The temperatures are starting to rise as we welcome spring in the Dallas area and with warmer days I am less attracted to my standard hot black coffee in the morning. For the past few spring/summer seasons I have been brewing up a large batch of cold brew coffee to keep in our fridge and sip on when fatigue inevitably strikes. It’s nice to have the option on warm summer mornings or even in the afternoon during naptime when I usually hit a tired slump in my day and need the extra energy boost to make that time productive. I enjoy my iced coffee black or with a little half and half. I’m not into overly sweet or syrupy drinks unless they are from a coffee shop but I’m sure you could add a little vanilla simple syrup or honey to your beverage to sweeten it up a bit! I have added a little home made Kahlua (courtesy of an old teaching buddy) to my iced coffee during brunch and it was spot on.

Recipe: Classic Cold Brew Coffee

Ingredients/Tools

• 2 cups ground medium roast coffee (I use Costco’s breakfast blend – I steer away from flavored coffees because the flavor tends taste weird it steeps, that could just be my taste buds though!)
• 8 cups of water
• 2 large mixing bowls
• Chemex Coffee Maker + at least 2 filters (or any pour over/filtering system – this is just what we have)
• 1 cup measuring cup

Instructions

1. Put 1 cup of coffee grounds in each of your large mixing bowls. Pour 4 cups of water in each mixing bowl and stir water and grounds together, making sure that all of your grounds are completely soaked.
2. Cover bowls and let grounds steep for 6-8 hours.
3. After your coffee has steeped put your filter in the Chemex and pour coffee through the filter a cup at a time. I also you a small sieve on top of my filter to easily remove the bulk of the grounds while I am filtering the coffee. This is kind of overkill through and it’s really up to you and how many filters you want to use. I usually go through about 2-3 when I’m going through the entire process.
4. After I filter through all of the coffee I put it in a large spout container that goes in our fridge. I let it chill over night and then the next morning (and multiple mornings after) I enjoy! (:

See? Super simple! The waiting is the hardest part but I always make a large batch and it will keep in the fridge for about a month.

This is the container we use to store it in our fridge. Pretty sure I got it at Target last year for less than $5. Also, like our top shelf? Beer + coffee. Priorities, people!

I hope you are all having a wonderful well-caffeinated Monday! (: