How to cold-brew coffee at home
Set your grinder to its most coarse setting, and check a little of its output before doing the full grind – you are looking for roughly the same consistency as breadcrumbs. Any finer and you risk cloudy, grimy-tasting coffee.
Sterilise a large mason jar (or any large receptacle with a lid). Working to roughly a 1:8 coffee-to-water ratio, place your grounds in the bottom of the jar, and cover with cold water.
Stir gently until well combined, then cover and leave to steep for 18-24 hours, either in or out of the fridge.
When brewed, strain into a large bowl through a sieve to remove the larger grounds. Discard these (ideally into compost), and then, tucking either your muslin or a few sheets of paper towel into the cleaned sieve, strain back into the jar.
Repeat two or three times, until you are seeing no murky residue at the bottom as you finish your pour. If you cannot seem to sift it all out, don’t worry – it simply means your grind was too fine. Practice makes perfect with these things.
Serve over ice, with milk and sugar, if that’s your thing. Cover and refrigerate the rest – the wonderful thing about this stuff is that, if stored properly, it will stay good for a month or so due to the brew’s low acidity.
Brew your cold-brew strong enough and you can even mix it with boiling water and serve it hot. This is a really special way of doing things – the gentle, sweet flavours survive being combined with hot water because there aren’t any grounds left in the mix.