PERC Cold Brew + Coffee Simple Syrup Recipes

PERC Koke cold brew and syrupI’m usually too lazy to make cold brew coffee, so if I want an iced coffee I usually brew it up “Japanese style” (brew your usual pourover, except replace 1/2 the water with ice cubes and put them in your server and brew right on top of them) or using an AeroPress shaken with ice in a cocktail shaker. Ironically, without knowing it was National Cold Brew Coffee Day on April 20, I busted out my Cold Bruer and brewed up a batch of PERC’s Koke Cooperative (see the review here). I also did something I’ve not done before and made a batch of coffee-flavored simple syrup from the same Koke Cooperative beans and it turned out awesome. Here’s how I did it!

I used the Koke beans because the coffee is a pulped natural (the only one I’ve ever had from Ethiopia and I am hooked, big time), so it has some bright, lemon-candy like acidity from a washed coffee from this region as well as some of the fruity, jammy notes from a dry process Ethiopian. I prefer cold brews made from natural coffees because the fruit really comes through nicely. This one was no exception!

Coffee Simple Syrup
Simple syrup is… simple… to make! Mix one part water to one part sugar and dissolve it all using heat. That’s it! In this case I used one part organic cane sugar from Whole Foods to one cup of water and heated on the stove over medium. I brought it to a low boil and made sure all the sugar was dissolved, then I added 3 oz (85g) of PERC’s Koke Cooperative coffee beans. Don’t grind them, just throw them in. I brought the mixture back up to simmering and held it there while stirring for a couple minutes, then poured the whole lot into a Mason jar and threw a lid on it. I let this sit for maybe 20 minutes, giving it a mix/shake every time I walked by. The flavor is fantastic – sugary, fruity, delicious!

Perc Koke cold bruerCold Brew
I used Cold Bruer’s standard recipe, but you don’t need fancy equipment to make cold brew coffee. There are a lot of DIY recipes out there. But, since I have a Cold Bruer from their Kickstarter last year, why not use it? I ground 50g of Koke beans to my normal pourover size and used 700g of water and ice combined (about 350g of ice, the rest water). Put the thing together, get the drip rate set (probably the most difficult thing to do on the Cold Bruer and mine requires frequent tweaking or it’ll just stop itself) and a couple hours later you have a nice coffee concentrate. It smelled heavenly!

For the drink itself, I added about 3/4 cup of my concentrate to four ice cubes in a cocktail shaker (although I will probably just stir next time because it made a LOT of froth this way) along with 2-3 spoons of my simple syrup. Shake, pour into a glass with a few more ice cubes. Man, it tastes awesome!!!

The flavor has some blueberry and strawberry in it, a heavy aroma redolent of caramel and honey, and is just great, if I do say so myself!