I love starting my day with a cup of coffee.
Sometimes I crave a freshly brewed hot cup-o-Joe, while other times, all I want is a refreshing ice cold glass of coffee. Regardless of how it's served, you'll find me drinking my coffee black, 98.9% of the time. So for me, the coffee itself has to be good.
In the past couple of years, I discovered cold brew coffee - a less acidic, smoother version of coffee than what I was used to. I really loved it and could taste the difference.
Cold brew is made by steeping course grounds and water together at room temperature for 12-24 hours, then filtering out the grounds; standard iced coffee is brewed hot, then chilled.
Cold brew yields a concentrate that you dilute with either water and/or milk before enjoying. Usually a 1:1 ratio of concentrate to water is ideal, though you can play with the proportions if you like it stronger or weaker.
When I first attempted making my own cold brew, I steeped everything in a large glass bowl, then poured it from the bowl through a sifter with a filter on top in a new bowl to ensure I just yielded the concentrate. You can imagine just how messy and tedious this process was, and how much of the cold brew made it to the counter instead of my new bowl!
For one of my recent birthdays, I was gifted a cold brew maker - essentially just a two part contraption (not an actual machine) that allowed you to steep the coffee up top, then release the lever to filter it out after. Life changing!
It's so simple to whip up cold brew at home and has been a hit among any coffee lover I've made it for!
This recipe will yield just about enough concentrate to enjoy for about 5-7 days, and will keep in the fridge for about a week as long as it's stored in an airtight container.