I found myself the other day out of homemade cold brew concentrate. That’s for the birds. All I wanted was a cold glass of coffee. If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, then you know I love cold brew. I began to wonder how to make pour over iced coffee in a pinch since cold brew takes 18 hours to make.
I found a couple of tutorials online and started fiddling around with them. And I figured out how to make pour over iced coffee, and it’s fantastic. I don’t why I didn’t think of this before.
This brewing method is also known as Japanese style iced coffee. My dad is a loyal fan of this coffee. He will talk at length about it to anyone who will listen.
I’m sharing this easy pour over recipe with you with you and how you can do it at home.
Why Pour Over Iced Coffee?
Pour over iced coffee is the best of both worlds. You get the deep flavors of pour over coffee, and it’s cold. It satisfies that craving for refreshing cold coffee when it’s all you can think about.
Pour over coffee is usually served hot, but it’s even better cold. You can still achieve the complex flavor of pour over coffee when it’s cold.
This style of coffee is also known as Japanese style iced coffee. It became popular due to the rapid brewing time. It takes 5-7 minutes to make and you don’t miss the deeper flavors you achieve with longer brewing methods.
Japanese style iced coffee is made by pouring hot coffee directly onto ice to quickly cool it down.
Genius!
I’m going to take any chance I can to use my Bodum pour over coffee maker. The pour over brewer I use is much like the Chemex brand just a little bit more affordable. If you’re looking to get into pour over coffee, I recommend this model.
If you don’t have time for cold brew concentrate and are in a hurry, try this iced coffee method. It’s fast, refreshing, and tastes great.
What more could you want?
Iced Coffee Golden Ratio
As usual, the coffee’s golden ratio plays a big part in this brewing method.
Iced coffee is simply hot coffee cooled down with ice. In this method, I’m pouring the hot coffee directly over the ice in the bottom of the beaker. This will bring my coffee to water measurements to the golden ratio.
This recipe ends up at 1:15. The ideal range is 1:15 to 1:18 — depending on how strong you like your coffee.
Remember that when you’re making iced coffee, you’ll be adding ice and maybe creamer in your final cup of iced coffee. I like to brew mine on the stronger end of things to keep room for the added ice (which will melt) and creamer.
Here’s how to make pour over iced coffee.
Pour Over Iced Coffee Recipe
When I realized I could make iced coffee in my Bodum pour over coffee maker, I felt like I had won the coffee jackpot.
Here’s the recipe I use.
Feel free to fiddle with it. This pour over iced coffee recipe is a game changer. It’s about to get oppressively hot here in Texas, so I’ll be making this all summer long.
What you’ll need for pour over iced coffee:
- A pour over coffee maker like this one or this one.
- Gooseneck kettle
- 200 grams of ice
- 400 grams of water
- 40 grams of coffee ground to pour over grind. Here’s a quick guide on how to grind coffee
- Burr grinder
- Instant themometer
- Kitchen Scale
How to Make Pour Over Iced Coffee:
- FiIl your gooseneck kettle with cool filtered water and start to heat up the water.
- Grind your coffee in the burr grinder to the pour over setting. You’re looking for 40 grams of ground coffee. I use my favorite roast by Stumptown, Hair Bender. It’s fantastic in this brewing method.
- Place your pour over set up on the kitchen scale and zero out the weight. Make sure it’s set to grams.
- Fill the bottom of the beaker with 200 grams of ice.
- Zero out the scale again.
- Wet your filter and place it on the scale. Zero it out of course.
- Measure out 40 grams of coffee into the filter and level off.
- Zero out your scale.
- Once your water reaches 200 degrees, remove from the heat source. I find it easiest to use an instant read thermometer to get an exact water temperature.
- Start to pour 105 grams of water over the coffee grounds. Make sure to pour in a circular motion to help bloom the grounds. This first pour is called blooming by the way.
- Zero out the scale again.
- Wait 45 seconds for the bloom pour to do its job.
- Pour the remaining 295 grams of water over the bloomed coffee grams using the same circular motion.
- Once the water has filtered through the grounds, remove the pour over coffee maker from the scale.
- Remove the filter.
- Gently swirl the brewed coffee with any unmelted ice to incorporate the 2 and finish cooling the coffee.
- Serve over ice and preferred creamer.
Last Thoughts
This recipe should make 2-3 servings of Japanese style iced coffee. This style of iced coffee doesn’t do well sitting in the fridge.
Feel free to play with the ratios and the roast you use to make this splendid iced coffee. Maybe you like something in a lighter roast or you don’t like creamer with your iced coffee.
When you’re done, make sure to clean your pour over coffee maker.
Conclusion
If you’re like me, you’ll be making pour over iced coffee almost every morning. It’s especially good with an everything avocado bagel and your favorite true crime podcast.
Pour over (or Japanese style) iced coffee is easy once you have an idea of what golden ratio works best for your taste. I always add almond milk vanilla creamer and 4 cubes of ice.
Have you made this style of iced coffee before?
I would love to know any tweaks you have to the recipe.