Cold Brew Coffee

In the mornings on weekdays, Aaron and I are in the kitchen by 5:40am-- usually much earlier. One of the best parts about my day is getting my first cup of coffee.  That sounds so cliche, but it's really not.  Several months ago, Aaron decided to try cold brewing our coffee.  I didn't fully join him in using this type of coffee until recently (read: I ran out of my Costco-sized Folger's coffee that I would put in my reusable K-cups, and he offered a cup of cold brew instead).

Aaron found a brand of coffee to order from the internet, and he put us on auto-shipments so we'll never run out.  The company is Black Rifle Coffee Company and it's run by Veterans.  Each month, they send us three bags of ground coffee, all varying in flavor and depth of roast.  I think we've tried nearly all of the flavors now and none of them disappoint.  Aaron can tell the difference between each flavor, but most of them taste very similar to me.

He uses a cold brew system that he found on Amazon. It came with two types of filters-- a round disk filter and a bag-type filter. We prefer the bag filters because some of the coffee is so finely ground that it won't allow water to pass through it when the disk filter is used.  We've reordered bag filters on Amazon only once so far.

The system is a glass caraffe with a plastic lid.  This is where the coffee is stored in the fridge once it's made. When it's time to brew, we place a plastic tub with a rubber stopper in place over the lid of the empty glass caraffe and we put the filter in, then 12 ounces of coffee grounds and a few cups of water.  We leave it like this overnight. The rubber stopper keeps the grounds and water in the plastic tub to brew overnight (or for twelve hours).  In the morning, we unplug the tub and the coffee drips through the filter into the glass caraffe.

Now, cold brew coffee is highly concentrated, so I only pour about a quarter inch of coffee into a mug, then I take it to the Keurig where I just add hot water and it makes the perfect cup of coffee.  I drink it black with no cream or sugar and it's delightful.  Aaron, on the other hand, pours some concentrate into a BlenderBottle or stainless travel mug, then adds water to make about 16 ounces of coffee, then puts in cream and sugar and ice cubes to make an iced coffee.

This system really works well for us and because the coffee is cold-brewed, we eliminate the acidic edge that hot-brewed coffee can develop.



Until Next Time,
Much love, Reba