Can You Brew Coffee With Milk Instead of Water?

Brewing pour-over coffee with milk does not work well: milk has high saturation, extracts poorly, and its proteins change above about 70 degrees Celsius. Cold brewing coffee grounds in milk at low temperature is feasible instead, since the milk stays cool while the long steeping time compensates for milk's weaker extraction power.

A workable starting point uses a medium-dark roasted blend with fresh milk at a 1:8 coffee-to-milk ratio, steeped cold for 12 hours. That ratio sits far from a typical milk to coffee ratio latte drinkers use, and the result carries sherry-like aroma and chocolate milk flavor. Medium-dark beans suit this method because dark chocolate, caramel and maple notes hold up against milk.

When water can no longer satisfy coffee lovers' desire for exploration, milk becomes a new extraction medium. Is it reliable to brew pour-over coffee with milk? The answer is no—milk has high saturation, weak extraction power, and proteins denature when heated above 70 degrees. But with a different approach, using milk to cold-brew coffee grounds at low temperature to make cold brew milk coffee is completely feasible: low temperature won't spoil the milk, and the extended steeping time exactly compensates for the lack of extraction efficiency. This time Front Street Coffee chose the medium-dark roasted Sunflower Warm Sun blend, paired with Guangming Fresh Pasture fresh milk, using a 1:8 coffee-to-milk ratio and steeping at low temperature for 12 hours, ultimately obtaining a cup of milk-brewed coffee with sherry wine aroma and chocolate milk flavor. Let's take a look at the specific steps and key details below.

Water can no longer satisfy coffee enthusiasts' curiosity about brewing coffee, so everyone started trying various strange extraction media, and milk is one of the objects being experimented with. A curious friend asked Front Street Coffee: What happens if you brew coffee with milk?

Can you brew coffee with milk?

If it's pour-over coffee, Front Street Coffee thinks it won't work. There are two reasons: first, milk itself has high saturation, and its extraction power is much worse than water; second, milk cannot be heated to too high a temperature, usually proteins undergo qualitative changes above 70 degrees. So using milk instead of water for pour-over can only be considered for fun.

Then what about soaking coffee grounds in milk to make cold brew milk coffee?

This might actually be feasible. Unlike pour-over, cold brewing doesn't require too high a temperature, so the milk won't spoil because of it. Moreover, the steeping method is different from drip filtration; although milk's extraction efficiency is low, time can make up for it.

Let's do it right away and verify (play) it. In terms of bean selection, Front Street Coffee prefers medium-dark roasted coffee beans, because milk's flavor is rich and full-bodied, and light-roasted beans with floral and fruity notes are easily overpowered by milk. So it's better to choose coffee beans described with flavors like dark chocolate, caramel, and maple syrup to make milk-brewed coffee.

Front Street Coffee chose the Sunflower Warm Sun blend coffee, which is also the espresso bean used in Front Street Coffee's stores, with flavor notes of vanilla cream, sherry wine, brown sugar, and chocolate. Front Street Coffee hopes the extracted milk coffee will be more aromatic and rich, so for milk, we chose Guangming Fresh Pasture fresh milk, which has a relatively strong milky flavor, and the extraction ratio is smaller than regular cold brew, about 1 part coffee grounds to 8 parts milk.

Front Street Coffee's specific procedure is as follows: first grind 25 grams of coffee beans to the size of fine granulated sugar, with a No. 20 sieve passing rate of 85% as the standard. Put the ground coffee powder into a filter bag; this step is very critical. Because when Front Street Coffee did it the first time, we directly poured the coffee powder into the milk like making cold brew, and as a result, the milk flowed especially slowly during filtering. So to save trouble, wrap the coffee powder in a filter bag, and later you can skip the troublesome filtering step.

Place the filter bag with coffee powder into a bottle, then pour in 200ml fresh milk. You can shake the bottle or use a tool to let the coffee powder be fully soaked. Finally, cover with the lid and check the seal, then place it in the refrigerator for low-temperature storage. This step is also very important, because milk spoils very easily; if it's not sealed well or not stored at low temperature, it will go bad quickly.

Place it in the refrigerator and steep at low temperature for 12 hours; Front Street Coffee does not recommend steeping too long, still worrying about the milk spoiling. If you want to improve the extraction effect, you can turn the filter bag during the steeping period.

After steeping is complete, you can take out the filter bag, or directly pour out the milk coffee. Observe the color; it is already similar to iced latte coffee, and it smells of a nice sherry wine note as well as the aroma of lactose. Take a sip, and a taste of chocolate milk rushes into your mind, with an overall moderate concentration.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.