It’s hot here in Toronto this week. We’re having a heat wave and it will only cool down a little bit by the time the weekend roles around.

So seeing as it’s so hot here, I decided that I wanted to try making my own iced coffee. I love love love Tim Hortons Ice caps. So I figured that there had to be a way for me to make something as tasty at home.

On Monday I started experimenting with cold brewed coffee in order to make iced coffee. I made up my first batch in a 32 ounce mason jar.

It’s easy to make, just use 1 cup of coffee grounds and about two 2 cups of cold water. Place them in the mason jar and let it sit on your kitchen counter for 12 hours, then strain it through coffee filters into a bowl. Chill in the fridge and then mix equal parts coffee concentrate and milk in a large glass filled with ice and ta da you have iced coffee. Sweeten to taste.

Homemade Iced Coffee

Here’s an easy step by step way to make your own:

What you’ll need:

* Container to brew coffee grounds in (32 ounce = 1 quart)
* Strainer
* Coffee filters (largest size you can find)
* Coffee beans and grinder or pre-ground beans
* Bowl to strain coffee into

Place ground coffee in container, fill with cold water. Cover and let sit for twelve to fifteen hours. Place strainer over large bowl and put coffee filter inside. Slowly pour about half of the coffee into the filter and let sit until strained. Replace filter and repeat. As you’ll see from what I say below, this will work better if you use course ground coffee.

To make regular coffee: place equal parts coffee concentrate and water in cup and heat.

To make iced coffee: Place equal parts concentrate and milk in glass. Add ice, sweetened as desired.

Of course you can always just save some of your hot brewed coffee and cool it off in the refrigerator for later use, but it will likely have a bitter after taste and be more acidic than using a cold brewed method.

I actually found this recipe to be a little too strong for my tastes – even when diluted equally with water (for hot coffee) or milk for iced tea. However I’ve found that if I use 1 part coffee to two parts milk or water it suits my tastes better. So adjust as to your own tastes or use a little less coffee when you start your cold brew.

It took quite a while to filter my cold brewed coffee – at least two hours! I think it was because I was using fine ground coffee. It clogged up the filter pores.

Anyway .. after spending so much time filtering I decided to buy a Bodum French Press. It’s made for making hot coffee, but after doing some research I discovered that a lot of people use it to make cold brewed coffee as well. They just use cold water and let it sit for 12 hours or so before pushing down on the plunger.

I figured that since I love iced coffee, but I didn’t like all the time I spent filtering that a french press would do the trick.

I ordered the French Press early Monday morning from a company just outside of Toronto and would you believe that on a standard shipping order it actually arrived today? Pretty fast! Unfortunately they sent me the wrong size. I’d ordered a 12 cup model and they sent me an 8 cup. Oh well, they’ll pick up the one they sent me tomorrow and with any luck I’ll get the new one at the same time or perhaps on Thursday. Then I’ll be ready to easily make my own cold brewed coffee for either hot or iced coffee.

Did you know that cold brewed coffee has 67% less acid than hot brewed coffee?

I happen to have acid reflux and I don’t drink “real” coffee very often as a result. Now that I’ll be able to make cold brewed coffee easily I think I’ll be enjoying a nice cup of coffee more often … oh I think that while we’re in the midst of a major heat wave tasty iced coffee will be consumed regularly.

Along with the cold brewed coffee I’ve also been busy making several other cold drinks. On Monday I made batches of iced green tea, iced Earl Grey tea, and homemade lemonade. We have lots of cold drinks to get us through this heat wave! If anyone wants the recipes for my homemade iced teas and lemonades just let me know and I’ll write up a post about them too.

Enjoy!