You love a delicious iced coffee from your favorite coffee shop, but those iced lattes and macchiatos can add up. What’s a coffee lover on a budget to do?
The good news is that making cold brew coffee at home is easy. With homemade cold brew coffee in your refrigerator, you’re ready to make refreshing drinks and smoothies for pennies a batch.
A Home-Based Barista
Coffee is a great passion for me. I always love starting my day with a cup of coffee and then enjoying it as a pick-me-up throughout the day. But with coffee house brew starting at $5 a cup, who can afford to enjoy multiple cups of coffee?
If you try my tips for making cold brew coffee at home, you can become a home-based barista. That way, you can save money every time you enjoy a delicious iced coffee. You’ll also have cold brew on hand for when friends stop by, or you need coffee for a recipe. You can even make intense cold brew ice cubes for your lattes, but more about those later.
What’s Brewing
You may be economizing by making cold brew coffee at home, but it sure won’t taste like it. Following these steps, you’ll get the smoothest and most delicious cold brew coffee you have ever tasted.
Not only is making cold brew coffee at home economical, but it’s simple to do. We also include these pointers.
- How to Make Cold Brew Coffee at Home
- What You’ll Need
- How to Store Cold Brew Coffee
- Cold Brew Ice Cubes
- Recipes for Cold Brew Coffee Drinks
Making Cold Brew
Your favorite coffee, coarsely ground, a few everyday tools you may already have in your kitchen, and a little time is all that’s required to make cold brew coffee at home.
What You’ll Need
To make cold brew coffee at home, you need a few items. These include the following:
- 1/3 cup coffee (a medium to coarse grind is best)
- Water
- Fine-mesh sieve
- Jar with lid or a French press
- Pitcher, jar with lid, or bottle with lid for storage (if needed)
- Ice cube trays and freezer bags (optional)
How to Make Cold Brew Coffee at Home
To make enough cold brew coffee for two servings, mix 1/3 cup of medium- to coarsely ground coffee with 1 ½ cups of cold water in a jar or French press. Then, cover it and let it sit for 12 hours or overnight at room temperature.
After your brewing time is up, strain the coffee through the fine-mesh sieve or the French press. You can strain the cold brew coffee into a glass if you plan to drink it right away or into a glass bottle, jar with a lid, or a pitcher with a lid if you plan to enjoy it later.
Given the length of the brewing time, you could prepare the jar or French press before bedtime and wake up to cold brew coffee. Using this ratio, you can double your batch of cold brew coffee.
How to Store Cold Brew Coffee
You can make your cold brew coffee and enjoy it as soon as brewing is finished, or save it for later. This is convenient for enjoying cold brew coffee later on in the day, since brewing it can be a lengthy process.
Store cold brew coffee in the refrigerator for up to two weeks, and it will still be safe to drink, as well as crisp and delicious.
Cold Brew Ice Cubes
Freezing cold brew coffee may sound strange, but cold brew coffee will keep in the freezer for up to six months. To enjoy, thaw in the refrigerator until it can be poured into your glass.
An icy option for enjoying cold brew coffee is to pour it into ice cube trays and freeze. The resulting cold brew coffee ice cubes can be popped from the ice cube trays and conveniently stored in a freezer bag.
Cold brew coffee ice cubes are ideal to use in iced coffee drinks since your cold brew coffee won’t be diluted as these ice cubes melt. The only difference is that you’ll just get a more rich cold brew coffee flavor.
You can also add a few cold brew coffee ice cubes to a blender when you are making smoothies or milkshakes. Or, try pouring a chocolate or vanilla protein shake over cold brew ice cubes.
Blended or as ice cubes, cold brew coffee flavor comes through boldly, with a smooth, rich flavor.
Recipes for Cold Brew Coffee Drinks
Now that you have delicious cold brew coffee, you can include that coffee in iced drinks that will rival those at your local coffee house.
Iced Latte
Add your favorite sweetener and milk to cold brew coffee, and you’ll have a delicious and refreshing beverage.
Mocha Latte
Add chocolate milk to cold brew coffee for a yummy, chocolatey coffee beverage. Pour in a travel mug to take this along for the ride as you start your day.
Honey Cinnamon Latte
Add a light drizzle of honey and a shake of cinnamon to an iced latte for a different twist.
The Purist
Do you love cold brew coffee and nothing but cold brew coffee? Just pour a tall glass of cold brew coffee over ice or cold brew ice cubes. Add your favorite sweetener if you want.
Flavored Iced Coffee and Lattes
Have you seen how many varieties of coffee there are? To mix things up, buy different flavors of coffee beans. If a medium or coarse grind is unavailable, and you don’t own a coffee grinder, consider checking if your local coffee shop offers custom grinding.
Flavored Syrups
You can also add flavor to your cold brew coffee drinks by adding a splash of flavored syrup. Chocolate, vanilla, hazelnut, and caramel are just the start.
Skinny Vanilla Lattes
If you would like to keep your iced coffee drinks on the slimmer side, sweeten them with zero-calorie sweeteners such as monk fruit, stevia, Splenda, or Equal. Add sugar-free vanilla syrup, and use unsweetened almond milk or skim milk if making a latte.
Frappes
Get those cold brew coffee ice cubes out and place them into a blender along with cold brew, your favorite milk option, and any flavorings. Whip it up into a delicious icy frappe, and top with whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate or caramel.
Who Needs the Coffee House?
Now that you know how to make cold brew coffee at home, you won’t be in the coffee house drive-through line nearly as often. Having cold brew at home, ready to enjoy, means you can make a delicious cold brew iced coffee drink to have at home or take with you in a travel mug.
Making cold brew coffee at home may not be quick, but the process is easy and relatively hassle-free. A few seconds of preparation before bed, and you will wake up to cold brew coffee for pennies.
Make Your Own Cold Brew Coffee at Home
Now that you know how to make cold brew coffee at home, you are prepared to make your favorite coffeehouse beverages. You can also make delicious coffee-boosted protein shakes or smoothies.
Give making your own cold brew coffee at home a try. It costs mere pennies to make, and since cold brew coffee will keep up to two weeks in your refrigerator, you can make extra cold brew coffee and store it to be enjoyed later.