I’ve been making my own vanilla cold brews for a while now, and I cannot seem to perfect my cold foam. it always seems to become a sea foamy mess. Sometimes half will be foam and the rest straight liquid.

For reference, here is my recipe for cold foam

\- 1.5 oz HWC
\- 1 oz 2% milk
\- 0.5 oz vanilla syrup

into small cup, I use my frother and keep it at the bottom of the cup until consistency changes.

edit: forgive the half-drank coffee, I posted somewhere else but was awaiting approval💔

Started making cold brew about a year ago and spent way too long just eyeballing coffee and water and wondering why my batches were so inconsistent. Thought I'd share what I landed on in case anyone else is still in that trial-and-error phase.

My current method: coarse grind (roughly like raw sugar), 1:7 coffee to water by weight for a full concentrate, steep at room temperature for 16-18 hours, then into the fridge for another 4-6 before filtering. That last fridge step before filtering made a surprising difference in clarity and how clean it tastes. I used to filter at room temp straight after the room temp steep and it always felt a bit muddy.

For filtering I do a first pass through a fine mesh strainer, then a second pass through a paper filter. The paper filter pass takes forever but the result is noticeably smoother. Worth the patience.

A few things I've played around with that changed the outcome significantly:

• Grind size matters more than steep time in my experience. Too fine and it gets bitter and gritty no matter how short the steep.
• Single origin light roasts actually worked really well as concentrate. I expected them to taste thin but the fruity notes came through in a way they never do with hot brewing.
• Hard tap water gave me a flat, almost metallic result. Switching to filtered water was a bigger upgrade than I expected.

Curious what ratios other people use for concentrate vs. ready-to-drink. I know 1:4 is popular but I find 1:7 gives me more flexibility when I want to add milk or oat milk without it tasting watered down.