How To Make The Best Decaf Coffee Concentrate

July 8, 2022|Russell Volz|Brewing And Drinking

Why would you want Decaf Coffee Concentrate? There are many times when we just don’t have the time to make fresh brewed coffee. Decaf coffee concentrate is also a great flavoring option when making a protein shake, or baking a coffee cake, or mixing a cocktail. There are dozens of applications where decaf coffee concentrate just makes sense.

What Quality of Coffee Do You Want?

If time is money, then great tasting coffee in 30 seconds is a gold mine. People use concentrated coffee or instant coffee mostly to save time. Here’s a critical question for you. Do you want bad coffee or do you want good coffee? Hell, let’s really go out on a limb here and ask, do you want “great coffee“?

What’s more important time or coffee? What if you wanted both, great coffee instantly. Hey, asking if you want great coffee is an important question, because most Americans don’t give a rat’s behind what they drink. I’m going to guess, that if you’re reading this article, you want great coffee that’s fast, easy, and great tasting.

Why Not Just Buy Instant Coffee?

So, why not just buy instant coffee? Sadly, not everyone knows that instant coffee sucks. Well it sucks to those of use that want great coffee. As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather chew tree bark than drink instant coffee. Do you know how instant coffee is made?

Basically, they mix coffee grounds with water, brew the coffee, then evaporate the water out of the brewed coffee, leaving instant coffee powder. It may be instant, but it sure as hell isn’t coffee. IMHO.

What Is Concentrated Decaffeinated Coffee?

Concentrated Decaf Coffee is simply a very strong liquid coffee. The advantage, as stated above is to save time. With concentrated decaf coffee in hand, you can make a cup of coffee in 30 seconds. Or you can use the concentrate for all the purposes listed above. Below, I will give you several tried-n-true recipes.

The challenge with most store bought concentrates is that they don’t taste like coffee at all. That’s even more true of the decaf concentrate. Our goal here is to save time and to make a concentrate that tastes great. What do I mean by “tastes great”?

First of all, great coffee is not bitter and is not burnt. Great coffee should be smooth as silk and have distinguishable flavor notes, like chocolate, nut, citrus, etc. Let’s face it, most concentrated coffee tastes like strong Folgers. If that’s what you’re looking for, then you can stop right here. But if you’re looking for a decaf coffee concentrate that tastes great, then I’m going to give you my favorite recipes below.

Why Store Bought Decaf Coffee Concentrate Sucks

Unfortunately, store bought decaf coffee concentrate tastes more like a mad scientist’s experiment gone bad than it does real coffee. The challenge here is that most decaf beans have been so abused that they are barely recognizable as coffee beans, and they taste like it. These beans are typically abused with:

Chemicals
Over roasting
And sitting in warehouses or store shelves for months if not years

Sadly, store bought decaf coffee concentrate is also loaded with ingredients that you may not want, like:

Sugar
Corn Syrup
Artificial flavoring
Artificial coloring
Preservatives
Very very old coffee

Why Make Your Own Decaf Coffee Concentrate?

The best reason to make your own decaf coffee concentrate is because you want it to taste as good as fresh brewed coffee.
Another good reason is that you don’t want a bunch of chemical additives, much less artificial flavorings, sugar, coloring, and preservatives.
If you’re like me, if it isn’t fast and easy, I won’t do it. I can make my own concentrate faster than I can buy it; and so can you.
You want fast coffee that tastes good AND is good for your health.
Let’s face it, you’re busy. So, you’ll want something that’s fast and easy. And that’s why you’re here reading this article.
They say that, “Variety is the spice of life.” Sure you can buy coffee concentrates in the store that comes in several different flavors. But can they match the variety of 100% pure natural extracts, like:

- Vanilla
- Lemon
- Orange
- Almond
- Pepperment
- Anise
- Banana
- Apple
- Cinnamon
- Etc., Etc., Etc.

Help Making Your Own Decaf Coffee Concentrate

Here’s what you’ll want “before” you make your own concentrate:

Someone to select great decaf coffee beans that are smooth as silk, with zero bitterness, yet with prominent flavor notes
Then someone to gently roast those incredibly smooth beans to perfection, without burning the snot out of them.
You also want those beans to be super fresh. So, who’s going get those perfect beans from the roaster to your table in 24-72 hours?
Next, you’ll want an expert to show you how to make the best decaf coffee concentrate this side of heaven.
Now imagine, concentrating that coffee so that tomorrow, you can make a cup of coffee in 30 seconds? That’s what concentrated coffee can do for you.

Cold Brew Concentrate

Honestly, I think cold brew makes the smoothest coffee of any brewing technique on the planet. All you need is:

One quart Mason jar.
One cup of course ground decaf coffee. Normally when I make normal cold brew, I use only 1/4 cup of grounds. Going to a full cup will make the coffee much stronger, thus concentrated.
Water (preferably filtered)
2-4 days of refrigerator time. Normally, when I make normal cold brew, I only leave the jar in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours. But since we’re making a concentrate, we’re going to let it sit longer.
Fine mesh strainer or gold colored metal coffee filter

Here’s all you have to do; grind your coffee, toss the grounds into the jar, fill the jar with water, put the lid on, shake it a bit, put it in the refrigerator. Then in 1-3 days, depending on how strong you want the coffee concentrate, pull the jar out of the refrigerator and strain the grounds out. Put the concentrate into a jar and you’re ready to go.

French Press Concentrate

The French Press concentrate will be stronger and more bold than the cold brew, but it’ll also have more flavor and be a bit more bitter. For those of you that love bold coffee, this is a great option. Get yourself at least a 6-8 cup French Press. Grind your decaf beans to a medium grind.

You’ll use roughly 4 times that amount of grounds that you normally would use, i.e. instead of your normal 1/4 cup of grounds per cup of coffee, you’ll use 1 cup of grounds per cup of coffee. This recipe is almost 50% grounds and 50% water. Normally with a French Press, you’d let the grounds steep in the water for 2-4 minutes. For our concentrate, you’ll let the grounds steep for 10 minutes. Much more than 10 minutes and the concentrate will be too bitter.

Espresso Concentrate

I’m not a big espresso fan, so take this recipe with a grain of salt (figuratively). Just make a bunch of straight espresso, like you normally would and put it into a jar. I’d make a pint or so of concentrate, much more than that and it’ll be sitting around for too long.

Gimmicks, Gadgets, and Gizmos

There are a variety of knucklehead products out there that you could buy to help you make concentrated coffee. I think they’re a waste of time and money. Besides, what I’ve offered you here works and it works exceedingly well.

Lake City Coffee

When Alisha and I (Russell) started Lake City Coffee, we agreed to give our customers super smooth, super fresh whole bean coffee. We also agreed to give our customers and website readers the 100% no BS truth about anything coffee.

There’s a lot of false information out there about coffee. It would seem that Wall Street runs the coffee industry. And to a large extent, that’s true. Just look at the latest switcheroo with Black Rifle Coffee Company.

That’s not us. We buy one bean from the Tarrazu region of Costa Rica and we offer only 3 roasts; Barely Dark, Medium, and White. In other words, we keep it simple. If you have any questions, please let us know. We’d be happy to hear from you.