I've talked a lot...
about how to make the best espresso, but not a ton of attention has been given to the best milk for coffee. I did talk a bit about raw milk awhile back, but I guess the universe realized this and dropped this article from Barista Magazine in front of me twice in a matter of a week. The article itself, if you don't want to read it, is about Ben Put who is a four time World Barista Championship competitor. Now a lot of the article goes over his career and what he's up to now (when it was published in 2017). The part that really intrigued me is the portion of the article where he talked about a process he put his milk through for his competition milk beverages; freeze distillation.
He then describes how painfully simple it is to do, and how it really is the best milk for coffee (at least with dairy). To do this basically all you need to do is freeze whole milk, then flip it upside down and let it melt into a second container. Thats it, that's freeze distillation. Otherwise known as fractional freezing. The science behind it is pretty simple too. As the milk thaws the liquid that comes out first consists of mainly sugars, proteins, and fats which have a lower melting point than the rest of the water and other contents in the whole milk. What you're left with is a super creamy, super sweet, distilled whole milk and a block of off-white ice.
In this video I go through the process, try it side-by-side with regular whole milk, and see what it tastes like in some nice shots of espresso. So hit play on that video and soak up all that sweet, sweet milk based coffee knowledge.
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