2022 journal article
Viability of microwave technology for accelerated cold brew coffee processing vs conventional brewing methods
JOURNAL OF FOOD ENGINEERING, 317.
Production of cold brew (CB) coffee beverages can require 10β24 h of cold-water infusion. Accelerating this process would facilitate its production on a large scale. This study compared hot brewed coffee (HB), CB, heat-treated CB coffee (H-CB), and microwave treated CB coffee (M-CB) over time in terms of four attributes: color measured by L* values, total dissolved solids (TDS), and mg/100 g caffeine and chlorogenic acid (3-CQA). L* decreased over time for both HB and CB (34.98 β 17.19 vs 64.62 β 43.00), while TDS (0.89 β 1.39 vs 0.29 β 0.85), caffeine (48.90 β 84.39 vs 15.23 β 61.42) and 3-CQA (33.60 β 62.85 vs 5.55 β 44.82) increased. H-CB and M-CB attributes remained constant after the heat treatment (L*, 34.46β35.33 vs 29.23β29.29; TDS, 0.80β1.03 vs 1.00β0.94; caffeine, 56.10β62.21 vs 60.88β69.85; 3-CQA, 39.17β46.00 vs 41.39β49.95), were similar to CB samples, but required less preparation time. A brief heat treatment prior to cold infusion accelerates CB production, allowing industry to develop faster, less costly processing methods.