a weight based one for accuracy makes sense. I think he’s just saying he prefers to keep his recipes by weight. For conversion, you probably would be fine just assuming a density of 1 and tweaking as needed.
As someone who loves Irish Coffees and never drinks before noon, a video about quality decaf would be appreciated. Great video!
Good decaf is out there! I’d love to hear more about that and why it gets such a bad rep.
4:02 Ah, the Hoffman. Great for adding a pinch of salt to cocktails when your hands are wet.
Not everyone has the privilege of having a barspoon named after themselves 😌
I know the name but didn't know the use of the back bit
Ohhhh! That’s hilarious. Of course you wouldn’t resist choosing that one if your name is...
Yet another cocktail construct video using close-up slow motion. Somewhere out there Greg @ HTD is smiling right now.
He is an inspiration to us all!
Greg is going to absolutely lose his mind when he sees this
Diluting before “brewing” would get you less wasted liquor as well! I’ve got to try this!
does the amount of coffee matter? you said the Cocktail Chemistry channel used 15g at a coarser grind, and you used 12g at a finer grind. For the sake of the workflow, could you, say, use 6g on a finer grind, and then to the room temp infusion, or is this a a thermodynamic thing where by virtue of being at a higher temp, different compounds are extracted (or in different amounts) than using the pre-chilled extraction?
Was wondering the same thing - if a room temp infusion using less coffee made for a comparable final result, that would also have the benefit of not reducing the amount of coffee I can brew in the afternoon!
Kevin Tan I’m guessing he’s adjusting for more coffee extraction at a finer grind size
Rahul D'souza i understand that. My question was with regard to the room temperature extraction resulting in too much , and perhaps using less coffee overall could reduce the overall amount of extraction
I would be interested to see what impact the ice had on the infusion. The second cocktail was colder but also marginally more dilute due to the ice. If it had been cooled by being stored in the fridge and then poured through the coffee would you have the same effect?
I was going to ask exactly this as well. Since there's a difference in taste between cold brewing for hours and hot-brewing for minutes, even if the average strength of the drink might be around the same, I'd assume that it makes some difference. Question is, is the difference between icy and room temp extractions (adjusting coffee amount to attain the same average strength) significant the way cold vs near-boiling is?
Just whipped this up right now, best cocktail I've had so far in the US! So many elements to wade through with the nose and palette if you add a cherry and squeeze in some oils from an orange zest.
"There is good decaf!" Code Black Coffee here in Melbourne have a Colombia Swiss Water Decaf that opened my eyes to good "decaf" coffee. And thank you for reminding me of it, I am totally in need of some more!
Do they have a website, so I can buy it online? Or would you name some of good brands have Decaf by Swiss water, please advice.
@@newaziz2012 This is the best decaf I've found by a mile. In my opinion, the sugar cane EA method results in a much nicer flavour than the Swiss water process. villino.com.au/colombia-popayan-decaf/
@@newaziz2012 Glad to hear you'd like to give it a try! Code Black have a website, right here - codeblackcoffee.com.au/shop/beans/colombia-swiss-water-decaf/
@James White Awesome! Highly recommend Code Black, they have such a great team there as well. They even love James' videos! Their decaf is here - codeblackcoffee.com.au/shop/beans/colombia-swiss-water-decaf/
Steven Swann thank you 🙏
James with the proper bar spoon action. Nice!
I can't drink as much caffeine as I use to and I do drink decaf at night, I've been eagerly waiting to see you do a video on good decaf. The best one I've found at the store is Starbucks Cafe Verona because I like dark roasts and I prepare it in a French Press. Please, if you know of other decafs that are better than what I'm using please make a video about it. I would love to know where to find good tasting decaf, even better if the decafs have a non-decaf version since I sometimes mix them in the french press if I do want a little bit of caffeine which is in the morning. Please, please make a Decaf video, I'm dying to see it.
“I have no time for volumetrics.” Small zoom in on T-shirt with Empirical to drive home the point. 😄
No time for volumetrics-yet he calls for “2 drops” of saline. ;*)
"There is good decaf, I promise you that!"
Oh man, there 100% is. Watching this while drinking a sugar cane process decaffeinated Colombia Villamaria from Gardelli. V60 over ice. Incredible stuff.
My partner and I did a cupping at home last weekend and for him it was a blind tasting. I only asked one thing of him and that was to identify which cup he liked the most. There were 5 different specialty coffees from three different roasters. He identified cup A as his favourite: the decaf. I had to agree. Colombian (Popayan, Cauca) using the sugarcane process. He was really surprised that a decaf could be so good! I drink it every day as I really only want “proper coffee” first thing in the morning. I am really looking forward to the decaf video as I know James will do an excellent and thorough job of covering the topic. My main concern is the extra energy and resources involved, so I’d love to learn more.
Nice, happy to see this come out so soon after the CC video.
After watching Nick's video I was waiting for your response, James. You did not disappoint. I am glad you tried the pre-dilution infusion. Many of us were hoping for a side by side comparison. By the way there is one other solution to your coffee/cocktail conundrum other than decaf. Brunch. A coffee infused boulevardier would be a welcome respite from mimosas or even the French 75.
Wow ok - I was thinking a warm infusion and then chilling the cocktail when I saw the video from Cocktail Chemistry. But thanks for making a video on it. I can see now why a cold infusion is going to be better. I will try it this friday
Espresso and green Chartreuse is an amazing combo. You could also add a little orange zest to brighten things up.
I'd be interested in the difference between a room temp infusion (or only infusing part of the cocktail liquid rather than infusing the whole cocktail) with a smaller amount of coffee vs the cold infusion of a larger amount of coffee.
It seems like it'd be a way to reduce loss in the grounds & gain a similar effect for less raw material. But maybe I'm missing something obvious.
Came here to say the same thing
Just been experimenting with this on my mazzzer royal James.. with great results. Thankyou so much for posting.
Have done this in a flair espresso maker while on holiday in bali. Extremely tasty, and a neat trick to connect with fellow travellers who were keen to test it out as well!
Noticed the Empirical Spirits shirt - love their work! Thanks also for sharing your own tests and thoughts on Nick's approach to coffee infusion.
What the quarantined world needs right now is a good breakfast cocktail recipe
Not gonna lie, I put a splash of rye whisky into my porridge the other day and it was really, really good.
I mean, I also added apple, banana, toasted walnuts, maple syrup, cinnamon, and milk... but I swear, the barrel flavours from the whisky are what took it over the top.
I’m thinking of calling it “oakmeal.”
You should check out the Ramos Gin Fizz. It was invented as a breakfast drink. Also, it’s a bit of a workout to make, so it wakes you up.
@@deadfr0g A dear friend of mine does that quite regularly when camping, it's a good motivator to leave a drop in the flask I guess?
“Patrick. Bring me a light breakfast..black coffee and a sidecar.” Auntie Mame
Chefsteps has a cocktail called Churchill's breakfast you should check out!
My guess is that the water from the icecubes softens the extraction, as much as the cold temperature.
It seems an intersting idea.
Great video, James!
obviously the cold infusion has more water in it (as the cooled down mix has diluted ice in it before pouring over), and if that is the difference what we can see in the glasses, it's quite a lot... maybe this explains the weaker bitterness, too (not only the temperature while pouring over)...
When you explain what decaf is, can you use graphics to explain the process? Thanks.
We need the ultimate aeropress recipe, James
Haha. Its a Hoffman barspoon. I've worked a lot with coffee in cocktails and for me personally, you can control your results better if you infuse just the base spirit and adjust your modifiers accordingly. Alternatively, you could make a strong coffee tincture and add it via drops or dashes.
I love me some coffee cocktails. My best results were with Gin and Tonic + Coffee ( I tried it with cold brew and with coffee infused gin) both were pretty good but i am partial to the cold brew.
But my best result was with Caipirinha wich is probably the exact oposite of what James recomended in this video. My loose recipe since there is no point in giving you exact mesurements since there ar a lot of ingredients local do Brasil. Lemon and orange muddled with a little sugar, fill the glass (or shaker) with Ice then add 50ml of oak aged cachaca and 30ml of cold brew concentrate.Traditional Caipirinha is made with lemon only and non aged cachaça, but i think the orange and the aged spirit work a lot better with coffee.
My next experiments will definitely be with your espresso tonic recipe and I wanna try some cocktails poured over coffee. Thank you for sharing your experiments!
Amazed by your knowledge! I am learning something new every time you post a new video! 😍
I have a feeling it might just as well be the melted water as the temperature that makes the biggest difference in the extraction of the coffee. The yeild from the precooled one looked much higher from the video, assuming the glasses were identical. I suspect that is because of the higher volume of room temp liquid to melt the ice.
One of my favorite coktails is a coffee and vanilla daiquiri. Coffee works surprisingly well with lime.
Wow! Im getting really eager to try this Manhattan out! And I have a great tip for an refreshing drink. I found it at steampower coffe in Verona, an great roastery, coffe shop and bar! They had a couple of different coffe drinks but what really took me away was their steam-spritz which is an aperol spritz but instead of the small splash of soda you put in a good fruity medium acidity cold brew coffe. It’s not often I find citrus blend well with coffe but man the orange and small turn towards the coffe flavor was great. I took this concept home with me and made a tons of steam-spritz. It’s a great drink if you want a refreshing after work drink in a hot summer day. Here is the recepie I use for it! I prepared a Ethiopian or Kenya AA coffe by your v60 cold brew recepie and kept it cool for the drinks. You build the drink in the Glas! Take a chilled wineglass filled with ice cubes pour 4cl of aperol and 1-2 cl of cold brew coffe stir well, pour 6cl of dry Prosecco. Garnish by sticking in 2 orange slices, this also gently mixes the Prosecco with aperol coffe. Enjoy it! Hope you will try it! I think orange Is hard to mix with coffe but in this drink it was great!!
Thank you for doing this James, I saw the original video and immediately wondered if it was something you had seen or tried. All the best.
I just made this with some Ethiopia Kafa Farmers SWP Decaf. Super pleased. This is an excellent recipe if you have a sufficiently high quality decaf.
Oh those decaf teasers. Can't wait for that video.
I think you could still batch it and get good results. Make a big batch of your cocktail of choice - maybe two drinks' worth at a time, stirring with fresh ice as you go to achieve the proper level of dilution - then either pour the whole thing through coffee and store it in the fridge, or put it in the fridge and pour through coffee a drink at a time before serving. I generally prefer rye for a Manhattan, but I think the sweetness of Bourbon probably works well with the coffee here. I also generally prefer a twist of lemon, but I think a good cherry might also play well with the coffee. Regardless, I'm anxious to try.
This is great. I just had a boulevardier, stirred with ice and poured through a v60, and it was pretty revelatory. A couple points: let me join the clamoring throngs and request your decaf video NOW. And: dilution from stirring adds about 20% of a cocktail’s original mass to it, and probably does extract very different things from the coffee. What happens if a cocktail, with an addition of water at about 20%, is put through the v60 at room temp, then chilled in the freezer and/or served on the rocks? This is how I already batch cocktails for groups, and I’d think it really changes the extraction. But yes, stirred first with 12-15 grams is already pretty great, so there’s a lot of research still to be done. Thanks again for this!
I was just thinking recently it would be nice to see James Hoffman video on decaf coffee. I tried some really good light roasted decaf and absolutely loved it.
Sheer and utter madness ... I like it!!
So there's a community of people watching Mr. Hoffman's videos at 1.5 speed. From videos that are normally calm cool and collected, at 1.5 speed he is a comic genius. Laughed till my stomach hurt, imagining he drank to much coffee that morning. 😭
Wow this video is exactly what I need tonight! Now I need to get an entire cocktail set up
Decaf video on the way? I am so excited
I made his Cognac/Banana liquor/chocolate bitters drink with a washed Guji from Heart (15g at probably a similar grind setting to yours) and it was good but I think the bitterness could be mitigated to make it better. I stirred down the drink cold and it was about a 3 minute extraction, which was not surprising. Looking forward to trying other drinks as well.
Hi James! It would be awesome to hear your thoughts about decaf, in particular I personally would like to hear your opinion on:
- what are the differences between the ways coffee can be decaffeinated? Does that influence the taste or the quality, in your opinion?
- what are your favourite decafs or your favourite roasters selling decaf coffee?
- why does it look like the vast majority of good, filter roasted, decaf coffee in Europe comes from Colombia? (At least, that's what I've noticed)
I just got back here from checking out Cocktail Chemistry and I noticed that Nick likes to mix up his measurements, volume, mass and the "just give it 6 seconds". lmao. As an engineer I have to say that mass is the only way to go. Interesting also that the cold infusion was less bitter. I think it is also lower in caffeine. I am quite sensitive to caffeine and so when I am out of decaf beans I will discard the first 2 seconds of an espresso pull to achieve a low caffeine shot. I've have tasted the discarded brew and it is very bitter. Anyway, I sometime have a cold brew in the afternoon and find that it doesn't have the same effect as a "full espresso", ie. sleeplessness. I would also be interested in a discussion of decaf. Great channel James. Thanks.
While I'm sure temperature has quite a lot to do with the difference, I would also suggest the water added during stirring down will make a likely even bigger difference. I would be interested to see making a large batch of Manhattan and adding a volume of water to it. Pour half through a V60 immediately and refrigerate. Refrigerate the other half and then pour through.
Ever looking forward to that decaf video!! A roaster local to me, Caffe Lusso, makes a decaf that I have really been enjoying. And while its image is gimmicky, Found Familiar (D&D themed coffee) makes a decaf blend called "False Life" that is also delicious.
Interesting. I've actually started measuring my shots on scales rather than using my eye after your arguments for never using scoops for coffee. Glad to see you also do it for cocktails.
I really enjoy a cup of decaf in the evening, looking forward to a decaf video at some point!
It's also possible to batch chilled cocktails by simply scaling up the amounts, adding the appropriate amount of water and chilling. No stirring necessary.
Nice! As a both coffee and cocktail geek I love this!
Yes James. Excellently done. I often pour my straight whisky/whiskey over coffee. The taste is simply smooth n finer. Please try once James. Namaste from Nepal
Watching this I was super happy to hear that you are planning a decaff video as I do like the flavor of coffee a lot that I do tend to drink it at night too
My favorite cocktail was a coffee infused amaretto with yuzu and grapefruit (probably a pomelo) cordial at the Foxglove in Hong Kong.
Nice! Looking forward to the "good decaf" video. I need some decaf in my life.
Would love to see a video on what to look for when shopping for decaf - I can’t handle caffeine at all and I’ve had SO much terrible coffee as a result
I love you James and I love your obsession with measuring by weight, i always do the same. I even measure bottom shelf vodka by weight, just because I like to know precisely how much i'm dosing
You just became tons more awesome. You are THE only coffee lover I know of besides me who agrees there IS good decaf!
Wow, I didn't expect to be watching the making of a Platonic Manhattan with a coffee infusion today, but here we are.
You could also make coffee bitters, coffee whiskey, or coffee Demerara syrup to add the coffee flavor to a cocktail.
I follow both you and Cocktail Chemistry so it’s really cool to see you both building on each other’s work. I have a theory for why the cold extraction worked better. Alcohol is a far stronger solvent than water for aromatic compounds like those found in coffee. Our intuition from extracting with water would say that the cold extraction is going to be too cold to properly extract coffee flavors. But because a Manhattan has such a high alcohol content, the room temperature extraction probably just over-extracted the coffee. I’m guessing the dilution from stirring down the chilled Manhattan tempered the extraction rate as well. What do you think?
Oh I’m SO GLAD Cocktail Chemistry’s video made it to you.
Maybe both if you're greedy and love life 😍😂
That was a great comment he made! 😂
Such a beautiful gleam of the real James, made me feel like I was sitting next to him at a bar
@@stirfryjedi What a great comparison! I feel that warmth 😄
My favorite cocktail that I haven't been able to replicate properly is an espresso old-fashion. Must be something about my ratios or possibly the bourbon/whiskey I use. But I would recommend trying it out James!
Ok what about if you want to do a shaken drink or a drink with some fruit in it but the main "liquid only" aspect is what is used in the brew. Like a Old Fashioned has muddled cherry and orange along with simple syrup. Just run the whiskey through the coffee then use it to make the total cocktail. Would this be a bypass to the fruit chunks left in the brew aspect?
Very interesting. The type of solvent used (water vs alcohol) will extract the solute (coffee) differently. Using water at room temp. would make complete sense, if you were going after the water-soluble constituents of the coffee. The alcohol will extract the lipid-soluble constituents; which I am guessing have a much more robust flavor, to begin with. The chilled extraction would tone that down a bit. Thank you for another great video.
“3 drops of saline” is decidedly volumetric though... 😜
It is, but honestly most people's scales aren't accurate enough and if they dose until it registers 0.2g then they'll have overdosed. I probably should have added a caveat!
James Hoffmann
Makes sense! (And was meant as banter anyways)
However...you could probably still add repeatable precision by embracing precise volumetric measurements for this...the sodium and chloride ions should be evenly distributed in the water so that concentration is the same throughout...so if you used a fine enough pipet...?
A "drop" is a decently accurate volumetric measurement, it's beyond accurate enough for this purpose.
Don't be too hard on volumetric measurement. I am a pharmacist and we use a lot volumetrics. Even opioids dosages are measured by using drops so it should be ok for saline in a drink 😉
@@fabienneh6069 I'm sure your glassware is more accurate than household measuring cups and spoons though!
Wouldn't it disrupt certain flavor compounds in the alcohol by pouring it through a paper filter?
I guess it may not matter as much in a mixed drink but I would just always assume it would be a better option to make a concentrated dose of coffee to add in to the cocktail as an ingredient, whether you make an espresso or brew a cold brew concentrate at refrigerator temperatures or whatever.
Some of the other commenters have already commented in this direction; If one prefers RT extraction one might attempt a statistical design of experiments approach with e.g. coffee amount and coarseness as variables, not to mention time, which will be confounded with amount (more coffee = longer filtration time). Just brainstorming, seems like a project for someone with more than a passing interest in coffeeing up a drink.
Tried this just now with some kind of rum manhattan and I like it! I kind of wonder how it would work if you froze coldbrew into cubes and stirred a cocktail with those. You'd usually want to dilute the cocktail anyway, maybe use normal ice for half the cubes and frozen coffee for the rest. I have to try when I have the time!
I suppose you could just add a small amount of coldbrew but you want to dilute AND chill so you would still have to stir it with regular ice and then you might overdilute it.
Japanese bar spoon! At least how I know it. Anyway, this is the closest I could've got from a collab regarding precisely the type of cocktail I'm working with lately. Your input is worth gold, mate. Cheers.
My personal best is the carajillo using Licor 43 please keep in the list for another coffee cocktails ! 😃
I so often get my Manhattan balance wrong. Thank you James for nailing the ratios (by weight!!).
Had a question re: Coffee-Infused Booze, Tequila in particular. Do you have any insights on these sorts of things? Whole coffee beans?? Cracked?? Ground?? Duration?? Would a Blanco or Reposado be better-suited??? Thoughts on Ratios??? I'm considering Milk-Washing the entire thing as well, so an overt-astringency may be tempered. I'd be eager to hear your thoughts.
Cheers!
How much coffee do you use, and what grind (is it normal v60 grind / amount)? I watched the video. 3 times with my 1 year old next to me so I’m not sure if I missed it or if you left it out
A little unrelated to the video, but James have you heard of the Osmotic Flow series filter papers made by Cafec that are specifically made for different roast levels (light, medium and dark)? Do you reckon that they actually do anything? It would be awesome if you could get your hands of them.
You probably get a different extraction with the higher amount of alcohol, the one where you add the ice later. Maybe if you just add some water before extraction, in stead of ice, and chill it in the fridge you can make large batches with the same taste.
On the subject of decaf. The current filter roast decaf from James Gourmet is easily one of the best I've ever had. Well worth a try
Love the experiment. Wonder if you could still get the benefits of the room temp pour and balance out the coffee flavour by using less coffee, at less of a fine grind so you get a faster pour, less bitterness and less infusion.
I saw this the other day at the channel Cocktail Chemistry, I must try it for sure!
I love that you use weighing scale! Its way better than volumetric measurements
Additionally to the lower temperature, the unstirred drink contains more ethanol, which is a much better solvent for many of the flavor compounds you'd find in coffee.
Great vid! Look forward to the one on good decaf.