Ok down to the directions. My bag of coffee was 12 oz. I chose to use 4 oz. to start with just to see how it would go. As it turns out, that was a good idea as that is a good deal of coffee. So I measured out 4 oz of coffee into my trusty kitchen scale. This is a mountain of perfection.
OK so for every 4oz, you're going to use 2 quarts of water. So for 8 oz. you need a gallon of water. Which (if you're doing the math along with me at home) means if you use a full pound bag of coffee (note that these days most bags of coffee are 12 or 14 oz, not a pound) you need 2 gallons of water. That's a lot. Which is another reason I chose to only do 4 oz per brew.
So what we're doing is called cold brewing. You're going to dump that water directly into the jar with the grounds. You'll also want to use a spoon, or butter knife, or spatula to stir that in a way that lets all the grounds touch the water. You'll need to probably scrap the side above the water level as ground will splash up a bit too. You want all the coffee goodness to have it's full impact here! So here's a picture of the nastiness that is created (sorry for the dark...it was night in my kitchen). You're going to let this awesome sauce sit for 8-12 hours. I make mine at night and then go to bed. It works nicely.
When the time has passed, you'll see no change, except maybe a little darker. You'll need to get some cheese cloth. I found mine at the local grocery store (which means if I can find it in Warren you can find it where you are). You obviously have to strain your coffee, but a strainer by itself is not going to cut it. I double layered my cheese cloth inside my strainer and it worked perfectly.
Here's the fun part. You get to pour your big jug into the cheese cloth and strainer. This could take awhile if you use a full pound of coffee and 2 gallons of water. I recommend you use a cute little Ethiopian boy to help hold your strainer. Not that you need the strainer held, if it has the little lip to hook onto your bowl, but it's more fun with cute Ethiopian boys! You might need to pat down the coffee in the strainer with a spoon or spatula. If it backs up be patient and let it strain through. I needed a second jar to pour a couple times because my measuring bowl was a little too small.
So here's what you're looking at. On the left is the grounds that have gone into the strainer. The middle jar is the nasty residue jug from the cold brew and the right is perfection.
This is what you're going to end up with. It's thick and dark. That's OK. Even if you use medium roast, it's gonna look darker than you'd normally drink coffee....that's what you want and I'll show you why in a second. I don't drink this right away. I find that the whole thing works much better if I put this in the refrigerator for awhile so that it's COLD. Remember you're making iced coffee, so it can't hurt to keep it cold.
So after some time in the fridge, you're going to pour your thick coffee into a cup. You only want a little more than half full. TRUST ME. I like cream and sugar in my coffee so I add that now. You can get some cool effects of the cream (or milk) if you pour it on slowly. I add my ice last since you're going to need to stir it up and the ice just seems to get in the way. Other people have the ice in first, then pour over it.
A final few notes:
1. If you keep your cold brew in the refrigerator, and are using cold milk....I've found you can pretty much forgo the ice all together. The ice almost gets in the way...and it's cold enough even on a warm day.
2. There is a way to make Thai and Vietnamese iced coffee from this same cold brew. I haven't gone this route yet, but that is coming in the next week or two and I'll report back.
3. I just cold brewed some decaf as well. I was realizing I normally want a cold beverage in late afternoon/early evening. But because of how strong the coffee was I was still going full tilt at midnight. Decaf works just the same.
