Bottling Cold Press Coffee

[gerryhz]

So I love cold press coffee instead of iced coffee.

I noticed some coffee shops bottle their own cold press coffee. Dark Matter in Chicago bottles a great cold press coffee http://www.darkmattercoffee.com/products/chocolate-city-bomber

I asked them if they carbonate when bottling. They stated they bottle with nitrogen, making it shelf-stable and perfect for pouring over a full cup of ice. After opening, the coffee should be good for another day or two.

Has anyone ever bottled coffee before?

Anyone carbonated the same way as you would a batch of beer?

Or used nitrogen? Or none at all?

 

[SnakeRidge]

Do you want the coffee to be carbonated, like fizzy soda? I imagine the coffee shop you mention uses nitrogen to flush oxygen out of the bottles since O2 would stale the coffee.

I can see two routes to go here:

1. Make a big batch of cold press coffee and pour into a keg. Using a beergun and nitrogen, bottle from the keg.
2. Make a big batch of coffee and pour into a bottling bucket with a small amount of yeast and sugar. Bottle normally and let it carb up.

The first option shouldn't carbonate since Nitrogen won't go into solution; the second would help scavenge any free O2, but would leave some bubbles in solution.

I'm interested in what others have to say, I've been thinking about bottling iced coffee to bring to work.

 

[gerryhz]

Do you want the coffee to be carbonated, like fizzy soda? I imagine the coffee shop you mention uses nitrogen to flush oxygen out of the bottles since O2 would stale the coffee.

I can see two routes to go here:

1. Make a big batch of cold press coffee and pour into a keg. Using a beergun and nitrogen, bottle from the keg.
2. Make a big batch of coffee and pour into a bottling bucket with a small amount of yeast and sugar. Bottle normally and let it carb up.

The first option shouldn't carbonate since Nitrogen won't go into solution; the second would help scavenge any free O2, but would leave some bubbles in solution.

I'm interested in what others have to say, I've been thinking about bottling iced coffee to bring to work.

Definitely do not want the coffee to be like fizzy soda. Is there a way to cap with nitrogen without using a beergun and keg? I do not keg, so I do not have a keg or CO2 tank.

 

[SnakeRidge]

Definitely do not want the coffee to be like fizzy soda. Is there a way to cap with nitrogen without using a beergun and keg? I do not keg, so I do not have a keg or CO2 tank.

I only bottle myself so the route I've been considering is using a priming sugar calculator to figure sugar to get like 0.5 volumes of CO2. That should be nearly flat but may help with oxidizing. Everything I can find is about kegging coffee. I hope someone else has a few ideas.

 

[tjmac5071]

I make bulk cold brew coffee but do not bottle it, I have thought about it but never have. Any reason you can't just overfill a bottle and cap? Typically you make a concentrate so if you do a 1:1 coffee water ratio like I do, fill just a touch over six ounces, add spring water or tap if you choose until a slight overfill and cap.

That is what I planned to do anyway...never did it because I thought beer bottles in the car or at work would look bad...