The Lonliness Of The Iced Coffee People.

Factual Questions
1

I like my coffee cold. I can’t help it. It’s who I am. I understand that this involves a certain ritual each morning. Make coffee. Add Coffee Mate Hazelnut powder. Add Splenda. Stir brisquely with rapid firm sure wrist motions. Fine.

This morning, I thought to myself, " Self? You have this pot you made last evening so that you’d have some all ready to blend today for work at home. Gosh, you’re a smart Self aren’t you? Just go ahead and add some of your powdery additives and off you go !"

My powdery additives weren’t cooperating. Why is it that both the powdered Coffee Mate and the Splenda powder did not dissolve at all in the liquid? The only difference now was that it was cold liquid. I stirred and I stirred and I stirred and I stirred and I stirred. It was a stirring experience, let me just tell you.

Why didn’t I achieve complete dissolution?

Cartooniverse, who was forced to nuke his coffee just to mix in his powdery additives.

2

I’d like to help you with your problem but the thought of the ghastliness of Coffee Mate Hazelnut powder (as if regular Coffee Mate weren’t bad enough) plus Splenda is making me gag. I need a moment here.

3

Well, let me be first to stir up some ideas.

I should say I never use either product, however it sounds to me like a wetting problem. Are the powders getting wetted? If not, then your cold coffee has too high a surface tension to allow for intimate contact between powder and liquid, so insufficient dissolution of the powders results. Surface tension will decrease with increasing temperature, allowing dissolution.

You could also try to reduce the surface tension of your coffee by introducing a surfactant, such as washing up liquid.

4

The solubility of most substances in a liquid increases with higher temperature. This is because energy is required to break the bonds in the solid substance, and there is more kinetic (thermal) energy available in a hotter liquid.

Slightly more scientific explantion - see “Case II”

It’s just the same as trying to dissolve sugar in a glass of cold water as opposed to a cup of hot coffee - it will take much longer to dissolve.

5

The rate of dissolution of a substance into a liquid and its solubility are two different things. A substance may exhibit a lower solubility at a higher temperature, but a higher rate of dissolution.

I would imagine in this case solubility is not an issue. Otherwise you would expect Coffee Mate Hazlenut powder to crystalise out of solution from hot cofee as it cooled down. The rate of dissolution of your two powders could explain the phenomena you are experiencing if the powders are indeed being wetted.

6

First, I sympathize with your dilemma. I like Coffee Mate and Splenda in my coffee too. Secondly, I recommend a martini shaker. Throw a couple of ice cubes in the shaker to cool it down a little more too.

7

I always thought it was because vegetable oil is a main ingredient in Coffee Mate, and oil dissolves better in hot water than in cold water (as can be seen when you’re cleaning a greasy skillet).

Re: Hazelnut Coffee Mate and Splenda. Isn’t the hazelnut creamer already sweetened?

8

The cold water - Coffee Mate interaction was the first thing I thought of as I read your OP. That stuff is worthless in cold coffee. The difference in performance is too vast to be just a solubility issue, like with sugar. For those of you who’ve never tried it, CM rapidly and easily dissolves in hot coffee, the little mound of powder breaks off like icebergs from a glacier and sinks into the dark liquid below (it’s actually kinda fun to watch). In cold coffee, it sits there, as dead as a pile of flour, no amount of stirring will clear up all of the lumps, it’s positively disgusting. I assume the heat of hot coffee melts the powdered Coffee Mate, making it soluble.

Splenda should dissolve fine in cold water.

If you want to use coffee mate with cold coffee, I would suggest a liquid version.

9

Here’s what I do. I nuke about 1/3 of a cup of water til very hot, then dissolve in instant coffee (gasp) and my french vanilla coffeemate (I don’t need extra sweetening). Then I fill the cup up with cold milk and a couple of icecubes for a delicious cold latte.

10

It’s nature’s way of telling you that a) coffee was meant to be drunk hot, b) you shouldn’t be putting that stuff into a perfectly nice drink like coffee, or c) both. Seriously, though, you’d have the same problem with sugar. This is why Southerners sweeten their tea when it’s hot, then add the ice. If you make a habit of this sort of thing, I’d suggest putting your amendments into the coffee the night before and then storing it in the refrigerator.

11

Have you tried shaking instead of stirring?

12

In Japan, where coffee is often served “iced,” they usually put out liquid sweeteners (sucrose syrup of some sort, I’d guess) and non-dairy liquid creamer. I can’t say off the top of my head that I’ve seen low-calorie versions of the sweetener (since most Japanese weigh about the same as my right leg), but you might try to locate some online.

But don’t Google “liquid sweetener” – you’ll just get 100,000 links to “Agave Nectar Liquid Sweetener” with no real information. :rolleyes:

13

Dear friends;
If you’re REALLY into cold coffee may I highly recommend a “Toddy”
coffee making system. I do not work for the company and receive NO commercial endorsement. I’m sure if you Google cold brew coffee you’ll find their website. For cold coffee drinks, it makes very smooth concentrate. It takes 12-24 hours to make the stuff but with a pound of coffee and a little time you end up with a very smooth, low acid, concentrate that you then mix with water and drink away…It’s yummy. They have no moving parts, very simple, no power, inexpensive to buy…
Makes a great Iced coffee or those damn Iced Mocha drinks…

That is all…

The doctor is ON, The doctor is Happy…

14

I’d like to point out that vegetable oil doesn’t dissolve at all in water (at least, not to any appreciable degree.) Hence the old expression, “They’re like oil and water.” Am I missing something here? Isn’t this common knowledge? The dish detergent doesn’t dissolve the oil either, but it allows it to enter suspension in the dishwater more easily.

At any rate, if you want it cold, you might try just making a pot of hot coffee, pouring it into a pitcher, stirring that stuff in, and keeping it in the fridge. I do that in the summer a lot of the time (because, unlike hot coffee, iced coffee definitely needs sweetening.) No futzing with the coffee maker in the morning, just grab, pour, and go.

15

Not sure if you are serious or not, but this actually may help.

Cartooniverse, my trick for sweetening iced tea with sugar is to have two similarly sized glasses; fill one with tea, ice, and sugar; then transfer the sugar & tea back and forth between the two glasses until no more “sugar sludge” is visible on the bottom of either glass.

The sugar remains in solution, too – it doesn’t separate out later on.

This might well work with your CoffeeMate powder. It’s worth a shot.

16

That’ll teach me to listen to Guests. I figured hey, I drink decaf already. The surface tension is fairly low. But still, I decided to go for it.

Nobody said how much washing up liquid to use… :eek:

( crawls away from keyboard back to toilet where I’ve spent the last 24 hours )
Okay. So, what I did was this. I made the coffee last night, put in my additives while it was hot, left it in the fridge overnight. Poifection.

And, not for nothing, but Cofee Mate Hazlenut is not quite sweet enough for me, hence the need for Splenda. I’ve a sweet tooth. So sue me. :smiley:

17

Another thought is that you can practically dissolve an infinite amount of sugar in water so why not make a very, very concentrated simple syrup (sugar + water) at bioling temp and then store than in the refridgerator for when you need iced coffee? It doesn’t go bad and you can make as large a batch as you need, seems perfect for the task.

18

Shalmanese, if you put too much sugar in, you’ll wind up making candy rather than sugar syrup. I looked up simple syrup, and got a 2-1 sugar/water mix as a recipe. You could also use corn syrup, but that’s not as sweet per teaspoon as table sugar.

19

Oh dear Cartooniverse, I hope you did not really use washing up liquid in your coffee. I was just trying to offer a possible explanation of the physical phenomena you were experiencing. :eek:

Anyway, in way of a small recompense I have found you this article, which sounds as if it could offer a convincing explanation: http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/article.jsp?id=lw225

I hope I have not prejudiced your view of Guest Dopers forever. They all start that way don’t they? :slight_smile:

20

This might not be as convenient, but properly done, it will do the trick:

  1. Put the powder(s) in the cup.
  2. Add about a tbsp of cold coffee, mix to a uniform paste.
  3. Add another tsbp of cold coffee, to a thin paste or slurry
  4. You might have to add a third tbsp, but with a little practice, you’ll develop an eye and learn how much liquid is neaded to do it in two stages, or even one
  5. When you have a thin slurry/liquid, add the remainder of the coffee. It’ll mix freely.

Alas, I don’t have any actual Coffee-Mate™ powder around (I prefer it, but my family insists on the liquid, and poor addled fools that they are, will take the powder from the shelf (vs. the liquid from the fridge) and “ruin” their coffee. Through some logic, I’ve never been able to fathom, this is considered to be my fault. Therefore I buy other brands of powder or generics, to avoid taxing their brand-washed wits.)

Looking at the ingredients on the brand in front of me, I find that it consists of corn syrup solids, partially hyrdrigenated (e.g. solidified) vegetable oils, dipotassium phosphate sodium caseinate (casein is milk protein) mono- and di-glycerides and lecithin.

The corn syrup solids provide a dry texture and sweetness. The solidified vegetable oils provide creaminess. The casein rounds out the milk flavor, and is an modest emulsifier. Most of the other ingredients are emulsifiers (especially the lecithin - the emulsifying component of egg yolk) or texture/drying agents

While surface tension is the important factor for most dry powders, in powdered powdered creamer you want heat to melt the solidified vegetable oils. The emulsifiers keep the vegetable oils in a stable emulsion (fine mist-like mix) in the coffee. Mixing in stages, as above, can accomplish almost the same thing, by breaking up and emulsifying the vegetable oil powder.

Someone argued that vegetable oil and water don’t mix. Neither do butterfat and water - yet what is cream in the first place? An emulsion of butterfat in wateraided by casein and other ingredients. Similarly, mayonnaise, which can remain stable almost indefinitely if unopened, is merely an emulsion of vegetable oil and egg whites (and other water-base liquids, like vinegar, lemon juice, etc) – they main emulsifier in mayo is the lecithin in the egg yolks