Seeking Advice for Carbonating Cold Brew

[Tommy J]

I’m starting a small batch cold brew coffee company and would greatly appreciate any advice regarding kegging and CO2.

One of our products will be a coffee soda (ingredients: coffee, a bit of raw cane sugar, and citric acid). This will be sealed in a glass bottle. I have never carbonated beer or any other beverage, but I am familiar with making nitro cold brew. Were looking for a simple way to bottle small batches (only about 400 throughout the whole summer) of coffee soda this Summer. I can play around with the recipe and figure all that out, I just need advice one how to carbonate and fill up the bottles.

I’m assuming the process would look like this: put the cold brew in the 5 gallon keg, mix in the sugar and citric acid, fill keg with CO2, shake the keg, place in fridge over night, attach the counter pressure filler in the morning and fill the bottles.

Here is what I think I will need:

• kegs
• CO2 tank
• Counter pressure filler

Am I missing any steps? Are there any other items I will need?

I appreciate any advice you all have to offer!

 

[tjmac5071]

Have you tried carbonated cold brew yet? I make cold brew exclusively and one day tried to mix the concentrate with seltzer. It was horrible. Granted I do not drink sweetened coffee so maybe that would make it better but it was way worse than I ever would have imagined

 

[tjmac5071]

Also, sorry I didn't answer your question, that all sounds fine for carbonating but it is difficult to get the pressure right when shaking. If you can, I would fine a more repeatable way to do it. For example, put in the fridge on 30 psi for a day or 2 depending on your preference, reduce to say 5psi, bleed off excess co2 and bottle from there. I would guess you could get away with using a growler filler to start rather than counter pressure bottle filler.

 

[Tommy J]

Also, sorry I didn't answer your question, that all sounds fine for carbonating but it is difficult to get the pressure right when shaking. If you can, I would fine a more repeatable way to do it. For example, put in the fridge on 30 psi for a day or 2 depending on your preference, reduce to say 5psi, bleed off excess co2 and bottle from there. I would guess you could get away with using a growler filler to start rather than counter pressure bottle filler.

Thanks for the advice! I have tried it before, and yes it can definitely be horrible! But were pretty confident that we'll be able to dial in a solid recipe!

 

[Tommy J]

Also, sorry I didn't answer your question, that all sounds fine for carbonating but it is difficult to get the pressure right when shaking. If you can, I would fine a more repeatable way to do it. For example, put in the fridge on 30 psi for a day or 2 depending on your preference, reduce to say 5psi, bleed off excess co2 and bottle from there. I would guess you could get away with using a growler filler to start rather than counter pressure bottle filler.

Would you suggest getting an all in one system like this, or maybe even this one? Or should I just get a basic five gallon keg and use a counter pressure filler? I'm assuming foaming won't be an issue since this is coffee? Would the quality of the pour be better with the counter pressure filler?

 

[tjmac5071]

You can do it with either one, however if it were me I would get the first one with either a growler filler or silicon tubing over the end of the tap and fill bottles at around 2psi. You can make a counter pressure filler with the second option for cheap but I don't think you need one for coffee...but could be wrong.

 

[Tommy J]

You can do it with either one, however if it were me I would get the first one with either a growler filler or silicon tubing over the end of the tap and fill bottles at around 2psi. You can make a counter pressure filler with the second option for cheap but I don't think you need one for coffee...but could be wrong.

That sounds great! I appreciate all the help.