There’s a storm a’ cold brewin…that doesn’t make any sense.
Everyone is selling cold brew these days. And it’s not cheap. But, like most coffee, it can be made from home pretty easily.
My wife and I had a bunch of extra coffee that we were never going to get around to brewing because we usually drink Nespresso in the morning. I’d made cold brew once before and I knew it wasn’t too difficult. It uses quite a bit of beans, which was perfect for us since we needed to get rid of what we had.
All you need are beans, cheesecloth, two pitchers, and some improvisation. We had beans and improvisation. That’s it.
Instead of waiting and getting the right equipment, we just tried to make it with what we had.
Step 1: Grind Your Beans Coarsely (we did this properly)
Needs: Coffee grinder, beans
For starters, fill a pitcher with coarse coffee grounds. Make them as course as possible for best results.
Step 2: Pour Water (we did this right, too…sort of)
Needs: Running water, pitchers
Then pour cold water over the grounds and let steep for 18-24 hours. I had read to use a 1:8 coffee to water ratio. But if we do it again I would use 1:4 and just dilute the cold brew more later if I want. Make sure to mix the grounds in the water well.
Since we didn’t have a pitcher, we used a giant drink dispenser that we had gotten as a wedding gift. It leaked. All 22 hours we steeped the water it dripped.
Oh well. We still had plenty of potential cold brew left in the drink dispenser.
Step 3: Strain Cold Brew Through A Cheesecloth (eh…this was a struggle)
Needs: Cheesecloth, pitchers, ratchet set
We went out and bought some cheesecloth (not easy to find), but we couldn’t find any pitchers where the cheesecloth was sold. We clearly didn’t look that hard.
So we made due with what we had: A leaking drink dispenser and large bowls.
The next step is to strain the cold brew through the cheesecloth to make sure and remove all the grounds. We drained it into three separate large bowls.
Then we tried to tighten the spigot in the drink dispenser with a ratchet. This should normally not be on the list of things you might need to make cold brew.
Next we poured the bowls back into the dispenser over more cheesecloth to get the remaining grounds.
The dispenser kept leaking.
So now we were faced with a dilemma: where are we going to store our amazing concoction since this dispenser is clearly not going to work?
Step 4: Store Your Cold Brew In Containers That Don’t Leak
Needs: A pitcher…or three mason jars and a blender cup
We looked around our kitchen and found three mason jars. We filled those up and still had a little more than a pint left over. So we did what anyone would do and filled up a blender cup with the rest. Yep, we have a blender cup in our refrigerator full of cold brew. I sure hope the metal blade in the cap doesn’t change the taste…
Point is, now we have good cold brew that should last us over a week between the two of us. It was easy, fun, and tasty. The easiest part is in the morning when we can just grab a cup of it without even having to put a pod in a machine or, God forbid, actually brew a cup of coffee.
Anyway, now Bedgood & Breakfast Cold Brew is officially for sale from our apartment. Unfortunately we are only open from 3:00 AM to 3:15 AM. And you don’t know where I live. It’s the most hipster business of all time.
Scott Bedgood 