3 Easy Ways to Make Iced Coffee

Iced Coffee Recipes - AeroPress, Hario, Fellow Stagg Kettle

Regardless of the season, there is something extremely satisfying and refreshing about iced coffee. If you are more of a summer-only iced coffee drinker, you might find yourself scrambling to remember how to make it after such a long break from practice. We’re certainly not looking to repeat the pot of hot coffee poured into a container of ice. It’s a rite of passage, but it’s behind us. Today we'll be sharing our 3 favorite ways to make iced coffee so you can start your summer right -- whether you want to plan ahead or need coffee on short notice. Watch the video and get the recipes below. 

Iced Espresso/Americano

What You'll Need:

  • Espresso machine and grinder
  • Small glass full of ice, preferably frosty
  • A shot glass (good insurance against an imperfect first shot)
  • 20g dose of good coffee

Instructions:

  • Dial in your coffee of choice
    • We prefer light, African coffees like Case Coffee's Cascadia blend for their fruity sweetness
    • Dial in for a 1:1 or 1:1.5 brew ratio. Keeping the espresso concentrated allows you to control how strong you want your iced espresso / Americano
  • Pull espresso into your shot glass.
  • Pour shot over ice, add water or milk to taste, and enjoy!

Our jobs here at Clive revolve around helping people take their first steps into home espresso – so it only felt right to start off with a straight iced espresso recipe. One of the great things about espresso is that it’s such a quick way to make super-concentrated coffee.

Aside from your espresso setup, all you’ll need is some good coffee, a few ice cubes, and a glass. We’re going to use Case Coffee’s Cascadia blend. It’s a smooth, bright, and lightly fruity African blend that’s perfect on ice. Because we’re going to pour this shot over ice I want to make sure that it’s very concentrated to avoid making our beverage too watery. I’ll be pulling this shot at a 1:1 ratio with a 20-gram dose of coffee, so I want a yield of about 20 grams of espresso. I like this blend best when it’s pulled in around 28 seconds.

Now that we have our shot we’ll just pour it over ice in our glass. I recommend freezing the glass to help offset the heat of the espresso and keep things from diluting too much. If you prefer an iced Americano, simply add water and a bit more ice! I also encourage trying different ratios than you’d normally use, as iced espresso can bring out entirely new flavors in your coffee.

Cold Brew

What You'll Need:

Instructions:

  • Grind your 60g of coffee coarse, as you would for a French press
  • Add the grounds to the Hario bottle's included mesh basket
  • Attach the basket to the lid, and then attach the lid to the glass bottle
  • Fill from the top with 700ml of cold water, or to the subtle square marker on the glass
  • Insert the cork into the top of the bottle and place it in your fridge
  • After a 20hr brew time, simply remove the filter basket from the lid
  • Pour over ice, add water to taste, and enjoy!

Massively popular and wonderfully low-maintenance, cold brew is an excellent way to ensure you have plenty of iced coffee by making large batches of concentrate. Our favorite way to make cold brew at Clive is using Hario’s Filter-in Bottle. Not only are they a great standalone solution for making cold brew, but they also double as a perfect vessel for storage and serving.

First, we’ll need to grind our coffee. We’ll want a relatively coarse grind, similar to what you’d use for a French press. Not only will this work well with a long brew time, but it will also help us avoid getting lots of sediment. Pour the grounds into the basket, lock it into the lid, and then fill it up with our 700ml of water, or to this handy marker on the glass. We’ll let this steep for 20 hours and then simply remove the basket of grounds. Now we have a bottle of fresh cold brew! This stuff is relatively strong, but whether or not you’d like to keep it concentrated or dilute it is a matter of taste. Personally, I find that once it’s poured over ice it’s just right.

AeroPress Iced Coffee

What You'll Need:

Instructions:

  • Start your kettle and set its temperature to 200°F. If you're using a stovetop kettle, let it sit at a boil and remove it from heat a few minutes before brewing
  • Grind your 24g of coffee medium-fine, as you might for a small pourover
  • Attach your Prismo to the Aeropress. Its included metal filter works great, but we like to throw in a paper filter as well for a cleaner cup
  • Dump your ground coffee into the Aeropress and set it atop the glass full of ice
  • Pour 90g of water into the AeroPress and start your timer the moment you begin pouring
  • Allow the coffee to bloom for 30 seconds, give the mixture a stir to break the crust, and pour in an additional 90g of water
  • For better temperature stability, rest the plunger of the AeroPress atom the base as this will seal in heat
  • Once your timer reaches 3 minutes 30 seconds, begin to plunge the AeroPress into the glass
  • Don't forget to clean out your AeroPress immediately! It'll thank you, by which we mean the gasket and plunger will last far longer.
  • Give your glass of iced coffee a stir to ensure it's evenly mixed and cold, then enjoy!

If you’re dying for an iced coffee but don’t have an espresso machine on hand, nothing beats the speed and flavor of AeroPress iced coffee. Since we’re brewing hot we’ll be pouring this over ice. To account for that, we’ll use half the normal amount of water and replace that with an equal weight of ice, though extra ice never hurts. This way, the coffee we get will be cold and strong.

For this recipe, I’ll be using 24 grams of coffee ground medium-fine, 180 ml of water, and 180 grams of ice. I’m also using Fellow’s Prismo attachment, which will make this much easier.

Start by attaching the Prismo to the AeroPress. Its included metal filter works great, but I like to throw in a paper filter as well for a cleaner cup. Now we’ll add our 24-gram dose of coffee and set the Aeropress on top of our glass full of ice. Once our water is up to about 200°F we’ll begin pouring in half of it and start our timer. At 30 seconds, give the mixture a stir to break the crust and ensure all the grounds are getting soaked – then add the rest of the water. I recommend placing the plunger gently on top to keep the temperature a bit more stable. At 3.5 - 4 minutes, plunge the AeroPress into your glass.

Give your iced coffee a stir get everything cold, add more ice if you’d like, and enjoy! The AeroPress is super versatile, so try playing with different recipes to find your favorite.