For the last month(ish), I’ve been drinking mostly cold-brew iced coffee as part of my current coffee experiments. I honestly don’t know if it’s made any difference to my health in terms of acidity/heat. However, two problems have come up with the whole cold-brew thing.
1) I really, really hate the French press. Cleaning it, specifically. I never used it for hot coffee unless I had to, so why did I think it would be different with cold brew? I just despise cleaning the thing out. This is a total first world problem. I know. But it means that I end up buying more iced coffee from the store, while my press sits on the counter waiting to be cleaned for WAY too long.
Note: I did look up other recipes. But either they are small recipes – see #2 issue below – or they involve massive amounts of work and time. Y’all know how much I hate cooking or doing anything in the kitchen. The whole reason I was excited about the press recipe was that I could make my own cold-brew while avoiding the major work of my previous recipe (Pioneer Woman). So for now, I continue to buy iced coffee when I can, and continue to search for a good recipe.
2) I am FAR more addicted to iced coffee than regular hot coffee. And by “far,” I mean that with hot coffee, I drink 1-2 large mugs in a day (approx 32 oz for two) , while with iced coffee, I drink…um…96 to 128** oz per day. Even at half-caf, that’s a LOT of caffeine – and it’s only half-caf if I make it myself. And worse than the caffeine, which doesn’t actually seem to affect me even with full-caf, is the amount of cream that goes into that. My 32-oz tumbler usually gets 2-3 tbsp of heavy cream per use, and if I’m having 3-4 of those tumblers full of iced coffee in a day…well, that’s a lot of fat and a lot of calories. Yeah. I can mitigate this a bit by measuring the cream – a single tbsp max per tumbler – but STILL.
And with drinking that much iced coffee, it takes double a whole French press batch each day to keep me topped off. Hence the other problem with the press and other small recipes – they just aren’t enough for one day, and I’m still buying bottles to stay stocked up.
Unfortunately, now that I’ve switched to iced coffee, I have no desire to go back to hot coffee…especially now that it’s getting really hot outside. Hrm.
So yeah. Those are the dangers of cold-brew. I think I have a problem…
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**This is somewhat of an exaggeration. I drink 3-4 tumblers of iced coffee in a day. The tumbler holds 32 oz. However, I don’t fill it to the brim, and a big chunk of the tumbler volume is holding ice, not coffee. Judging by the bottles I buy, I’m actually drinking about 48(ish) oz of actual coffee each day. That’s still way too much, but better than 96-128 oz! Unfortunately, the cream estimates aren’t exaggerated, though this week I’ve begun measuring out a tablespoon per, cutting it down quite a bit.
The Zen Leaf 
Amanda, I’ll hook you up with my wife (@vegandispatcher on Instagram if you want to find her) who makes it regularly for me and not every day! š BTW, my wife doesn’t use a French press.
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I saw your recipe (her recipe) from before – the problem is that for me, pouring the coffee through my pourover filters takes a million years! Like literally about 45 mins, and me hoping the paper doesn’t tear at some point. However, I saw another recipe that recommended a tightly woven piece of cloth as a filter. I got a brand-new, never-used, low-pile washrag and began to filter through that. That goes much faster, doesn’t affect the taste/texture of the cold brew, and doesn’t let grounds through. The coffee has a bit of the thickness of french press since it doesn’t filter as well as a true filter, but that doesn’t bother me. What I’d like to do is get one of those pitchers with a defuser, so I can defuse my own without having to use a filter at all.
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If you want to simplify the pour over filtration treat yourself to a $12 Melitta coffee pot that takes #6 filters. I make the cold brew in a gallon jug, filter it into the pot and split it into two half gallon jugs (for easier handling).
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Kimberly – Does the filtering through Melitta take forever? Because I have a pourover and #4 Melitta filters, and it takes like 45 mins to filter about five cups of cold brew concentrate through. I end up using several filters because they start getting to the tearing point. I’ve tried using the filter in a funnel, too (larger hole than the pourover), but it still takes a long time. I saw someone talk about tightly woven cloth, so I’ve been trying to do that.
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I had a French press travel mug that even had a little storage compartment in the bottom where you could keep the coffee for a second cup later. It was great for keeping hot coffee hot, but with no paper filter, cleaning it before the next use was a messy, time-consuming process, so I stopped using it.
I had a daily iced coffee habit, but weaned myself down to very dark, using only a little half and half, but eventually had to give up afternoon coffee in pursuit of a more restful night’s sleep. I still miss it, though, especially now that spring is here!
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I wish I could switch to half-and-half, but I just prefer actual cream. I’m cutting back slowly, though, trying to do only one tablespoon, and only three tumblers a day to start. It doesn’t seem to affect my sleep, though frankly my sleep has been so bad for the last decade (years before I began drinking coffee at all) that I can’t imagine I’d even notice a difference.
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