Making homemade Cold Brew Iced Coffee is extremely easy! It's also way cheaper than buying it at Starbucks, Dunkin', or your local coffee house. In less than a day you can make a pitcher of the cold brew coffee you're craving.
Place the coffee grounds and water in a 2-quart pitcher, and stir to combine. Cover and let steep at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours.
Line a strainer with a coffee filter and place over a medium bowl. Stir the coffee mixture to allow the grounds to sink to the bottom of the pitcher. Working in batches, slowly pour the coffee into the filter until all of the liquid has strained (this may take a while). Stop when you reach the solids at the bottom of the pitcher. Discard the grounds and the contents of the strainer.
Wash and dry the pitcher. Transfer the strained coffee back into the pitcher. Cover and refrigerate until completely chilled. This concentrate keeps for up to 1 week in the fridge.
To serve, for each cup of iced cold brew coffee, dilute the concentrate with some milk or water. Sweeten with simple syrup, if desired, and serve over ice.
Notes
The longer you steep it, the stronger your concentrate will be.
I've also made this concentrate even more concentrated, using 4 ½ ounces of coffee to only 3 ½ cups water. It works great, but is a little too strong for me on a daily basis. You can play around with the coffee/water ratio and length of steeping and see what combination you prefer best.
You may want to swap out for a clean coffee filter about halfway though straining. It can really slow down after a while once the filter is soaked.
Coffee filters can strain cold brew concentrate at various speeds depending on how porous they are. If your coffee filters are very slow, you can use large disposable tea bags, fill them with your coffee grounds, tie tightly, and steep overnight. Then just remove the bags, gently squeeze to extract any extra liquid, and discard.