Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

unsw.edu.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 361 posts

Re: Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

#311

Post by currency »

benjijay wrote: post #307
WilTimSon wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you're lucky to not have spoiled your palate, in a way. I learned to love good coffee through my friends and I now only drink regular espressos from a machine if there's no other choice. And I'm not being snobby or anything, I fully understand why people drink it, I used to do it all the time. But my friends had to go and teach me about brewing methods and beans and yadda yadda. Friend of mine had a similar iss…

I was recently discussing this with a colleague and we settled on calling it quality creep - as you become used to better things, the stuff that was previously acceptable becomes unbearable. e.g. I used to drink any old instand coffee, then I found Douwe Egberts and strongly preferred that for a few years, then I started making pour-overs with pre ground coffee in a v60, then I found a better grind/roast/etc of the b…

Making espresso with my semi-auto Breville Infuser is almost exactly as much fuss as a pour-over:

- Turn it on to heat up - Grind the beans - Weigh the grounds - Fill, tamp, and attach the portafilter - Start the infusion - Remove and dump the grounds - Clean the portafilter

It's a $600 electronic device, not a simple funnel and filter, but it's not a fussy process.

Re: Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

#312

Post by itsoktocry »

WilTimSon wrote: post #291
solardev wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I love my fully automated luxury mediocre espresso maker ( https://www.seattlecoffeegear.com/blogs/scg-blog/jura-a1-rev... ). I push a button, it grinds the coffee and does stuff inside that I can't see, then moments later I have a perfectly average cup of something resembling burnt bean soup. I don't know whether it's megasonically brewed or absolute-zero infused or just wet caffeine pills. Sometimes it'…

Well, you're lucky to not have spoiled your palate, in a way. I learned to love good coffee through my friends and I now only drink regular espressos from a machine if there's no other choice. And I'm not being snobby or anything, I fully understand why people drink it, I used to do it all the time. But my friends had to go and teach me about brewing methods and beans and yadda yadda. Friend of mine had a similar iss…

>ever since he could drink, taught him how to pick good wine.

Except that people who think they can "pick good wine" actually can't (there have been studies, too lazy to Google), and for the most part quality and price aren't correlated.

Luxury beliefs and all that.

Re: Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

#313

Post by adolph »

solardev wrote: post #225
dahart wrote: post #17

Recently I discovered that many coffee shops, maybe half in my sampling of a couple dozen in different cities, are selling cold coffee (brewed hot, then refrigerated) under the name cold brew, and even the ones that actually cold-brew them seem to be under the impression that it needs to be served cold. I was laughed at in one hipster joint for asking for a steamed or warmed cold-brew, and another one initially refus…

This is why I love my fully automated luxury mediocre espresso maker ( https://www.seattlecoffeegear.com/blogs/scg-blog/jura-a1-rev... ). I push a button, it grinds the coffee and does stuff inside that I can't see, then moments later I have a perfectly average cup of something resembling burnt bean soup. I don't know whether it's megasonically brewed or absolute-zero infused or just wet caffeine pills. Sometimes it'…

> moments later I have a perfectly average cup of something

Something about this description brings to mind the tea made by a Nutrimatic machine.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/tea.shtml

Re: Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

#314

Post by justin66 »

solardev wrote: post #225
dahart wrote: post #17

Recently I discovered that many coffee shops, maybe half in my sampling of a couple dozen in different cities, are selling cold coffee (brewed hot, then refrigerated) under the name cold brew, and even the ones that actually cold-brew them seem to be under the impression that it needs to be served cold. I was laughed at in one hipster joint for asking for a steamed or warmed cold-brew, and another one initially refus…

This is why I love my fully automated luxury mediocre espresso maker ( https://www.seattlecoffeegear.com/blogs/scg-blog/jura-a1-rev... ). I push a button, it grinds the coffee and does stuff inside that I can't see, then moments later I have a perfectly average cup of something resembling burnt bean soup. I don't know whether it's megasonically brewed or absolute-zero infused or just wet caffeine pills. Sometimes it'…

> What more could an old, washed-out dev ask for?

From the sound of things, Soylent.

https://soylent.com/

Re: Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

#315

Post by dahart »

omnimus wrote: post #287
dahart wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why’s that? What’s ironic? Do you feel like that’s a fair gotcha? Do you know why I asked for a heated cold brew? I’m asking for cold brew because my esophagus gets inflamed with higher acidity coffee. I used hipster not as pejorative, but to indicate this is a cafe that claims to, and should, know the difference between cold brewed and hot brewed coffee. In fact, I’m certain the owner does know the difference and th…

Sounds like you are the snarky hipster. The barista didnt know this process and didnt have it on menu. In their eyes its just strange request asking for trouble. I think of myself as very knowledgable barista and this is first time i am hearing this. I checked usual resources like James Hoffman and nobody is even mentioning heated cold brew. So its very niche and sounds more like something from camping. I believe you…

WTF? I don’t understand the attacks. Where in the exchange do you see snark from me? I wasn’t rude to her, nor to the parent and she absolutely was rude to me, and so was parent and so are you now. Why? Did my use of hipster trigger people, or was it something else? It’s fine if she doesn’t know what warm cold brew is. She didn’t say she doesn’t know how to make it. She did know how to make it, but instead of making it, she took the time to insult me for asking.

Cold brew was in fact on the menu, and it is in a lot of cafes. Arguing that cold brew is not popular and not ideal is a straw man here, and is also very debatable given that it’s widely available. That cold brew was available and on the table is a given, regardless of what you think about it.

You say you are a knowledgeable barista. Can you handle steaming something? I’m pretty sure you can, and that it would be 100% trivial, right? I didn’t ask for some unknown or mysterious or strange process. What I asked for is pour the cold brew they were selling into a cup, and steam it. Exact same process as the milk half of a latte. Why, exactly, does it matter what’s being steamed, and why does that deserve scorn when requested? Why, exactly, does it matter if the request seems unusual? Who cares, when you and I both know it can be done without even thinking?

The good cafes do it happily without batting an eyelash, and don’t complain about it being weird, because if you think about it at all, heated cold brew might be uncommon but it’s neither weird nor hard to do at all.

Re: Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

#316

Post by robocop_legacy »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #282

You can also make reasonable (not excellent, not terrible) brandy this way by putting vodka and oak wood shavings of a suitable kind into an ultrasound machine.

I think it would be similar to an aged whiskey, perhaps. Brandy is distilled from wine. Bourbon is primarily from a corn mash, so maybe with the right vodka.

Re: Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

#317

Post by ccppurcell »

elevatedastalt wrote: post #139
dahart wrote: post #17

Recently I discovered that many coffee shops, maybe half in my sampling of a couple dozen in different cities, are selling cold coffee (brewed hot, then refrigerated) under the name cold brew, and even the ones that actually cold-brew them seem to be under the impression that it needs to be served cold. I was laughed at in one hipster joint for asking for a steamed or warmed cold-brew, and another one initially refus…

The emperor really has no clothes when it comes to food fads. And pricing is a completely orthogonal and obtuse concept too. Cold brew is putatively low effort and low cost. Just let coffee grounds soak in water overnight and you have cold brew. But it's often charged more than regular coffee or espresso-based drinks, which a) use more expensive equipment b) need more skilled operation c) more material [milk etc]

Pricing is not at all obtuse! Or no more than any other product on earth. It costs what people are willing to pay. Your estimation of the value takes into consideration what you believe (I'm not saying you're wrong) the costs to be, and good for you. But until people are unwilling to pay, the price will go up.

Re: Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

#319

Post by bunderbunder »

eternauta3k wrote: post #171
bunderbunder wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. Though the oxidation seems different? I don't find cold brew to taste "stale" the way hot brewed coffee that's been stored overnight in the refrigerator does. I have a bunch of kegging equipment that I don't use anymore because I've lost my taste for beer, and I keep wanting to see what happens if I use it to make cold brewed coffee under a bed of CO2. Also, y'know, coffee on tap at home.

Won't the CO2 make the water acidic?

Nitrogen is better, but the equipment is more expensive and finicky. CO2 under just enough pressure to keep the oxygen out shouldn't dissolve into the liquid too much, though.

The downside is that you then couldn't use gas pressure to push the liquid through the tap line, but you can use gravity or a beer engine instead.

Re: Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation

#320

Post by mns »

elevatedastalt wrote: post #139
dahart wrote: post #17

Recently I discovered that many coffee shops, maybe half in my sampling of a couple dozen in different cities, are selling cold coffee (brewed hot, then refrigerated) under the name cold brew, and even the ones that actually cold-brew them seem to be under the impression that it needs to be served cold. I was laughed at in one hipster joint for asking for a steamed or warmed cold-brew, and another one initially refus…

The emperor really has no clothes when it comes to food fads. And pricing is a completely orthogonal and obtuse concept too. Cold brew is putatively low effort and low cost. Just let coffee grounds soak in water overnight and you have cold brew. But it's often charged more than regular coffee or espresso-based drinks, which a) use more expensive equipment b) need more skilled operation c) more material [milk etc]

That's not necessarily true. The coffee to water ratio for cold brew can be generally lower, and you end up needing more coffee for 2-3 cups. At home, using something like a Hario cold brew bottle, and depending on how much coffee you use, I would say it's anywhere from 20% to 50% more expensive than a standard V60 brewed coffee.

In a coffee shop you need to prepare way more coffee, you need the space to store it cold over night, so I would say the higher price is understandable.

Post reply on HN