Category: Decaf coffee hacks

Top 10 ways to recycle decaf coffee grounds

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If you’re like most people, you probably throw away coffee grounds after each cup or every pot. It is smarter, after all, than your natural inclination, which is to throw it down the sink.

But did you know that you can use those grounds to improve your life in a number of ways? Here is our top ten of the best: 

1. Use them as an organic fertiliser. 

Coffee is a good plant food because it’s high in nitrogen and provides a boost to the growth of plants. Add some ground coffee to your soil before planting your plants and watch them grow more vigorously than usual.

2. Clean your windows with coffee grounds. 

Not only does this get rid of dirt and dust, but the grounds also have a cleaning effect on glass. Simply sprinkle some of those grounds on a cloth and wipe the glass clean.

3. Make natural ant-infestation killers with coffee grounds. 

Coffee is a natural flea killer, and its acidic properties help deter ants from establishing colonies. Just place some ground coffee inside small bowls or cups and place them near areas where ants are active.

4. Add grounds to your compost. 

Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen and electrolytes, which help promote microbial growth in compostable materials. 

5. Use your coffee grounds as mulch. 

Back out in the garden with summers getting hotter and drier, a layer of mulch in your flower or vegetable beds saves what water you can use in the garden from evaporating away. Coffee grounds are an excellent mulch and full of nutrients as well.

6. Use the decaf grounds to scrub pots and pans. 

Coffee Grounds work well as a scrubber because they are abrasive and have a ridged texture. 

7. Keep your path clear of snow.

Coffee grounds can be spread on icy paths and pavements, melting the ice and snow. The gritty texture of the grounds will also guard against slipping up by providing some traction. Coffee’s chemical make-up will prevent it from freezing in a similar way to road grit.

8. Getting rid of nasty smells.

Coffee grounds work as well as baking soda to get rid of pongs in your fridge. The same nitrogen that is good for your garden soil has an ability to absorb the foul smell of sulphur, among other dodgy scents. 

9. As an exfoliant you will never see in a TV advert for £150 face-cream.

Coffee grounds are similar to sand in texture and can be used as a natural skin scrubber. You can use them directly on your skin as an exfoliant and to clean clogged pores or make them into a loose exfoliating bar with water. Because you’re worth it.

10. As a kitchen condiment.

Coffee could be considered as a staple for most kitchens, but it also has a number of culinary applications, including in cooking. For instance, coffee grounds are often used as a smoky topping for meats like brisket or steak. Coffee grounds are also required ingredients for barbecue sauces and for rubbing meat. What is more, coffee is acidic, which tenderizes meat and breaks down nutrients.

Can I Make My Own Iced Decaf Coffee?

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Every now and then in summer, the sun shines bright, everything warms up nicely then, bit by bit, not nicely at all. Pretty soon, it gets so warm that any enclosed space feels like a fan oven. A hot, steaming cup of decaf coffee is about the last thing on your mind. You need a cold drink. You need an iced coffee. 

In times like these, it’s tempting to get a tin of cold joe from the shop – most of the High Street coffee chains have their own, dreadful takes on iced decaf – but it’s not fresh and who knows what, exactly, is lurking in those cans? Chemical slop and more E numbers than the Exeter telephone exchange. It’s time to make your own.

The best advice for home made Iced Decaf Coffee? Start Yesterday.

The biggest disadvantage to making your own cold brew iced decaf coffee is that the initial brew takes quite a bit of patience. Typically, the concentrate you are making is the base for tomorrow’s cup of iced coffee.

But it’s well worth the wait. The perfect iced coffee has a smooth, round texture and taste and far less of the bitter notes. You will be steeping your ground decaf for up to a day in the fridgeand that gives plenty of time to develop the complex concentrate that gives iced coffee itsamazing full body. Slow and steady wins the race.

Steep Time: Managing the Iced Decaf Brew

Decaf that has been standing for a whole day in a cafetiere will be stewed and over extracted and about as pleasant to drink as diluted vinegar. We’ve all steeped fine ground in a French press and regretted it 3 minutes later, imagine how grim that would be in 24 hours. The trick – as with a regular cup of hot decaf – is in the grind. 

For iced coffee, you should use a medium-coarse ground to prevent your brew ending up full of oily acid. If you only have fine ground, you should reduce the brew time up to 50%. You’ll get your coffee quicker, but you’ll lose some of iced decaf coffee’s best features – the smoothtexture and full body. There’s a recipe for iced decaf coffee from coarse ground and separate instructions for making do with fine ground.

You should try whatever your favourite beans are and coarse grind them for iced decaf. A typical medium roast will make an excellent decaf iced coffee and you’ll get to discover more of the mellow end of your usual decaf cuppa. Darker roasts work well too – they tend to have more of the chocolate and nut notes that develop very well for iced decaf. An espresso-style roast will work well if you plan to add milk, cream or non-dairy alternatives in the final cup.

Recipe for Cold Brew Decaf Coffee

1. Put 800ml cold water into a large jug and add 100g of coarse-ground decaf coffee. Do not stir! Cover and leave for a day.

2. Stir the mixture slowly, then decant it through a sieve or funnel lined with coffee filter paper into another jug. This concentrate – enough for about 7 or 8 cups – keeps in the fridge for 2-3 days.

3. Serve 1-part cold brew concentrate to 2-parts water poured over ice.

4. Dilute with water to taste

5. Milk and sweeten to taste

Recipe for Cold Brew with Fine Decaf Ground Coffee

1. Put 50 grams of fine ground coffee into a large jug.

2. Add 450 ml of water.

3. Stir slowly for up to 60 seconds.

4. Leave in the fridge for between 8 and 16 hours
You might have to experiment with this over time. If the coffee isn’t super-fresh, you should brew for the longer period.

5. Filter the coffee through a fine grind filter.

6. Pour and serve over ice

7. Dilute with water to taste

8. Milk and sweeten to taste

Does Decaffeinating Your Life Make It Better?

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Decaffeinating your life is one of many approaches and strategies you can try on a journey to better health. Broadly, it’s an element of ‘detox’ – while caffeine is a mild stimulant in moderation, your body and brain still get used to it being in your blood stream. Your brain, in particular, does not tolerate chemical change well and this is where withdrawal comes in. Fortunately, the most common symptom of caffeine withdrawal is a minor tension headache, and the cravings are quick to subside.

With decaffeinated tea and coffee you can even mask some of the cravings and continue to enjoy the same tastes and aromas you have become accustomed to.

So: so far, a small amount of sacrifice to decaf your body, but can it make your life better in a meaningful way? 

The narrative of detox is intertwined with lifestyle woo-woo. That’s a term we just made up to describe a big wicker basket of good-intention ideas like veganism, holistic spirituality and Eastern systems of thought. Nothing wrong with any of it, but decaffeinating your life is about restoring a chemical, not spiritual, balance in your body.

You know us – we are hardly the type of people to go all yoga-crystal-dreamcatcher-mindful-woo-woo on you. As far as we are aware, we have no chakras and feng-shui is not so much a way of life but more of a storage solution. Neither do we store our socks to the west of a lucky rabbit’s foot. Think about that for a moment: It wasn’t so lucky for the rabbit, was it?

Trust us when we say, we have no woo-woo.

Your body doesn’t need caffeine

The best reason for drinking less or no caffeine is that your body doesn’t need it. Like nicotine, heroin and strong painkillers, your body has just got used to it being around. Caffeinistas claim that it helps attention and focus, and they are both right and wrong at the same time. Scientific trials have concluded that, at best, caffeine helps attention and focus get back to where it was before you became withdrawn. And that’s what caffeine withdrawal looks like – a craving for a big mug of coffee in the morning to escape the tug of withdrawal and restore the world to where it should have been. It’s not restoring the world; it’s restoring your brain chemistry. Your brain in this instance is acting like a wilful, truculent teenager. It’s refusing to get its act together until you do something nice for them. Your teen asks you for money, chocolate or the latest tech before they clean their room. Your brain won’t move until it gets a chemical leg-up. Like your teen, your brain is lazy and used to the good life of drip-fed feel-good. The good news is that the brain has its own feel-good chemistry, caffeine is a cheat code that robs it of achieving its own balance.

Your brain is the most complicated thing you own. Indeed, it is among the most complex things in the known universe. It is capable of extraordinary calculation and every minute of your waking day, it perceives, renders and constructs your entire world. Throwing additional stimulants into the sentient bucket of porridge that exists between your ears is like lighting a campfire in an art gallery.

Decaffeinating your life is one part of restoring the natural balance of this most sensitive instrument. Once the minor withdrawals are over it will make your life better simply by re-establishing its unaided potential.

How to Make Coffee Without a Coffee Maker

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You woke up this morning and your coffee maker has croaked. Despite what it sounds like, this isn’t the start of a modern blues song penned by Blind Grapefruit Jefferson, but it is potentially the start of an awful, dismal day.

Expect the car not to start, a piano to fall out of the sky or to for work to end up as an eight-hour PowerPoint presentation. Before all of that, you must achieve normality and that means you must have the cup of decaf that starts the day. Nothing else will help.

Making decaf coffee without a coffee maker is not an art

Fortunately, whatever Bob the barista at Cost-A-Few-Bucks says, making coffee is nowhere near an artform. It’s hot water over ground coffee, a little brew time and Bob has stopped being your barista and is now your uncle.

Honestly, I can’t believe I have to spoon-feed this to you. When we were out all day on the ranch, we could make coffee using only a primus stove, a length of rubber hose and a homemade moka pot fashioned from a Land Rover carburettor and a ship’s compass. It wasn’t too difficult, but it also wasn’t too nice either, so here’s how to make decent coffee without a coffee maker. You will need a kitchen or a designated area you prepare grub at least.

Sock coffee maker
“In Costa Rica, this type of coffee is colloquially known as “agua de medias” (sock water)”

Using ground decaf coffee

  1. Add ground coffee into a heat-proof measuring jug. 1-2 tablespoons of ground coffee per 250ml cup.
  2. Boil the kettle.
  3. Pour the hot water over the ground decaf coffee as slowly as possible until you reach the amount of coffee you want.
  4. Let it brew for around 3 minutes, then stir and leave for another three minutes. Adjust these timings to your own tastes or how long it is until your train to work leaves.
  5. Pour into a mug through a tea strainer.

Using home-made coffee bags

This sounds a bit Blue Peter, but if it’s a filter coffee make that is broken, you are likely top have some spare coffee filters, an old sock, a used stocking or thick kitchen towel to hand. These can be made quickly into coffee bags with just a single piece of string.

  1. Place 2 tablespoons of ground coffee in the centre of the coffee filter, old sock, used stocking or kitchen towel.
  2. Draw the edges of the filter paper or whatever it is (see above) together to make a bag shape.
  3. Tie a length of string or twine tight around the neck of the bag, leaving one length of the string long enough to hang over the side of the cup.
  4. Boil a kettle.
  5. Place the bag in the cup and pour over the hot water.
  6. Remember to remove anything floating from the mug of coffee if it’s for a guest.