I hope you all enjoyed your fall festivals, trick or treats and any other beginning of fall festivities you may have had. This time of year is chock full of everything from harvest celebrations, religious holidays and costume events. Our family always buys a pumpkin shaped pizza on Halloween. We did it once when our daughter was about 3 years old and now it is purchased every year.
I love knowing interesting holidays and so this time of year has SO MANY! Today's religious holiday is officially All Saints Day. Today is also National Cinnamon Day and the recipe I'm sharing today would absolutely benefit from a dash of cinnamon. Though to be fair I don't know that this is really a recipe so much as a staple in my daily life.
Cold brew coffee is something I keep seeing for sale at the grocery store. I see unsweetened, sweetened, cream already added, black, etc. So many varieties and I love that. However, a bottle of pre-made cold brew coffee tends to run anywhere from $6 to $10 and I just can't justify that price tag for something so easily made at home.
Since this blog is actually named Coffee Required you can assume that coffee is something I have a lot of in my life. I love hot coffee, iced coffee, cold brew, cappacino, frappacino, Americano or whatever I can easily get quickly. I have a drip coffee maker, a kcup maker, a French press, a cold brew press and a stove top espresso maker. However, for my cold brew these days I use the easiest thing in the world.... a plain, cheap 2 quart pitcher.
The secret to making the cold brew coffee without a bunch of coffee grounds needing to be pressed, seperated or extracted from the coffee in such a simple pitcher is to buy actual cold brew filters. I purchase these ones from Amazon. You get 200 filters for $12.49 and since one filter makes an entire pitcher these should last you for a good while. https://a.co/5aEWtF3
I have found that the best and cheapest cold brew coffee is to fill the pouch 2/3 full with medium roast coffee grounds and 1/3 with espresso grounds. If you have a specific coffee you love feel free to skip the espresso and just fill it with your coffee. I try to leave a knuckle worth of space at the top of the pouch so that when I tie off the string I can also wrap it around the top of the pouch to be sure it does not leak any grounds into the pitcher.
Just place the sealed pouch of coffee grounds into your pitcher, top with cold water and place in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours. Remove the pouch and top off your pitcher with more water until it is full (you will add approximately a cup of water from the space taken up by the coffee grounds and absorbed by those grounds).
That's it! Just as simple as drip coffee except for waiting a day and then you have a 2 quart pitcher full of your favorite cold brew coffee. I like to add mine to a glass with ice, Jordan's Skinny Syrup in whatever flavor I like that day and some half & half.
