Best Coffee Maker for Iced Coffee – How To Make Iced Coffee at Home

Whether it’s a hot summer or a breezy fall, some people just prefer their coffee iced. If you consume a lot of iced coffee and buy it from your local cafe, you know those dollars add up to a whole lot by the end of the month.

Making your iced coffee at home is a lot easier than you think. In fact, if you have any coffee maker sitting on your countertop, you can start making your iced coffee right now at no extra costs!

Many people ask ‘what is the best coffee maker for iced coffee’? The truth it, you don’t really need any special tools to make iced coffee, you can use any coffee tools available at your home to replicate your favorite coffee house recipes. However, there are some coffee makers and tools that will make things easier for you. Also, what you might need will depend on the type of iced coffee recipe you want to make. So, keep reading to find out if you actually need new tools to make your favorite iced coffee or if you don’t, how to make it.

Can You Make Iced Coffee Using Any Coffee Maker?

To answer this question, you need to know how your favorite iced coffee drink is made…

Types of Iced Coffee Drinks:

There are several kinds of iced coffee drinks and each uses different kind of method to prepare. I know the term ‘iced coffee’ is used to refer to any cold coffee drink, so here are some popular orders and what they actually are:

Iced Coffee usually refers to black coffee cooled down with ice. Some like it mixed with milk or flavored syrup. This coffee can be made using any drip coffee maker at home, or a Keurig machine. Also, a french press can be used to make the coffee manually.

Iced Latte: a Latte is an espresso based drink. It’s made using either a single or double shots of espresso mixed with milk. Flavors can be added to taste. To make an iced latte, you will need an espresso machine. If you have a Nespresso machine or any kind of espresso machine, you’re good to go!

Cold Brew: I know many people that confused cold brew for regular iced coffee. Truth is, they are entirely different. Cold Brew is coffee that has been brewed using cold water instead of hot water. The cold water interacts differently with the ground coffee than when using hot water. To start, it takes a lot of time to get the brew ready – at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours and more! The results of this slowly brewed cold coffee is a smooth yet bold tasting cup of coffee. Some people choose to make a cup of half cold brew half cold water or milk. Others choose to let the ice melt into the strong brew to balance the bold taste.

Making cold brew at home requires a special tool that is luckily inexpensive and easy to buy.

Best Iced Coffee Makers:

Now that we’ve cleared up the different kind of coffee makers and how they’re made, let’s look at some recommended coffee makers for each type of iced coffee drink:

Best Coffee Maker for Cold Brew:

There are two ways to make cold brew coffee at home:

• Manual Cold brew maker: An affordable way to make a traditional batch of cold brew. The only downside to manual brewing is that it takes a lot of time, 8, 12 or 24 hours.

• Automatic cold brew coffee maker: Buying an automatic cold brewer, although more expensive than the manual tool, it will have your brew ready in as little as 25 minutes!

Let’s start with the manual cold brew coffee makers:

The Airtight cold brew coffee maker is as simple as it gets. It’s a glass pitcher with a filter inside it. All you have to do is fill the stainless steel filter with ground coffee and fill the pitcher with either cold or room temperature filtered water. Then, place the filter inside the pitcher, cover it with the airtight cap and place it in the fridge to cool and steep for at least 12 hours.

The jug is clearly marked with measurements for the amount to coffee you’d want to brew. However, it is recommended that you brew a full pitcher since it takes time to prepare and it can stay cool in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Airtight Cold Brew coffee maker is available in two sizes: 1L (34 oz) and 1.5L (51 oz).

OXO BREW Compact Cold Brew Coffee Maker:

This brewer is designed in a way that makes cold brew concentrate that is usually mixed with water or milk when consumed. The OXO is a compact cold brew coffee maker that sits either on your countertop or in the fridge. It is made up of two compartments:

• The brewer – which is where the coffee ground and water distribution happened.

• The carafe, where the cold brew concentrate is stored.

To make the coffee, fill the brewer with your coffee ground to the marked line and then attach it to the carafe. The second step is to fill the water on the top part of the brewer, which OXO calls the ‘Rainmaker’, since it’s designed to ‘rain’ over the grounds and saturate it with water evenly.

You can let the brewer stay on your countertop or in the fridge. The brewing process takes up to 24 hours.

Now for the automatic cold brew coffee maker, Cuisinart DCB-10:

This automatic cold brew coffee maker promises to make you up to 7-cup of cold brew in 25 minutes to 45 minutes for bolder brews. It does this by using a spinning technology that’s able to drastically cut the time to prepare the cold brew.

The cold brew coffee maker looks kind of similar to a drip coffee maker, but it operates differently since it uses cold or room temperature water.

To use this machine, you’re going to fill up the filter basket with ground coffee the fill the water reservoir. It will look similar to the cold brew pitcher. But this is where things get interesting:

Now all you have to do is select your brew strength: mild, medium or bold. Once you’ve selected your desired strength, the machine will go to work and start the process: the filter basket start spinning to speed the process of brewing. It will take anywhere from 25 minutes to 45 minutes depending on the strength you selected.

The carafe has another filter inside it, so when the coffee is dispensed into it, it is filtered for a second time. It is also designed to keep the cold brew stored in it for up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

How To Make Iced Coffee Using a Keurig Coffee Maker:

If you already have a Keurig coffee maker, you’re all set to make your favorite coffee iced. Some Keurig models have an Iced drink option where it will slightly alter the temperature and serving size of the coffee so it doesn’t taste watered down when ice melts. One of the popular models that has this feature is the K-Elite. It’s okay if your machine does not have this feature, we can make a few changes to make up for it.

What You’ll Need:

Your choice of K-Cup will make a lot of difference here. It is recommended that you use a dark roast or use the Strong Brew button if you have that option. The stronger your coffee taste the better, this is what will stop your coffee from tasting watered down with ice.

• A tall glass or cup.

• Ice (obviously).

• Optional: Milk, Creamer or additional flavors.

How To Do It:

There are two ways to do it:

• You can fill up your cup with ice and then brew directly over it. If using a glass, you’ll want to be careful as some glass cups shatter due to temperature shock.

• The second way to do it would be to brew the coffee as usual. And in a separate cup, put in the ice. Let your coffee cool for a few minutes then pour it over the ice.

If you like your iced coffee black, then that’s it, you’ve made it! Otherwise, you can add anything you want to your cup at this point:

Flavored syrup – cold milk – sweetened creamer – get as creative as you like!

NOTE: This same method works when using any drip coffee maker, too.

How To Make Iced Coffee Using a Nespresso Machine:

Nespresso machines are perfect for making iced lattes. Whether you have an Original Line or a Vertuo Line, you can make quick shots of espresso to create your iced latte.

How To Do It:

• Pick a strong capsule (if you prefer a milder taste then go for it). Nespresso has some capsules made especially for iced drinks.

• Fill a tall cup with ice.

• Fill the cup with your choice of milk. If you have a frother, this would be the step where you create cold froth then add it to the glass.

• If you want your Iced latte flavored, it’s recommended you add the flavored syrup to the glass before the milk.

• Now it’s time to brew your shot. You can use a single shot (one capsule) or a double shot (two capsules). If using a Vertuo machine, then you can use one Double Espresso capsule.

Brew directly over the ice, or brew your shots separately then slowly pour them into the cup.

Recommended Ingredients:

How To Instantly Cool Coffee:

Let’s say you made a hot coffee and want to cool it instantly to turn it into iced coffee drink. What do you do? Even placing it in the fridge or freeze will take some time to chill it.

Believe it or not, there’s actually a really nifty tool just for this…The HyperChiller!

HyperChiller cools any beverage in less than under a minute. One of its perfect uses is to chill coffee almost instantly without diluting it.

How does it work?

For this to work, you have to keep your HyperChiller in the freezer always so its ready for next use.

It has a patented multi-chamber design, these chilled chambers, made of stainless steel, hold the beverage between them to rapidly cool it.

HyperChiller is the only way I can think of that will instantly cool your coffee without the need to even ice to it – all in under a minute.