DIY Cold Brew Coffee Bags

My favorite thing after a long work week is to come home Friday afternoon and make a big ol' glass of cold brew coffee, starting the weekend off on the right foot. My usual routine most Thursday evenings was to measure out my coffee right into the pitcher and add water, let it steep all night and day, then come home Friday and filter it.

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If you read my Starbucks Copycat Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew Coffee Recipe, you know that my typical filtration method was to use a mesh sieve lined with a coffee filter and pour the mixture through. To do it right, it usually took over an hour - AN HOUR! - to make sure there would be no grounds that got through and no sludgy mess at the bottom of the pitcher. It was also a messy job to switch out filters multiple times through the process when they would get stopped up with coffee grounds, and there were several times that some would spill out into the bowl with the already filtered coffee. I needed a new way. 

I'm impatient.

I'm cheap. 

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A couple weeks ago, I went to prepare my cold brew coffee the typical way and had a thought: if only they made cold brew coffee bags like tea bags but in massive form so I could make my weekly pitcher of it. I went on Amazon to try and find some cold brew coffee bags and found a few options: some expensive but reusable cloth ones, some with the coffee already in it, and pitchers made for cold brewing. Well, I already have a pitcher so I was not about to spend $20+ on a new one, I already have the coffee so that was out (plus I wanted a method that could be used for any kind of coffee and to not feel limited to a certain brand of coffee), and I was also not going to spend $10 on a mesh sack that wouldn't hold enough coffee for a week's supply of cold brew, nor would it be a quick easy clean-up. Then, I had an epiphany: tea bags are similar in texture to coffee filters. I have a ton of those. I have string and I have staples. I can do this. 

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And guess what? IT WORKED. 

Materials: 

Coffee filters

String

Stapler

Coffee

Pitcher with lid

Water

Add 1/2 cup of coffee grounds to each filter. 

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Take the filter and fold it into a taco shape, then push in the sides to create pleats along the folds of the coffee filters. Stack the two pleated sides to create a dumpling shape, then secure it with a vertical staple. 

Take a long piece of string and staple it horizontally as far down as possible. Wrap the string around the top of the pouch and secure it in a knot. Repeat this process for however many bags you need (I use 3 of these pouches for my week's supply). 

Tie all of the strings together (add more string to the bundle if it ends up not being long enough to hang out of the top of the pitcher while still letting the bags sit in the water). 

Add water to your pitcher (1 cup of water per pouch) and stick the bags inside. They will float on the top of the water, so push them in a few times to allow the water to penetrate the pouches and saturate the coffee. 

Put the lid on the pitcher with the string hanging out of the side, and let it sit for at least 24 hours (you can stick it in the fridge if you want, but let it sit for 36 hours if you do. The cold air slows the steeping process). You will see the water immediately start to change to a light brown color like tea and slowly change to a rich dark brown. 

When you're finished steeping, simply discard the pouches and you're ready to enjoy your cold brew coffee! This recipe is about 4x as strong as traditionally brewed coffee, so be sure to dilute it to your liking.