Coffee Syrup System

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Fisher's Mom

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Does anybody know anything about a coffee syrup system? Apparently you make a syrup (uber thick coffee, I think) and keep it in the fridge. To serve, you add boiling water to a measured amount of the syrup. I'm just wondering about it because I heard that Burger King's new BK Joe uses that system. I believe the coffee and system is Douwe Egberts. (Has anyone tried the BK Joe? I think it's amazing for something that you get at a fast food place.) I'd love to know more - anything to do with coffee interests me!
 
I've had the Douwe Egberts coffee concentrate thing at three different locations that I've worked for, including my present location. It DOES taste different than brewed coffee. To me, it actually tastes like instant. The nice thing about this kind of coffee, for restaurant service, is that you don't have to wait to brew a pot. You just pull the handle, and dispense a cup, or a pot, at a time. Also, you don't have as much waste, as you don't have to toss the coffee out after an hour, as with regular brewed coffee.

Now, to show my coffee heresy, I actually prefer instant/concentrated over brewed coffee. The brewed stuff is just to harsh for my stomach.

I'm not sure how Douwe Egbert's makes the concentrate, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a vacuum evaporation process, as "boiling" brewed coffee makes it bitter. This would make it rather hard to duplicate at home.

I've heard that the concentrate idea was to help prevent theft, as you wouldn't have the machine to reconstitute the stuff. But, like all inventive people, all you really need to do is combine a little of the concentrate with hot (not boiling) water, to make it.

I even have a recipe for a coffee-flavored ice cream pie that uses that concentrate. That recipe was developed by one of my old chefs, because we would get one or two packages of the concentrate that were leaking. This way we wouldn't have to throw the thing away.
 
I've had the Douwe Egberts coffee concentrate thing at three different locations that I've worked for, including my present location. It DOES taste different than brewed coffee. To me, it actually tastes like instant. The nice thing about this kind of coffee, for restaurant service, is that you don't have to wait to brew a pot. You just pull the handle, and dispense a cup, or a pot, at a time. Also, you don't have as much waste, as you don't have to toss the coffee out after an hour, as with regular brewed coffee.

Now, to show my coffee heresy, I actually prefer instant/concentrated over brewed coffee. The brewed stuff is just to harsh for my stomach.

I'm not sure how Douwe Egbert's makes the concentrate, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a vacuum evaporation process, as "boiling" brewed coffee makes it bitter. This would make it rather hard to duplicate at home.

I've heard that the concentrate idea was to help prevent theft, as you wouldn't have the machine to reconstitute the stuff. But, like all inventive people, all you really need to do is combine a little of the concentrate with hot (not boiling) water, to make it.

I even have a recipe for a coffee-flavored ice cream pie that uses that concentrate. That recipe was developed by one of my old chefs, because we would get one or two packages of the concentrate that were leaking. This way we wouldn't have to throw the thing away.
Thanks Allen. That gives me a lot of info. I think I will try to get in touch with a coffee service to see if I can either buy the concentrate or which of their ground or whole bean coffees is the one they use for concentrating. Or maybe take up with a Burger King employee!
 
The method of creating a coffee concentrate is easily done at home. I also like the mild less acid flavor of coffee concentrate especially for iced coffee.

Here are two links to get you started if you wish to create coffee concentrate at home:

Toddy Coffee Maker, Toddy Maker, Cold Brew Coffee Maker, Low Acid Coffee, Healthy Coffee

Filtron Coffee Systems
This is great Aurora. Thanks so much! I didn't know it was called cold brew so I would never have found these. Do you have either one of these? If so, do you have any recommendations concerning the types of coffee that produce the best results with these?
 
I had this type of coffee when I was at the Sun Microsystems facility in Fremont California, where I was evaluating their training program. They had these dispensers all over the building. They were plumbed into the building's water supply and were refilled with syrup by a service once a week. The first day of class, each student was given a Sun coffee mug, the capacity of which the machines were adjusted to, and each student could help themselves as often as they wanted, free fer nuthin. I thought the coffee was great, but some of the students preferred to go to the cafeteria and pay for coffee out of one of those big 6 gallon coffee urns because the syrup didn't have that "bite" that coffee grounds do.
 
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