Brewed Iced Coffee
The simplest iced coffee there is: a jug of strong coffee brewed the normal way, cooled and kept in the fridge, poured over ice when you want it. It tastes like good filter coffee, cold, as long as it is brewed strong enough to survive the ice.
At a glance
- Coffee : water
- 1:10
- Active time
- 5 min
- Total time
- 70 min
- Makes
- 4 glasses
- Serve
- Over ice
- Kit
- Any brewer
Ingredients
Note: Any brewer works: a drip machine, a French press, a pour-over. Use your usual coffee and your usual grind, just less water.
Method
-
Brew at double strength
Brew the coffee as you normally would, but with about half the usual water. A ratio of one to ten instead of one to sixteen.
Ice will melt into it. Brewed strong, it melts down to normal.
4 to 5 minutes -
Cool it fast
Pour the hot coffee into a jug and stand the jug in a sink of cold water, or a bowl of ice water, stirring now and then. It should be cool in ten to fifteen minutes.
Coffee left to cool slowly on the hot plate turns flat and bitter.
Cool 10 to 15 minutes -
Cover and chill
Cover the jug and put it in the fridge for at least an hour. It keeps three to four days.
Chill 1 hour -
Pour over ice
Fill a glass with ice, pour in the cold coffee, and add syrup or milk if you take them. Syrup rather than sugar, which will not dissolve cold.
Why this works
Most iced coffee goes wrong in one of two ways. Either it is normal-strength coffee poured over ice, which melts and leaves it weak and watery, or it is coffee left to go cold slowly on a hot plate, which goes flat and bitter. Brewing strong and cooling fast fixes both.
The double strength is a straightforward correction for ice. A full glass of ice melts by around a third of its volume as it chills hot or room-temperature coffee and sits in the glass. Coffee brewed at one to ten instead of one to sixteen starts concentrated and is diluted to roughly normal strength by the time you drink it.
Fast cooling matters because coffee changes as it sits hot. Aromatic compounds evaporate, and others react with oxygen and break down, which is why coffee left on a warming plate for an hour tastes stewed and sharp. Dropping the temperature quickly in a water bath slows those reactions down, and the fridge slows them further. It will never taste quite as bright as Japanese iced coffee, which is brewed straight onto ice and chilled in seconds, but it is far better than leftover coffee.
The advantage of this method is convenience. A jug in the fridge is iced coffee on demand for three or four days, made with whatever brewer you already own. For something smoother and less acidic, cold brew takes longer and works differently.
Variations
- With milk: half cold coffee, half cold milk over ice, a quick iced latte.
- Coffee ice cubes: freeze some of the batch in trays so the glass never waters down. See coffee ice cubes.
- Sweet and creamy: 20 ml condensed milk stirred in, close to a Vietnamese iced coffee.
- Spiced: a cinnamon stick in the jug while it chills.
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Questions
How do you make iced coffee from hot coffee?
Brew it at about double strength, cool it quickly in a water bath, chill it in the fridge, then pour it over ice. The extra strength makes up for the ice melting.
How long does brewed iced coffee keep in the fridge?
Three to four days in a covered jug. After that it starts to taste stale.
Why does my iced coffee taste watery?
It was brewed at normal strength. Ice melts by about a third of its volume, so brew iced coffee roughly twice as strong as hot.
Is brewed iced coffee the same as cold brew?
No. Brewed iced coffee is made with hot water and chilled. Cold brew is steeped in cold water for many hours, which makes it smoother and less acidic.