$50 VS $100 COLD BREWER: Is It Worth It?

hello there it was not a very good slide but it did get me here so cheers to that now the cold brew Chronicles are continuing they're continuing on in a very fun fashion because I have two Brewers today that I'm very excited about and we're going to do kind of a compare and contrast situation we're still going to rate both of these on our scale of one to ten however these do very similar things they result in very similar products and so I thought we should combine them today you're getting two for one it's very exciting and I suppose we don't really need to wait for anything let's just dive into the first Brewer of the day this very tall boy right here it's the cold brew coffee maker but it should be called a tower with how large it is now this Brewer right here as well as the other one we're going to look at doesn't make a straight to drink cold brew the idea behind this is making a large batch of cold brew concentrate that way you can dilute it out with water or milk to your taste you have a larger batch of something that lasts for a lot longer this Brewer right here comes in at just over fifty dollars pretty reason normally priced at least compared to what we looked at last week let's uh break down the components here it's all pretty straightforward if you've ever used a Cold Brew system like this or frankly even like a toddy system very very similar we have a couple different moving pieces here starting off with the maybe less exciting stuff we have our base we also have a carafe that's included this is very easy to fit and Slot right under for when you're ready to dose out your cold brew it also has some nice indicators and markers on the side for when you're measuring out your water it also comes with this nice little stopper cap when you drain out all of your concentrate you can do that you can store it in your fridge of note the only component in this entire Brewer that is glass is going to be this carafe right here everything else is like a hard plastic material there really aren't many moving pieces on this you have like a switch this is going to drain out that cold brew when you're all done it goes up and it goes down and it doesn't really do much else now this right here is going to be the main body of a brewer we take off the top here you'll notice it has a a wide variety of holes up here well it's not really a wide variety you just you just have a lot of them this is called their rainfall head and essentially you're going to be pouring the water for your Cold Brew Over the Top here and then it's going to evenly disperse and saturate the grounds and maybe a more even manner if you were then to just like pour in the water straight on top of the grounds inside you can see right there it has a metal filter which is pretty standard it's a very very very fine mesh filter but then if you come over to this side see if my little hands can do this if you unscrew the base here you also have a secondary paper filter this a brewing kit comes with a nice little pack of them you have quite a few so you're getting like a nice double filtration here very easy unless you are a small handed person like me to unscrew the bottom of the paper filter and you're good to go now because most of this is just plastic a good deal of this is just safe to put in your dishwasher like you can use soap and hot water but a lot of this you can toss in the dishwasher and like call it good and that reminds me I actually didn't talk about the metrics were going to be used to be judging and comparing these cold Brewers we talked about them last week if you want to watch that video but let me go over them real fast here the first metric we're going to be looking at is does it make a nice cup of coffee does it taste good does it have good texture is it a clean cup is it nice the second thing we're going to be looking at is kind of the usability of the actual device does it feel well built does it feel intentional is it enjoyable to use third we're also going to be looking at the price point so this is 50 it has a little less I would say quality of build material but that being said everything fits together it all feels very intentional it all fits so far so good this is Brewer number one I feel very caffeinated can everyone tell that I'm a bit caffeinated this right here a slightly shorter boy is going to be Brewer number two this is a brewer from KitchenAid specifically for cold brew and once more cold brew concentrate this is about double the price of the previous unit this one sits at just under about 110 dollars at MSRP already I don't know if you saw it when I brought it on but this has a lot more heft to it this is a pretty substantial Brewer right here pretty much every major component of this is either a thick walled glass or also like a stainless steel there's very little plastic in this and for over a hundred dollars I would expect there to be very little plastic so good so far now there's a little bit less to break down of this it's a little bit more straightforward from just like a parts standpoint have your little lid right here you have a removable Brewing basket again this is again in the style of like a metal filter so it's it's all metal has very very fine holes So in theory no grounds are getting in the cold brew but you have nice extraction going you have your little seal right here and then that is really everything the rest of this is one solid component that you are not supposed to break into and of course you have your little spout up front which I think is a very nice touch so that's the overview of both of these one of these is 50 one of them is a hundred but is there a noticeable difference once you get past the price point let's grab some coffee let's find out I want to give a huge thank you to trade coffee for sponsoring today's video iced coffee and cold brew season is upon us and I'm a firm believer that if you have a good input it's more than likely that you'll have a good outfit so we're using some delicious coffee as the base for all of our Brews today Trade coffee is a coffee subscription service that makes it easy to discover new coffees and make your best cup at home every day trade partners with the nation's top rated independent Roasters to send you the best quality coffee you can get and whether you know what you like or are new to Specialty coffee trade has you covered this month trade sent me a washed Ethiopian coffee from Bird Rock Roasters that I'm already halfway through this coffee is the heirloom variety and has notes of lemon sugar cookies and white grape it's floral soft and produce uses a great cup of iced coffee and cold brew but again if this particular profile isn't your cup of tea pardon the pun then you can explore the world of flavor that trade offers with over 450 unique coffees to choose from so if you're ready to get started right now trade is offering my subscribers a free bag of coffee with any subscription purchase at drinktrade.com MDC that's drinktrade.com MDC for a free bag of coffee with any subscription purchase now both of these Brewers come with very very similar recommended recipes so for the sake of standardizing and making this as even as possible we're going to just cut the difference and use the same recipe for both of them cut the difference I think it's split the difference so for both of our recipes we're going to be going in with 250 grams of coarsely ground coffee ground for cold brew it's pretty much as coarse as you can go as for our water weight we're going to be going in with about 40 ounces which equivalents out to I think about 1200 milliliters of water again we're Brewing concentrates both of these so I have piles of coffee that we need to add this is the amount of coffee we're adding I feel like I need a shovel to drop this into here both of my Brewers are clean and ready to go like I kind of do need a shovel the measuring cup shovel of the kitchen okay this is going to take me a second shake it very gently even everything out now to follow instructions for this one because we don't have kind of this this rainfall situation we've got on the Oxo Brewer I'm gonna pour in my first 32 ounces of water I'm gonna give this a stir make sure everything is fully saturated and then we'll top it off with our last eight ounces already just reaching in there you can feel kind of where those clumps of dry coffee are so just very gently make sure everything is mixed in this is not for whisking this is not for like pushing coffee through this is simply to make sure everything is going to extract evenly okay last eight ounces that goes nicely right up to the top quick stir we should be good to go one thing I will mention that this Brewer lacks over the Oxo one is we don't have any like measurements for how much water to add now we don't have measurements directly on this one either but we do have a nice craft it has a measurement so if you are not someone who wants to like weigh out your water if you don't have another carafe that has measurements you might be kind of figuring out in some other way how much water you need to add just something to keep in mind it's a little less straightforward all right we'll set you to the side we'll come back to you in a second I also I don't know if I mentioned this it has a very nice very nice grabbable handle that I like quite a bit now first things first before you do anything else on your Oxo Brewer make sure that switch is up if it's not and you pour water in here you are going to have a disaster I say not from experience question mark now as I mentioned before and as I showed you I already have a paper filter up in here I'm going to use our kitchen shovel so once more shovel in 250 grams of coarsely ground coffee this one's a little less a little less shovel like just because it has a really wide opening here give it a shake and let's get some water again as a reminder use your handy markers on your craft and because we have this rainfall head kind of like the Mellow drip but for cold brew all right that's 32 we need eight more all right now in theory we don't need to do anything with this this does not recommend any stirring to happen we'll just wait for those grounds to fully saturate uh down through the entire bit of coffee which you can see on the side that it's already doing now for both of these we're going to be Brewing at room temperature so I'm just going to set them on the kitchen counter and let them Brew together side by side the range for cold brew is very wide some people like doing 12 hour cold brew some people like doing eight some like doing 24. I usually find somewhere in the middle is like a good place to start there's no real right or wrong answer it's very much up to preference so for the sake of consistency across both of these we're going to let these both Brew for about 16 hours in total a little bit more than 12 a little bit less than 24. so I'll see you in 16 hours bye everyone good morning everyone it is now the following day we have been brewing for a good amount of time time to break into these time to taste them then we'll evaluate now I think just go with the smaller one we'll start with the KitchenAid we'll work our way back to the Oxo Brewer which means I'm gonna very carefully move this back this way you can just live there for the time being now just looking at the Brewer itself you can start to see there are some fines a little bit of like sediment that's kind of built up around the edges of the internal Brewer that's not super surprising to me that usually happens when there's any sort of like metal filtering involved however my question is if there's like a secondary filter that occurs from the point where the coffee drains out of the main carafe through the spout on the Oxo Brewer we had a very very clear like disposable paper filter so we know there's secondary filtration there we don't really know about it here because if those don't get filtered out we may get left with a little bit of a muddy glass of cold brew but let's find out now this has a nice a nice handle you can very easily remove all your grounds I'm realizing that I need to get it by the sink very quickly to do this so maybe we put them back in for a second and we scoot over here and now we lift just a order of operations thing now it's just a reminder what we are Brewing today in both of these devices is concentrate so we're going to be diluting this one to two with water so one part cold brew concentrate two parts water it's a pretty standard dilution again you can always adjust that depending on your preferences concentrate is really nice because it's super versatile you can use it as kind of like a cold base for like cold coffee drinks if you don't want to be making espresso constantly you can also really easily like vary it to your own preferences so if you have two different people drinking coffee and you both like different like dilutions of cold brew super easy to do this is how most cafes Brew their cold brew as well we've got a scale so we do this somewhat accurately let us rotate here so we can use our spout I love a good spout that was right on with 100 grams of cold brew that was not intentional but maybe I'll pretend it was sometimes I surprise even myself one to two we have 100 grams of cold brew we're gonna add 200 grams of water got some cold brew here we're gonna set it to the side we'll add ice and sip it once we have everything ready side by side now with this Brewer if you'll remember we aren't going to be storing it in this container once we're done Brewing this is done with wean stud have this carafe we're going to drain everything into and then we have a nice little cap where you can cap this off and stick this in the fridge if you want and align this up under here that looks good make sure we don't have a spillage and then okay this is going to take some time you know I have brewed so much toddy cold brew in my time in cafes and I always expect it to be this like gushing like just drop of cold brew concentrate it's it's going through a lot of filtering right now first of all we have this like entire bed of coffee the water has to fall through but also we have a filter in there and so just let it drip let it settle we'll be good to go [Music] this is just me very impatiently waiting for my cold brew to drain although it's been pretty consistent pretty fast we're probably about four maybe five minutes in at this point I think frankly we are pretty close to being done very exciting I'll be back soon [Music] it's been about seven minutes we have gone down to like a very slow drip so I'm gonna call that done let's get this cold brew portioned out and now you get to go back on the corner over here okie dokie 100 grams of this pretty close Nothing's Gonna Be My like true 100 grams that I nailed on the very first one and then 200 of water so they certainly looked different let's grab some ice let's do some tasting I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it as clearly on camera but visually these two cups of coffee do look different you can already tell that one of them this one right here is going to be a good deal cleaner and like kind of the texture in the mouth feel than this one is but let's try we'll start over on this side oh you can see evidence of my spill underneath this one right here is going to be the KitchenAid uh cold Brewer telling you you put good coffee in you get good cold brew out also I don't know if you can see it our cats have like a little drinking cup on the edge of the sink which surprisingly keeps them from going into the sink which we don't want them to do so uh there's Mitzi there if you all needed a cat Cameo this is actually a really nice cup of cold brew you know I can tell just because like I I kind of knew it would be there that there is a little bit there's a little bit of like suspended fines happening still in here like they're not totally filtered out however I don't think it's noticeable to really anyone else if I was serve this in a cafe I really don't think it would stand out to me I think just because we're like looking for the best here I'm very aware of it but it's not like a big deal the flavors are nice they're complex everything just it's like a good cup of cold brew I don't have much more to say about it okay let's move over to this one again we're using the exact same coffee and ratio in both of these so we have the Oxo that's good I'm a big fan of cold brew I like that flavor profile a lot this is a really nice cup of cold brew now while this one was still a nice cup of cold brew the one downside is that it did have a little bit more a little bit more softness I think in the tactile like it's just kind of like it's a little bit more velvety but not necessarily in a good way and that velvetiness comes from the fact that there are still some like fines and a little bit more particulate in there than there is in here this right here is a very clean cup of coffee the tactile the flavor everything is just pretty spot on here I'm gonna drink the rest of that today so now that we've tasted we can compare and contrast these a little bit better the first thing we have to talk about of course on our grading metrics is is it a nice cup of coffee so again the first metric we're looking at when evaluating these two is is it a nice cup of coffee both of these frankly Brew pretty nice cups of coffee however I do think there is one that is better that's gonna be the Oxo here having that paper filter in there having the ability to do kind of a second filter through everything really enhances the mouth feel of the cup which was a very coffee person sentence to say however it is a noticeable difference you know I do like both of these cups of coffee I do like this one more and you know I was looking around I was thinking maybe there's a way to insert like a paper filter or something into this one and because of the fact that the bottom and like all the internals and everything with the tubing here is pretty much completely closed off it's really hard to get in there and there's no real obvious spot where one could put a filter if you're drinking this and you want a really clean cup of coffee I might suggest you do just like a secondary filtration outside of this like set up a little like I don't know like a little Kalita or something with a coffee filter in it and just run your cold brew through that quickly now our second metric was the build is this easy to use does it feel good is it easy to clean like how does it function there's a pretty clear difference in the materials used in these two this one is pretty much entirely glass and stainless steel it feels very Hefty and frankly it feels expensive it's nice to use I like the spout I like most things about but this one again is all hard plastic with that even though it is maybe a less quality material in how it feels there's a lot of advantages to this because with this you can much more easily wash it you can like stick stuff in the in the dishwasher you can like rinse real fast this one is a lot more solid in that it's a unit and it's harder to clean things in it some things about this that I really like is that it's all contained just in here there's no like extra pieces really it's got a handle it's supposed to sit in your fridge and then you can just dispense out concentrate whenever you like that's really convenient to me and I think it's frankly it just looks nice in the fridge I think that's something that a lot of people will like this one is for sure a lot more of a bulky item this one's going to take up a good footprint in your kitchen now you brew this on your countertop you don't need to put this in your fridge if you don't want to but if you want to this is going to be a tricky one to fit in there it is very tall it's very bulky and there's no real way to like deconstruct it really now the last thing we're comparing and contrasting the price price point and again this one is about twice as much as this one this KitchenAid Brewer sits at about 110 dollars whereas this Oxo one sits at about 50. and I guess the final question is what do we rank them and also which one do I like more now last week we have a brewer that I rated six and now that we have a metric to rate things against I'm gonna go back and reevaluate in that a little bit I want to bump that Brewer down to a maybe a five it's closer to a four than it is a six and with that said I want to place this one at a seven this is a really nice Brewer it Brews a nice cup of coffee there are definitely some ways that it could be better I wish it was a little bit less expensive but for what it is and how it looks I think it's a pretty good option that being said I think this is a better option I want to give this I want to give this like an eight and a half maybe that seems high but frankly as far as the actual cup of coffee goes there's I don't think much you could do better this tastes really really delicious it's very easy to clean I think the primary downside is that it has a pretty big footprint in your kitchen so just the size of it but beyond that some really solid cold Brewer I think that's we're gonna sit this is gonna be a seven it's gonna be an eight and a half and I will say I think I prefer the Oxo we have many more methods of cold Brewing to investigate these two put us on a really good track I think so I'm excited to see what comes next if you all have any ways that you like cold Brewing or you want me to try feel free to leave them in the comments down below now as usual I'm Morgan drinks coffee you can find me here on YouTube once a week plus shorts Additionally you can find me on Tick Tock or Instagram almost every single day I'm uh gonna fish out my uh my favorite cup of cold brew I'm gonna go enjoy this and I'll see you all next time bye everyone foreign

Channel: Morgan Eckroth

Views: 99,256

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Id: LweEfYHZBfc

Length: 19min 54sec (1194 seconds)

Published: Fri May 19 2023