www.404media.co/scientists-use-ultrasound-to-make-cold-brew-coffee-in-3-minutes-instead-of-24-hours/
Scientists Use Ultrasound to Make Cold Brew Coffee in 3 Minutes Instead of 24 Hours
Yeah this seems like a super expensive way to shake coffee grounds in cold water
I wonder if it'd work in an ultrasonic cleaner. Those are pretty cheap
Not once they realize why the uptick in sales is happening
So...start hoarding ultrasonic cleaners, and CB Coffee bags?
Actually looks like there’s already one product out there and it’s the same price as a cleaner.
so it's a little disingenuous, they have a modified espresso machine using room temperature water, and they're icing the resulting shot. Wonder if this tastes like actual cold brew or just like an iced americano.
Well, it's definitely not hot brew.
Not with that attitude
it's more so the espresso machine part - if you pull an espresso shot with cold water, that's not a cold brew imo.
Last time I checked, regular cold brew can be made at room temperature. The "cold" just means "not hot."
It definitely means that. It's coffee with much much lower tannins.
Room temp is still considered cold brew imo
well now you tell me
Anyone interested in an ultrasound machine? Definitely never used for coffee making
The lower temperature would extract less bitter elements and the Japanese method of making cold coffee (by rapidly chilling hot coffee) is considered the superior tasting way to make cold coffee. This method sounds sufficiently related to the traditional process to be called "cold brew".
This method of cold brew requires you to drink quickly and will contain more bitter elements in flavour than a simple 12-16hr immersion extraction.
The immersion brew will maintain flavour for days where as shocked coffee can't be preserved for more than a couple hours even if refrigerated
I really dislike the "1 type of extraction is better than the other" debates because they all have their own pros and cons. It's the reason why so many different methods exist in the first place.
People that prefer the lightness of drip brew with some bitter elements will prefer shocked cold brew, someone that likes natural sugars and sweet full body flavour will prefer immersion
Reminds me of vacuum sealing cucumbers in vinegar to make instant pickles.
Must've missed that trend, because that's fucking incredible and news to me
You ever have that dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid, surrounded by a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
Bro I thought I was the only one.
just use an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner
or a toothbrush against a bowl
Just put the cup on my balls while I stick a vibrator in my ass
Ultrasound isn’t insanely expensive compared to a lot of sciency stuff.
Ultrasonic waves can be produced with a fairly cheap speaker.
The year is 2056, we have genetically modified the coffee plants so we can milk them for cold brew directly, skipping the brewing process entirely.
The year is 2057, we forget to account for cows drinking the caffeinated cold brew from their mothers. They have become too powerful. This is a warning. Stop the scientist now
The year is 2058, we have successfully created coffee plant and cow hybrids. Bovine lattes are known as 'Boottes', after a marketing scandal to make "Got Boottes?" trending.
Did they give the coffee beans nipples?
Can’t be poor if there’s no economy or habitat planet
He said 2032, you really think there will be no economy or a habitable planet in 8 years?
And I thought I was pessimistic.
Maybe they did the same thing I did and thought 2032 is 32 years away. XD
I mean... there's still the possibility that Trump gets re-elected. After all, he thought we should use nuclear bombs on hurricanes, and these days he wants to come back so he can be a full-on dictator with nobody to stop him.
Wait, hold on! You're talking about the previous leader of the U.S. of A. That's a position that /should/ be of respect and dignity!
This incredible genius also told us to inject bleach into our veins, take horse dewormer, and shine UV light on our bodies, to heal us from a highly contagious virus! Don't get a vaccine that makes you vulnerable to effects of 5G WiFi brain controlling devices. Oh and also disregard the CDC. Those scientists that have dedicated their career to prevent the spread of diseases. They obviously don't know what they're talking about. Do your own research! I recommend Facebook.
NeW gOd eats McDonald's for every meal! You can't tell me how much he must be healthy from all that. He only CHOOSES to wear Depends. He doesn't HAVE to. It's just that his PR person told him that constantly leaking and dropping that ass liquid from behind, and always having a brown streak visible through his suit pants, just makes a bad image. Real Men wear adult diapers! And have tiny mushroom penis!
NeW gOd has never had to pay full price for any construction, decorating, or cleaning work done on any of the buildings that had his name associated with... and were paid for by other people... and he claimed he owned. But oh no! He's bankrupt again! Sorry, can't pay anyone!
And had no repercussions for bankrupting an entire sports league trying to oust the damn NFL. He can bankrupt EVERY business venture, screw all his employees, and still claim to be a billionaire! Now that's savvy!
Oh, and his most faithful payments were to various pornstars, playmates, hookers and more, that he had sex with, when he was cheating on his various "wives" who hate him but love money.
This is the guy who can redirect a hurricane just using a map and a Sharpie!
I mean really, NeW gOd only got this country a few trillion dollars more in debt instead of trying to decrease the national debt. It's ok though, because the money was just funneled into his bank account, and maybe a little for the various criminals like his lawyers, corrupt Congressmen, corrupt judges, and the rest. Don't worry about that! Republicans have assured me since the late '80's that all that wealth will "trickle down". It's fine, just hang out and wait for that to happen.
NeW gOd just wants to be a regular, run-of-the-mill dictator, who can murder any opponents with no repercussions. Just wants to be low-key, everything he says is immediately a new law, punishable by death, kind of Emperor. Rule-of-law doesn't matter, or even apply to him. That's not even a thing anymore!.
He can barely read, and can't make any speech without being completely incoherent, and showing some obvious mental deficiency. But he can know, in his heart, that even after all the lies, cheating, criminal acts (like basically all the things that go against the Old Testament Ten Commandments, and also New Testament of Jesus's teachings) that he can proudly hold up a Bible he's never read, upside down, and get that perfect photo op from ridiculous mass media!!
He is the God-King, Almighty, Personal Lord and Savior, blessed Emporer Trump! All hail!!
To be fair, setting aside the economy and climate change, the number of nuclear powers demonstrating aggression/tension nowadays whether directly or through proxies, is pretty concerning. Especially considering some have borderline irrational leaders. There's always the nuclear the option.
Ok doomer.
Nah, Starbucks will keep it at the same price and pocket the savings instead
Do avocado toast next!
The year is 2033. Avocado Toast 2 has hit the market for *$9*. Gen Z is poor again.
Do I need to watch Avocado Toast 1 to understand the sequel?
I can’t remember. I’m on Avocado Toast 743 right now.
Interesting article, hard to find the onions. Excerpt about the process, not including the chart of math formulas. An experiment you can try at home.
Trujillo explains in the paper that extraction happens because of “acoustic cavitation. When acoustic bubbles, also called inertial bubbles, collapse near solid materials, such as coffee grounds, they generate micro jets with the force to fracture the cell walls of plant tissues, intensifying the extraction of the intracellular content.”
Aren't acoustic cavitation bubbles exceptionally hot? That defeats the purpose of cold brew
Edit: I was thinking of cavitation from ship motors (bigger and run longer but can raise the metal temp to 400C in a 25C body of water) and the pistol shrimp. We're a step closer to cool crustacean baristas.
Kinda. They're hot but at a micro scale. The heat quickly dissipates into the surrounding water mass.
I'm pretty sure they aren't blasting the water with enough acoustic energy to boil it or even warm it more than a couple degrees at best.
Have ultrasonic cleaner. It takes a lot of energy.
Taking a lot of energy is not the same as dissipating that energy as heat into the water. Plus, even if it was, you could just chill the water externally (or with ice).
I meant it takes a lot of energy to heat the water.
Ah, didn't read like that haha
I realized that.
You should try to make a cold brew and report back.
For the greater good!
Another way to think about "heat" is energy distribution across the available degrees of freedom.
Acoustic cavitation increases the random fluctuations in the liquid at the ~micron scale. If you tried to create similar fluctuations using a regular thermal bath, it would have to be thousands of degrees hot to produce the same sorts of fluctuations. However, this "temperature" only applies to the liquid fluctuations (basically pressure/density waves in the liquid). The atomic scale temperature is still pretty much room temperature.
As a similar example, you can imagine sifting rocks like this . In theory, you could heat the whole contraption until random Brownian motion of the rocks shakes them a similar amount (assuming these are magical, non-melting rocks). But you would likely need to heat it to thousands, or perhaps even millions, of degrees to get a similar level of motion in the rocks as you get by shaking or pushing them around by hand. So the process of randomly pushing or shaking the rocks around "heats" one subset of the axes of freedom of the system to "millions of degrees" temporarily, but the temperature of the rocks is still room temperature.
Also, for both the acoustic sonicator and shaking a rock sifter, the whole system quickly relaxes back to equilibrium when you stop. All the energy is quickly dissipated as regular heat, but since it is so small you don't really notice the temperature increase.
If you leave a sonication bath on for 24 hours it will be noticeably above room temperature, but not hot. I compensate with ice in the bath.
isn't that more so just from heat dissipation of the machinery that's surrounding the bath housing?
I’m not commenting on what the source of heat to the water is, just that its magnitude isn’t all that high.
Aren't acoustic cavitation bubbles
Ah yes the next evolution of coffee is making acoustic coffee machines. I can finally move on from my electric machine
I don't think you get to ditch the electric component of this thing unless your next evolution of coffee involves some kind of hand cranked ratchet that you need to wear noise protection to operate
Or just screaming at your morning coffee to get it to brew.
when the bubble collapses it does release energy, but I don't think its enough to heat up the water.
It's not.
I’ve used an ultrasound bath in the past, it gets warm after 30 min or so but not super hot (around 50C (122F)) after 3 min it wouldn’t be that hot unless it was very powerful.
Well, making coffee with ultrasound does sound funny.
It sounds like something Iron Man would do because he was bored after breaking both legs in a fight.
I’m here for the UltraMan Coffee Cinematic Universe
An experiment you can try at home.
Ah, yes, I shall definitely "generate micro jets with the force to fracture the cell walls of plant tissues, intensifying the extraction of the intracellular content" tomorrow morning!
It’s basically one of those ultrasonic cleaners they sell for jewelry and retainers. You really could try it at home
Oh shit no way. I guess I'm gonna have to pick up a cheap one and try it out.
I think the onion is just the title because it sounds absurd. I didn’t even know it took that long to make cold brew in the first place.
Trujillo explains in the paper that extraction happens because of “acoustic cavitation.
Robert Trujillo out there makin' cold brew with his basslines.
Why does reading that juicy science about cold brew coffee extraction read like smut?
Aha did not expect to see this on r/nottheonion but there you go...
These are our researchers and we actually just wrapped up a bit of an explainer with lead researcher Dr Francisco Trujillo over on r/espresso if you're interested in the project! https://www.reddit.com/r/espresso/comments/1clwsxm/i_modified_a_breville_dual_boiler_with_an/
Cheers!
this post should be higher up, i remember you guys posting this in the espresso subreddit.
Yo mods mind pinning this comment?
How long until i can do this at home tho
I promise you this was invented by scientists that were desperately trying to avoid doing their actual work
"No, boss, I swear. This will make us so much more productive.
And, if it works, we can market the invention to fund phase three!"
If my experience with Australian researchers is anything to go on, the boss tried to squeeze another sonoreactor into the budget before the paper was even finished. Failing that, he's been less than subtly suggesting it to his favourite café on campus.
I'll send you that email. Right after I make a cup of coffee...
Fuck are gastronomists going to do outside of finding new interesting things to do with food and food preparation?
Well, scientists (and engineers sometimes) just fuck around and find out. There's always a scientific basis to theories and hypotheses but yeah it's just fucking around with random stuff and equipment
I'm an engineer. Came up with a great idea to solve a problem I was working on when I was screwing around discussing joke solutions with coworkers when one joke I made inspired the good idea.
That is the other part of your brain working on the problem while you are doing something else
One of the hardest parts of engineering is that when you are stuck on something, you can't just work harder and get it done.
Lol you need to find a way to get your brain to just come up with something. Which can't be forced.
Generally for me that either involves chatting with or it just comes to me when I'm not even at work or thinking about it actively.
Maybe that's how you hack engineers do things
The difference is that they write the results down when they fuck around and find out.
This does have all the earmarks of a spontaneous side quest for a valuable commodity.
This has plenty of applications though!
You could use it to make sweet tea quicker too!
Underpaid grad students, who was ultrasonicating one day and couldn't leave the lab, added some DI water to coffee grounds and the rest is a journal paper
Science!
We do what we must, because we can.
Those of you who volunteered to be injected with praying mantis DNA, I’ve got some good news and some bad news…
Bad news is we’re postponing those tests indefinitely.
Good news is we’ve got an entirely new test for you: fighting an army of mantis-men! So pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line. You’ll know when the test starts.
Ultrasound you say.
Let me just scream at my coffee for 3 minutes.
Will hit the market just in time for climate change to cause extreme coffee scarcity.
Something similar is already on the market called the Osma pro.
The reviews make it seem not worth it in the slightest, but it's one of those curiosities I've had rattling around my brain for a few years now.
Fuuuuuuuuuuck
Instead of Dark Roast, maybe it will be Dark Wave or Light Wave
The beans are still roasted, that step occurs before grinding and brewing.
But I like the way you think.
Ooohh, I can already imagine discussions on which frequency produces the best coffee.
Meh. I’ll wait for the James Hoffman review tyvm
just me getting my madagascar vanilla cold brew at planned parenthood
Get ready for the rise of the hipster zombies.
What’s a hipster?
I've said too much...
So can I make coffee in my ultrasonic cleaner.
Yes. Do it tomorrow and report back.
Fuckin finally, were all gonna be ok guys!!
These kinds of advancements take decades to come to market.
eh... ultrasonic baths already exist and are available commercially. Sure it will take some time to adapt the technology for this use but this is not an advancement that will take decades.
Yes. After reading the article I'd say maybe a year or two, at most.
Clever use of ultrasonic waves for sure.
Shit I'm about to go use my ultrasonic cleaner to make some cold brew and beat them all to market.
There’s already a product out there, it’s 50 bucks. They call it FlashExtract Technology.
Maybe someone should try throwing a bag of coffee beans into one of those baths?
Huh?
This looks like a canned response for battery tech.
That was the intention. But I guess I should have put "/s" or something.
/s is needed anymore. I just dealt with a guy who was totally serious in his belief that Sony's Helldivers 2 debacle was 4d chess and they never planned on forcing the psn thing at all. And anyone who saw different was a stupid child.
Neckbeards abound.
There are idiots like that all over Reddit, especially rr/grimdank
I thought it was solid.
We already have ultrasonic cleaners, and for this you just need to dial in the frequency to break the coffee properly.
I'd be surprised if this is not on the market in 12 months.
I have such a cleaner and some coffe, wish me luck.
Update?
Poor bastard wound up with a coffee cup lodged in his esophagus. For a moment we even thought he was still alive, but it turns out the damn thing was still vibrating. Second time I’ve seen this sorta thing.
it's gonna be really funny watching coffee nerds (me) arguing about the correct number of khz to brew their beans at down to the single digits. if there's one thing that I've noticed about coffee people over the years, they get quite obsessive about numbers.
Oh no, a grind-khz-time triangle for ultrasonic cold brew, adjusted for altitude and bean vintage
Yes. Usually my partner makes coffee for us. There’s always adventure if I try to make coffee before having coffee. And my partner is obsessed with technique and numbers.
I dunno.
Considering the experiment started with a modified benchtop coffee maker, this could be on store shelves within a couple years.
Starbucks is getting a new cold brew machine sometime next year that will be able to make cold brew in only 20 minutes (which certainly isn't 3 minutes, but still a tremendous improvement from the 20 hours it currently takes)
Hope that means the commercial sized Toddy tubs they used will be sold off on the cheap
Was it a boy coffee or girl coffee. Or did the scientists not want to know until it was born
Why are you trying to assign a gender to this coffee? Don't you know it's fluid
They saw a penis in the coffee
I like my coffee like I like my women
Why is this not the onion?
Wait till they get their insurance bill.
You can replicate this process at home with a $40 vevor brand ultrasonic cleaner
How many cups at once ?
You will find an ultrasonic bath in any chemistry lab basically anywhere in the US.
They are commonly used to facilitate dissolution or extraction and it is well in line with intended use. Cool but not exactly a development.
I sense an IgNobel award.
Not knowing anything about brewing coffee, this potentially has some interesting applications for systems involving solubility.
Those damn science hippies again
Is this the same idea as using ultrasound to rapidly age whiskey?
Holy shit. An ultrasound cleaner is pretty cheap these days, I wondered if it could cold brew...
I think my cold brew tastes like shit if I let it brew more than twelve hours.
My husband makes it on a stir plate in 20 minutes with a lot less energy. Duh!
Loud Brew
Coffee shops hate this one simple trick!
I was "sonicating" whiskey about 8 years ago.
Coldbrewer here.
Not sure how this is news, people who are obsessed with coldbrew coffee have already been doing this. Pretty common knowledge that agitating anything with ultrasonic vibrations will cause it to mix on a molecular level much more quickly.
Coffee nerds: it's not the same you need to double press with exactly 583 grams of pressure then rebrew through Alaskan spring water
If god intended coffee to be cold, why is my tongue burnt smooth???
VIBRATE ALL THE THINGS 😂
Finally! A use for jiggle physics!
Isn't this just what the instant pot cold brew machine does?
I didnt see it in the article but I wonder if the caffeine content is the same?
If anyone enjoys cold brew I definitely reccomend what I use which is the OXO Cold brew maker that I have for 6 or 7 years now. Makes 1 gallon of cold brew after it is diluted which is enough for a week.
I just have to buy filters once a year for $6 other than that the thing is easy to use and has no other cost except beans.
A similar process can be used to age whiskey over the course of days, rather than years. you can take raw spirits and put them in a ultrasonic chamber, and add wood chips of your choice, then run it.
huh, thought the coffee industry that they would have tried that. In cannabis sonicators are commonly used to suspend delta-9 oil wrapped up in carriers to suspend in water. They also work great at renoving resin from tools.
Anyone got the whole article? Not giving some random website an email address for them to turn around and sell.
This isn’t a new concept, they likely just put coffee grounds and water in an ultrasonic cleaner. It does work quite well.
I recall seeing a video where someone tried aging whiskey extremely fast using an ultrasonic cleaner, and for the most part it worked incredibly well. Video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQT4ptwLKs
Although there are some small discrepancies in taste, as the ratios of different “flavor compounds” aren’t EXACTLY the same as those with time, but it’s damn close.
I bet you could get the best of both worlds by making a very quick ‘half brewed’ coffee, and then letting it sit for another 12 hours, and cut the time in half without sacrificing anything.
the claim that the resultant coffee is almost indistinguishable to regular cold brew is a bit suspicious to me
As a homebrewer, I know of ultrasonic aging, which involves putting brews or distillates into an ultrasonic container with wood chips in order to "barrel age" them quickly. It's very similar to this process
It does work, but the flavours of the wood are extracted at different rates than they would be over long periods of time, so there is a difference in taste. It does taste better than if you didn't use the process, of course, and it is very quick, but it is not indistinguishable from regular barrel aging
I have a feeling the same applies here. I think when they say almost indistinguishable, they probably mean it takes someone who knows coffee to be able to tell them apart. But a lot of coffee drinkers know coffee, so I'm guessing there's probably a distinct difference in the taste
Oh. I thought they cooled it with ultrasound. They just vibrated the shit out of it to let out the coffee faster.
I can do that with my $50 ultrasonic cleaner and get pretty similar results. Wankers.
Not surprising, I've heard of using ultrasonic stuff to infuse whiskey with wood flavours instead of using a cask years ago.
Ok, when's the Kickstarter coming for this device.
Finally science is working for humans
Scientists unlock the secrets behind cold brusion
You can also "just" prepare cold brew under high vacuum. With a decent turbomolecular pump brew time is <1minute. I recommend at least 1E-7torr.
I'm only half-joking
Whenever i read a headline that says "scientists do X" my brain initially processes it as "ALL scientists do X." (Kind of like an inverse Florida Man)
So i read this and was like "bullshit. My uncle's a scientist and he prefers french press!"
Some ppl can’t get proper affordable healthcare for an ultrasound but they’re out here making coffee with it instead.
Meh. Hot or cold, I just like my coffee the same way I like my mom: without my stepdad's dick in it.
Don't knock something until you've tried it.
😳
Isn't nitro cold brew just as fast
No, you still have to brew it normally before hand. The infusement is an extra thing you can do after brewing.
This is what we need in space. 👩🚀
This sub should really allow gifs. The X-men kid that flies by ultrasound gif would be perfect here.
So, the whole cancer thing... You guys still working on that?
Small espresso maker for the win.
Like Krups Ill Primo.
Can I try this with a humidifier?
Yes. Do it tomorrow and report back.
Made me think of this Youtuber who did basically the same thing to make instant barrel aged alcohol
One step closer to a sonic shower and sonic screwdriver
Setting the stage for us to be charged even more for artisanal, hand-crafted cold brew
Seems like the beginning of Idiocracy with scientists focused on the completely wrong things.
This is the kind of science all scientists want to do.
Why use time when you can use energy?! SCIENCE!
Hmm, maybe that Vevor ultrasonic cleaner might need a second look.
Someone call James Hoffmann
Apply to marijuana .... profit $$$$
Also made cold espresso. Way to bury the lede. Is it lede or lead?
I shouldn’t be surprised, apparently they got cold fusion to work, why not cold ultrasound coffee?
I could see this application working on a massive scale. Cold brew coffee has been gaining popularity rather fast lately both for drive-thru and grocery stores. It's also a fantastic way to extract more flavor, allowing you to use less and lower quality product while achieving a higher quality result.
Ive been getting into cold brew lately. Very easy to make at home and it does help me save money on a personal level.
On a global, commercial scale, this probably has Starbucks foaming at the mouth. Industrial sized ultrasonic baths producing 24 hours worth of product in 3 minutes is hard to wrap your head around. Extremely innovative.
I just wait for winter, build an igloo, hire 3 polar bears (for accuracy), bring all my deep freezes to the igloo, incase them in ice, freeze ice blocks, keep them in the igloo until spring, wait for the melt, use left over unmelted ice cubes from my blocks that were in the deep freeze, in the igloo, from the winter, than I brew some hot coffee and pop a couple ice cubes in and me and the bears enjoy the spring melt over a nice cold brew.
I'm just using an Aeropress, stirring for several minutes, it's not that hard lol.
Awesome. Ultrasonic cleaners have lots of interesting uses. The cannabis community recently discovered they can be used to cure rosin in a fraction of the time of traditional methods.
I can also do that with an industrial paint shaker.
You can "age" whiskey with ultrasound very quickly too
and you can have a perfect espresso in 30 seconds, i hate so much the cold brew sh*t, it´s so ugly, just a fad
Ooo, a new use for my sonicator!
Every day Idiocracy keeps getting more real…
The year is 2032, the price of a venti cold brew coffee has finally hit $1. Gen Z is no longer poor