Iced Coffee

Sarah says:

It's been 90+ degrees lately.  On those days, I prefer my coffee iced.  The problem I have is, iced coffee is hit or miss - sometimes it's delicious, sometimes it's undrinkable.  I have yet to find a place that consistently serves good iced coffee.  I guess McDonald's has the best track record - but that record isn't wonderful.  Plus, iced coffee is more expensive than hot coffee (I still haven't figured out why), so it's a gamble.  I hate to pay up, only to have the drink end up in the garbage.

I decided to go down the path of making it on my own.  I've tried making hot coffee, then pouring it over ice cubes to cool it off, but that just gives me watered down cold coffee.  I don't have any fancy equipment, so per google, the best method for me, was to take my coffee grounds, slowly pour cool or room temp water over it, stir once, cover with plastic wrap, and put in the refrigerator for 12-72 hours.  Apparently, cold water takes longer to brew than hot water.  So, I did this overnight.  My coffee ended up soaking for about 15 hours.  The next morning, I put a coffee filter into a small funnel, and slowly poured the coffee/water mix into it, to filter out the coffee into a cup.  This took FOREVER.  I basically had to stand there and wait for the coffee to drain out.  I have a pretty small funnel, so I could only pour a small amount in at once, and the coffee grounds kept clogging up the bottom, so I had to keep dumping them out.  I really didn't have the write tools for this project.  Eventually, I had a cup of filtered cold coffee.  I didn't add ice cubes, because it was already cold from being in the refrigerator overnight, and I didn't want to water it down.  I added a little cream, and ta-da, I had drinkable iced coffee.  It wasn't the greatest I've ever had, but it wasn't the worst either.  It could have been stronger - I basically used the same ratio of coffee to water that I always use, not sure if that was the right thing to do.  Plus, I went on the short end of the brewing time - mostly because I didn't know it would take that long and didn't plan ahead.  IF I were to do it again, I would do it for longer.  I need to soak all the caffeine I can get outta those beans!

I don't think I'd do it again though, the whole straining out process took too long, I don't have the time or patience for that.  Does anyone have any suggestions for making it go faster?  Suggestions that don't involve spending a lot of money?  I know I could buy a fancy press thing, but I'm just not going to do that.  The only reason I would do it again, and I am thinking about doing this, is to make coffee cubes.  I discovered this while doing my iced coffee recipe research.  Basically do the same thing - but pour the filtered cold coffee into ice cube trays & freeze.  Then, make hot coffee as I normally do, and pour it over a few coffee cubes.  This will also give me iced coffee, without watering it down!  Brilliant!  But I'm not looking forward to doing it.  The only positive is that it will give me several cubes, so I won't have to do it very often.  Making daily iced coffee like this isn't practical for a working Mom.  Any idea what it's like holding a coffee filled filter over a cup waiting for it to drip out while and 3 & 5 year old are screaming for breakfast.  I'll just sum it up for you: not fun.

I guess for now I'll just have to keep on taking my chances!  Any suggestions on who makes the best iced coffee?