How To Make Your Own Cold-Brew Coffee


For quite some time, I've been hearing a lot of buzz (ha!) about cold-brew coffee. It's less acidic and bitter, retains more flavor, and best of all: it's super strong. I first tried some cold-brew at brunch a few weeks ago (cold-brew espresso with coffee ice cubes, brilliant), which prompted me pick up Trader Joe's Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate at the store last week (FYI, it's veryyy strong). Then I did some Pinterest investigation and saw a few recipes for making your own cold brew and figured hey, why not? It can't be that hard.

And it wasn't that hard. Actually it was so, so easy! 

This past weekend, Mike and I bought all the necessary ingredients (there are three) and made an absolutely delicious batch of Hawaiian Hazelnut cold-brew coffee. 

We loosely followed the instructions here, and I also have to give some credit to Liz at Baby Got BA, whose original post also inspired me to try cold-brewing on my own!

The pictures pretty much say it all (I told you, it's super simple!), but I'll share what we did so you can replicate, if you so choose. You won't regret it!

To start, you'll need ground coffee, a large container for refrigerating the coffee mixture, and cheesecloth.


Step 1: Mix one part ground coffee with three parts water. In our case, we dumped the whole can of ground coffee into the container, and then refilled the can with water three times. 


Step 2: Mix the coffee and water together thoroughly. You can see the before and after of this step above and below. 


Step 3: Cover the container (if it's Tupperware, just use the lid, otherwise plastic wrap will work in a pinch), and store in the refrigerator for 8-24 hours (we left ours in for ~20).

Step 4: Remove the container and commence straining! This is where the cheesecloth comes in. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures since it was a bit of a two-person job, but it's quite easy. Strain the liquid into a clean container, using the cheesecloth as a filter. Optional: Strain the mixture a second time.


And... there you go! A huge batch of pure and delicious cold-brew coffee. I only drink probably 1/2-3/4 of a cup per serving, so all in all, this recipe made ~12 servings. 

Another great part about this technique is that the possibilities for flavor variations are basically endless (you can use any ground coffee variety). And, since the flavor of the coffee is so strong, you don't even need any extra flavoring! Just some quality milk of your choosing, and you're good to go.


I hope you found this helpful! I highly, highly recommend at least giving cold-brew coffee a shot, especially if you're a coffee-addict like me! Have you ever tried to make your own cold-brew coffee?

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