[rjett]

Coffee shop and roastery owner here... Interesting fact: cold brew acidity as measured by PH, is in the same bandwidth as other coffee drinks: espresso, filter, japanese iced, etc etc... Average usually falls around 4.8.

It is true that brewing with room temperature water doesn't extract some of the acids in the coffee that would be extracted with hot water. With specialty coffee, the purists like Giuliano, want to extract these acids in an effort to showcase the "terroir" of the coffee (where it was grown, the variety, the process after it was picked). There are a lot of cold brew haters in the industry for this reason. I'm not one of them. Saying one is better or worse is a dumb argument to make. Cold brew is great because it does have a really round flavor profile, it highlights sweetness and roast, and it has the body to pair really well with milk, which is how many iced coffee drinkers prefer it.

The Japanese iced coffee is great if you want to highlight the nuances of a better coffee. There's more complexity due to the extraction of these [good] acids. Bonus points for flash chilling a coffee, wherein you brew hot, send the brew through a heat exchanger, and chill without diluting with ice.

[jacobolus]

For iced coffee at home, I’m a fan of aeropress coffee over ice. The aeropress gives a lot of control over water temperature, steep time, coffee/water proportion, and grind size, and you can effectively brew the coffee pretty strong, which leaves you room for the dilution with ice.

[bhrgunatha]

I'm going to start experimenting with that today. I didn't think it would work very well though.

I read of a similar method to the article a few years ago. Use a regular drip brewer with 50% of water normally used (by weight). Place an equal weight of ice in the jug. Brew as normal to get tepid or cold coffee in the jug. Add more ice after you pour or add milk. What I read said the results tasted better than simply pouring over ice because of the process of dripping the hot coffee over the ice as it brews gives a different flavour than simple diluting by adding ice later. OP's article seems to support that and I found that to be true - it works very, very well and it's very simple.

As you say, the aeropress method is basically the same as diluting at the end by controlling the strength of the brew and I'm not sure it will work the same way.

[jacobolus]

Put crushed ice in the cup you’re pressing the aeropress into if you want.

[carlob]

I like to aeropress on ice and then shake the coffee with ice to get a froth

[rubyn00bie]

Awesome information, mate! Thanks for learning me something.

Though, I find it strange that the PH for cold brew, iff extracting less acids, is the same. Reading (very briefly) on google scholar it (acid) looks to be more a result of the way the bean was roasted-- with darker beans having lower acid. Have you seen any scientific doing that analysis?

... I'm just curious as to why (and I'll admit, it COULD be just in my head, I'm a sample of one) I find cold brew much easier to consume having an ulcer.