Cowboy Coffee process optimisation 1

[tintin75]

dear coffee drinkers,
Could you describe what process is in play when pouring cold water into a brew of coffee forces the grounds to the bottom of the pot?
Does ph have any effect on the process?
I wish to perfect this method through experimentation so if you have any tips.... (this is serious business yeah) Besides heat differential, are there any other variables I should control?
In method, I am sprinkling the cold water atop the mess cup in an effort to make contact with the entire surface area.

Would boiling and then chilling the intended cold water part improve the process?


kind regards

 

[Compositepro]

Coffee grounds only float when they contain some residual air. Boiling the grounds will effectively remove all of the air, but apparently hurts the flavor, so ground coffee is brewed in water that is about 200F. This leaves some residual air in the particles of coffee, causing them to float. Cooling the floating grounds shrinks the volume of residual air and water vapor in the particles, allowing them to sink.

 

[GibbsDuhem]

What a great thread! Here's my experience with the topic. 1997 and I'm off to TCO in Tengiz Kazakhstan. Finally there, I'm surrounded by Brits & their hot water pots for tea. Not a coffee pot to be found. Oooof! Day 2 I finally find some coffee, but still no pot. Desperate, I spoon the ground coffee into a Styrofoam cup and filter the resulting leachate with my teeth. Very romantic. Imagined myself to be a bit of a cowboy, no doubt about it. I drank 2 or 3 cups like this until I learned that all I had to do was wait a few minutes and the grounds would all sink to the bottom of the cup. No cooling required.

 

[Compositepro]

Well, in a few minutes there is actually a significant amount of cooling. Particularly if it is only one cup. A whole pot takes a lot longer to cool, so adding a little cool water may have some benefit. Although I must admit that I was not previously aware of the practice of adding cool water. Waiting will work,too. Unless you have 20 cowboys waiting for their coffee!