How to make crack coffee - Chicken Rob style (2 Viewers)

[Chicken Rob]

The secret is filtered water with good disinvestment solids, freshly roasted beans, a high caffeine blend of beans, coarse grinding and cold brewing. Sacrificing any of these things may effect your results, but should still yield pretty good results. This recipe is pretty robust.

The things I use to make this:
Kitchen scale
2 gallon glass jar
Fine mesh hopping bag
Burr coffe grinder (or order the beans ground)
Bodka Breakfast Blend (I buy 5 pounds for the BBotB) http://www.bodkacoffee.com/store/p17/Breakfast_Blend.html

The technique is simple. Put water in container. Put grounds in hopping bag. Put the bag with the grounds in the water. Leave the open end of the bag out of the water. Stir grounds to get floaters into the water. Cover container. Leave on counter at room temp for 24 hours. Pull hopping bag out. (Clean bag to reuse it.) Coffee is ready. I usually pour it into smaller more manageable containers for serving.

Grinding: I use the coarsest setting on a Baratza Vario-W burr grinder. Any decent burr grinder should do. Coarse tends to be good for this. I think Bodka will grind for you if you ask. @bergs might know.

Ratio: 10 parts water to 1 part grounds by weight. 5 liters of water yields about a gallon of coffee roughly.

The recipe scales. 10:1 regardless of batch size.

The result is strong, not bitter, concentrated, and highly caffeinated. Drink less than you think until you know how it hits you. Some of us were seeing flashes the first year we did it. Delicious with just cream or baileys.

Also tell the guy at Bodka I sent you. He gets a kick out of our poker community. I don't get anything for recommending his beans except the satisfaction of sharing this craft roaster's awesome blend.

ETA: store in the fridge. Usuall is great for 2-4 days roughly, and good 5-7 days. I make small batches twice per week for daily drinking in warm weather.

 

[bergs]

I am never affected by caffeine. 8 cups of Dunkin in one day, meh. Zero cups the next day, meh.

I had 4 cups of this (large mugs, maybe 5 traditional large coffees) and I was fine till I went to bed, and then I felt like my heart was going to come out of my chest.

Very much lots of caffeine in this, but it is fucking deeeeelicious, particularly with Baileys. Don't add sugar or milk or sweetener - just 2 shots of Bailey's and enjoy.

One variation - I put the grounds in the bag first, and then as the water to it. Gets rid of any clumpy grounds or anything.

The guy in chicken's link is a pleasure to deal with, and will grind it for free if you ask. Great guy, great coffee. This stuff has quickly become a meatup staple up here.

 

[bogart]

Thanks! I'll have to give this a try. I have my freshly ground pour overs each morning. I still have some beans that my wife picked up the last time she was in Ethiopia! Awesome!

 

[stocky]

Is this drank hot or cold?

I'm not a fan of hot coffee but will drink it. But I LOVE iced coffee.

 

[Chicken Rob]

Is this drank hot or cold?

I'm not a fan of hot coffee but will drink it. But I LOVE iced coffee.

Typically drank cold. But some people add hot water to it to make it a hot coffee. I don't know why the' do it. I'm gonna edit the op with some storage suggestions.

 

[slisk250]

Very happy to get Rob's recipe. I recently discovered South Africa's answer for Bailey's. It is called Amarulla. You have to try and find it in the States. 34 proof and absolutely delicious with coffee.

 

[bogart]

Here's my morning ritual!!

 

[bogart]

Ethiopian 'Black Gold"

Purchased from an old roaster/coffee shop in Addis Ababa!!Yummmm!

 

[Chicken Rob]

I've liked the Ethiopian beans that I had in college, but lately have been more into South American varieties.

Most recently, I've been off coffe since October. I miss it but hope to stay off of it. Still never had Kona or Kopi Luwak though.

 

[Mental Nomad]

Wow; that's gonna have quite the kick. This is literally a recipe for a super-high-caffeine cup of joe. I'm going to try this sometime, but it will definitely be a special-purpose recipe.

Coarse grinding and cold water mean it's hard to extract flavors from the beans, so you need lots of ground beans per cup. .. But cool water gets the caffeine out of the beans just fine. Caffeine is very soluble in water - it's the first thing to come out of the coffee.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of the caffeine in this recipe were already in the water within the first hour of soaking.. the next 23 hours are about all the other coffee flavors coming through!

 

[Chicken Rob]

Yup. And the coarse ground and room temp steeping mean very low bitterness. Very smooth. Not all the delicate fruity and floral notes that you get from a hot brew with fresh beans, but solid coffee flavor with a hell of a kick.

 

[slisk250]

I'm going to give this a try at the Rumble. I've looked on line in the states for Amarula cream liquor since returning from Durban. It is made in South Africa from fermented marula fruit (there is also Amarula Gold "wine" that is 60 proof but never tried it).

This is very, very good. @bergs , try and find a bottle to use in place of Bailey's or Kahlua. You won't regret it.

 

[Mr Tree]

The sacred rite of crack coffee has been invoked.

 

[Chicken Rob]

I usually put a cover on it while it brews. Not sure it's needed.

 

[Mr Tree]

I usually put a cover on it while it brews. Not sure it's needed.

Ok I can do that when I get back

 

[Mr Tree]

Rob, is a coffee sludge in the bottom of the container normal after brewing?

 

[Mr Tree]

@bergs, what is your suggested coffee to Bailey's ratio?

 

[bergs]

Sludge is perfectly normal. I usually do 2 shots of Bailey's per cup, but I'm a 270 lb human being with a fully sentient liver the size of a small school bus, so YRMV

 

[Chicken Rob]

As berg said, sludge is normal. There is almost no way to get a filter to keep the particles out of the coffee. Pouring off the brewed coffee gently into a fresh storage container is my usual method for dealing with this.

Even if you pour the sludge into a paper filter, not only does it take forever to filter, but a good amount of the sludge comes through.

The sludge is perfectly drinkable, though probably not the most pleasant mouthfeel.

 

[Chicken Rob]

Here's a pic of my 2 gallon setup from the 2015 BBotB.

 

[JoseRijo]

Can any of you physicists help me out? I was looking (only looking) at this manual coffee grinder:

https://www.momastore.org/museum/mo...nder_10451_10001_208810_-1_11470_11470_208896

The grounds are collected in a wooden drawer. 19oz. beans yield 12oz. ground coffee.

Huh?? Is there 7oz of air inside of the beans?

 

[bentax1978]

Can any of you physicists help me out? I was looking (only looking) at this manual coffee grinder:

https://www.momastore.org/museum/mo...nder_10451_10001_208810_-1_11470_11470_208896



Huh?? Is there 7oz of air inside of the beans?

The only thing I can think is that perhaps they meant they meant fluid ounces (which is actually a measure of volume, not weight) such that 19 (fluid) ounces of beans yields 12 (fluid) ounces of grounds. Basically suggesting that the volume goes down by about a third post grinding.

 

[Chicken Rob]

You lose some to dust in the grinder, but that seems like a crazy amount to me.

People really like good hand grinders though. Report back here after you get one.

 

[JoseRijo]

I was walking home from work when I realized they were talking about fluid ounces. It still seemed like a crazy sentence.

That's why Chicken Rob's ratio by weight is so superior!

 

[Chicken Rob]

I was walking home from work when I realized they were talking about fluid ounces. It still seemed like a crazy sentence.

That's why Chicken Rob's ratio by weight is so superior!

And super easy to remember. 10:1. Scales perfectly, unlike making drip coffee where you have to keep putting more grounds per ounce of water as you scale up your batch size.