How To Make Flash-Chilled Iced Coffee

Make specialty iced coffee right at home using the flash-chilling method.

• Stop making iced coffee from stale, leftover coffee batches.
• One of the best ways to make iced coffee is to use the flash-chilling method or Japanese style.
• This iced coffee making method will harness the bright, crisp, and aromatic flavors of the original coffee beans.

Though summer is nearing its end, there’s still plenty of time for iced coffee beverages. But instead of buying iced coffee or using old coffee to make your own at home, there’s a new iced coffee brewing method known as the flash-chilling method.

This brewing method uses a technique of extracting coffee with hot water and then bringing it down to a low temperature in a quick fashion. It’s not hard, and the result is amazing, full-flavored iced coffee. Read on to see how to do it for yourself at home.

View the flash-chilled iced coffee tutorial here:

Coffee does go stale, which is why you should avoid using old coffee for iced coffee batches.

A lot of people don’t think much about it, but coffee can and does go bad. As soon as 30 minutes after you’ve brewed a batch, it starts to go stale. The reason is because coffee continues to oxidize even after it’s been brewed. This just means that the flavors start to deteriorate.

So if you thought that you could use your leftover coffee from the morning to make an iced coffee, think again. It won’t have the natural aromas of the original beans as it cools over time.

The flash-chilling method, alternatively, harnesses the bright, crisp, and aromatic flavors of the original coffee beans.

Use freshly roasted coffee beans.

So now that you’ve avoided using stale coffee, it’s also essential to avoid using stale beans. Surprisingly, coffee beans are perishable and go bad about one to two weeks after they’ve been roasted. They will deteriorate even faster if the coffee beans are not properly stored.

Best case scenario, you want to use freshly roasted coffee beans. This will ensure a flavorful batch of iced coffee.

You can use any type of pour over brewer for this method.

Any pour over brewer will work for the flash-chilling method. Examples include the Hario V60, the ORIGAMI Dripper, the Kalita Wave, and Chemex.

If you decide to go with Chemex, you can actually put the ice cubes directly in the vessel and brew the hot coffee over the cubes (it also looks really cool!).

Use a medium grind for your coffee grounds.

Just like in brewing pour over coffee, you’ll want to use a medium grind or a medium-coarse grind to get the right extraction. If you go any finer, you risk over-extracting, which could lead to an overly bitter cup of coffee. If you grind your beans too coarse, you may end up with an under-extracted coffee that tastes watery.

Going somewhere in-between will be your best bet for the most flavorful flash-chilled iced coffee. The grinds will look similar to coarse or rough sand. For more help on proper grinding technique, check out this coffee grinding article.

A digital scale will make the process go much smoother.

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To save you great pains of calculations and figuring out how many grams are in a cup, it’s in your best interest to use a digital scale for this iced coffee brew method (and all pour over methods).

Currently, I use Hario’s digital scale, and I have no complaints. I’ve had it for over a year now, and it still works beautifully. It is a bit pricey, so if you’re not able to splurge, there are other food scale options that would work equally as well.

Also interested in learning how to make cold brew?

How To Make Flash-Chilled Iced Coffee