homemade iced coffee success!

Hopefully by now I have expressed myself well enough for you all to know that I adore iced coffee.  Hot coffee is definitely not my favorite and I only drink it when I have no other choice.  For example, when we were in New York last year, my sister, bless her heart, brought a french press in order to get us moving in the mornings.  And I drank it hot – with a packet of hot chocolate mixed in of course!

my sis is a goober but I adore her!

I’ve seen the recipes for iced coffee but I was a bit skeptical.  Basically, I figured it would taste like the coffee I have in the morning so why bother?  But recently I’ve ordered McDonald’s iced coffee (with caramel – I do like it a bit sweet) and have enjoyed it immensely.  Plus I don’t need to add any artificial sweetener and I am guessing my body appreciates this.

Anyway, here is the recipe (from Pioneer Woman) I used and my process

I picked up some tasty coffee that was already ground.  After attempting to spoon the coffee grounds into the jug of water, I had a Macgyver moment a.k.a. a “dad moment” as we call it and cut the top of a Smart water bottle.  First let me say, I almost stabbed myself – cutting this apart was no easy task!  But it did work like a charm.  Apparently I don’t own a funnel.

After getting the grounds in the milk jug, I tried to stir it to no avail.  This is where the milk jug came in handy because I could put the lid on it and shake the everliving daylights out of it.  I waited two days before I finished the process but this was only because I was being lazy.  Really you only need to wait 8-12 hours for the coffee to brew in the fridge.  OH!  I poured some water out of the jug into an extra cup because I knew the grounds would take up space.  Then I poured the water back in after seeing how much space I had.

I got my supplies ready to go for the last step.  I used my biggest bowl with a spout, a strainer and a cheese cloth.  This was my first adventure with the cheese cloth and I think I messed up a bit.  I am guessing you can cut off pieces to use rather than doubling (okay, tripling) it all up because I ended up throwing it away after this one use.  Well, first I tried to wash it but quickly realized this wasn’t working.

I poured the coffee through the strainer and into the bowl.  The bowl filled quicker than I anticipated so I dumped it into a pitcher half way through.  When this was finished I again tried to pour the coffee gold back in the milk jug but ended up spilling some because my pitcher has a weird spout.  Finally, I grabbed my trusty “funnel” and again, this worked wonders.  (Not kidding, I am keeping this puppy – because it worked so well and you know, my hoarding issues!)

Today I tried it – success!  What I love most about it is the coffee is so freakin’ COLD!  I filled the cup half way with ice, then coffee, some flavored creamer and a bit of milk.  This could be lightened up in a variety of ways and I plan on trying different concoctions to see what I like best.  Oh, and making my cup of coffee this morning took all of 10 seconds – another big win considering I am barely functional in the mornings.

Ultimately I am quite pleased with the outcome!  Give it a whirl if you are so inclined!  The prep work really isn’t that bad and I have a jug of coffee all ready to go.  Oh I will say, I cut the recipe in half – mostly because I didn’t have two jugs of water and didn’t want to make it in case it was yucky.  I measured the whole bag of coffee into a container and estimated 2 and 1/2 cups of grounds per jug.  I am guessing I was a bit off on the measurements but I will see when I make jug #2 later.

Enjoy your Saturday and if you love coffee run to the store!

*I did not use an old milk jug – I filled a water jug from a Culligan water station at the store and used this.  I am not sure I could have gotten the whole milk taste out of the jug.