It's Iced Coffee Time

[Sunbeam]

I love iced coffee in the warmer weather. It's so refreshing, and Cold-Brewed iced coffee has such a perfect intense coffee flavour with no bitterness at all. So, I tend to drink cold-brewed iced coffee from early May until about Thanksgiving.

Following the directions in the following link, I usually make 3 litres of concentrate, using 3 rounded half-cups of coffee grounds. After brewing for a day and chilling, I'll fill a 16 oz glass about 2/3 full of the concentrate, add a tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk, and top it up with half-and-half cream. Pour into a serving glass or thermos filled with ice cubes. (I don't normally use sugar when I drink hot coffee, just cream, so you may want to adjust the ratios to taste).

I make 3 litres at a time since it's the largest handy jug I have for this purpose, but I'm looking for a bigger one. Basic rule is a rounded half-cup of fine-ground coffee to 1 litre of cold water. To filter the coffee, I just use an old Melita cone filter holder, made to sit on top of a coffee pot, and a #4 cone filter. They clog fast, so you use a few filters.

Best ingredients? I've been doing this for a while. You can't beat Rooster brand sweetened condensed milk, at $1.88 a can, at No Frills. The best coffee for this, hands down, is Kirkland fine-ground dark-roast coffee, about $12-13 for a 1.36 kg can at Costco. Second choice is President's Choice West Coast Dark Roast Gourmet Coffee (fine Grind), about $12 for 875g can at No Frills.

Edit: Don't even think about trying this with Maxwell House or Folgers, it's all crap, and not suitable at all.

Here's the link that let me to this secret ambrosia in the first place:
http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/drinks/ ... ed-coffee/

Enjoy

[Sunbeam]

An update to preparing iced coffee:

I've taken to buying unrefined cane sugar, known as Panela, or Jaggery, or Chancaca, or Piloncillo, depending on what part of the world you're from.

I usually buy Candesa brand Panela at the local No Frills, it's in the Mexican Food section. You can find Jaggery at most any South Asian grocer, same thing, except it's usually roughly granulated (or in small chunks) instead of in pucks.

The Panela comes in a pack of 8 half-cup "pucks" of solid brown sugar. I chop up or roughly grate two of these into a saucepan, add a cup of water, and heat it, stirring regularly, over medium-low heat until it's all dissolved, to make a simple syrup.

This will fill a 500mL mason Jar, cool and store in the fridge, use as needed. It has a lovely, deep-brown-sugar, almost molasses-ey richness which goes so well with coffee.

When serving iced coffee, I add about a tablespoon of the syrup to 16oz of iced coffee. Adjust to taste-- I like just a hint of sweetness in my iced coffee-- and add half-and-half or table cream to get the colour/flavour I like.

Cheers!

<Edit>: During "Hot Coffee" season (Thanksgiving to May24 for me), I don't take any sugar in my coffee at all. Just cream. But when Iced Coffee season rolls around, I like a hint of sweet... funny, that. President's Choice recently introduced a new Columbian Supremo, Medium Roast, Extra Fine Grind coffee that I've been enjoying hot lately- $12 for a 1.3kg can. It's very nice, very rich. I'll be trying it for my first jug of cold-brewed coffee of the season. Don't even ask about grinding my own beans... went down that rabbit-hole for years, and finally realized that there are some mighty fine tasting pre-ground coffees which satisfy my taste.