Five cold brew recipes for a hot week

Cold brew forgives almost everything except stale coffee and impatience. Get those two right and the rest is variation.

The base

Coarse grind, 1:8 by weight for a concentrate, sixteen hours in the fridge, then filtered and diluted 1:1 with water or milk to serve. One batch keeps about a week refrigerated.

Four variations worth the fridge space

• Salted: a pinch of fine salt per litre of concentrate. It does not taste salty - it flattens the bitterness and the sweetness comes forward.
• Orange peel: two wide strips of peel in the steep, removed before filtering.
• Cascara fizz: concentrate topped with sparkling water and a cascara syrup.
• Cocoa nib: 20g of nibs added to the grounds for a chocolatey, heavier cup.

Filter through a paper cone rather than a mesh basket if you want the concentrate clean enough to drink black over ice; the mesh leaves fines that turn muddy by day three.