Have you ever brewed a pot of coffee and had a bunch of it left over that you don’t want to throw away? Yeah, I’ve run into this dilemma too. After a little research I came across the option of freezing brewed coffee.
Can you freeze brewed coffee?
Yes, you can freeze brewed coffee. Although the coffee ice cubes won’t have the same fresh taste on their own they’re a great option to put in fresh coffee to cool it down or to put in an ice coffee drink. There’s also a wide variety of food, dessert, and smoothie recipes that use coffee as an ingredient.
During my research I even found a number of other good uses for freezing the brewed coffee I wasn’t going to drink. I think this is especially important as the number of iced coffee drinkers is increasing dramatically. And the younger the age group the higher the percentage of iced coffee drinkers there are.
What Happens If You Freeze Coffee
Coffee is a deodorizer, and that’s also one of the reasons you shouldn’t store coffee beans in your refrigerator or freezer before brewing. So you shouldn’t just throw the brewed coffee in an ice cube tray and put them in the freezer. You need to put the coffee in a sealed tray or at least cover an ice cube tray in saran wrap. Does that sound weird? Well, it’s true.
Coffee will take in the smells of the freezer, and if your frozen coffee is exposed to the air in the freezer and you put those cubes in fresh coffee you might notice the flavors to be a little off.
If you pulled the coffee ice cubes out of the freezer and tried to reheat them and drink them you’d be a little disappointed. The loss of flavor is pretty drastic. That’s why we need to have other reasons for freezing brewed coffee where this loss of flavor isn’t a big deal.
Can You Freeze Brewed Coffee With Milk Or Sugar In It
If you’re going to freeze brewed coffee it’s recommended to do it for black coffee only.
If you added milk or creamer the mixture it will freeze into an ice cube. The caveat to this is that the ice cube won’t look very nice coming out of the freezer. The milk and coffee will separate and will look kind of messy. Also, the texture of the milk will become grainy and the flavor of the milk would be slightly affected.
It get’s a little more complicated if you add sugar into the mix. Adding sugar will lower the freezing point of the coffee (which is mostly water) and the molecular motion is different. As the coffee freezes at the top the sugar will drop to the bottom of the tray creating a situation where there’s so much sugar the bottom of the cube will be difficult to freeze. Since part of the might not freeze you begin to run the risk of pulling bad coffee out of the freezer.
Turn Your Brewed Coffee Into Ice Cubes
Freezing brewed coffee and making them into ice cubes might be the most useful thing you an do with your extra coffee. As mentioned earlier, they work great in other coffees because you won’t have to worry about watering your coffee down.
What’s the best things to do with these frozen coffee ice cubes? Here’s some ideas:
- Iced Coffee in Ice Coffee: If you like iced coffee than this is a totally logical step. The coffee ice cubes will not dilute your iced coffee like water ice would. This is a big win.
- Coffee Smoothies: There’s a lot of coffee smoothie recipes that are delicious. Again, you won’t have to worry about diluting your smoothie down with ice and the smoothie should have a more impactful flavor.
- Cool Down Your Coffee: Have you ever poured a cup of Joe that is just too hot? You need to wait a few minutes to drink it just so your mouth doesn’t catch on fire. Well, enter the coffee ice cube. This will solve your problem and not dilute your coffee.
Save Brewed Coffee For Recipes
We just mentioned that focused more on what to do with ice cubes and adding them to your coffee or a smoothie. But did you know there’s also a lot of food and dessert recipes that also call for coffee? But you can use your frozen coffee in these recipes rather than making a brand new pot of coffee to cook with or risk the coffee going bad quickly by storing it in the refrigerator.
Coffee is acidic and is actually a nice additive to a recipe. It works well in a similar setting that you might otherwise add vinegar. You can use coffee as a substitute to vinegar or you can create your own recipe with coffee if you’re feeling creative.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
It’s best to drink coffee ice cubes within 2 weeks of freezing, but brewed coffee will last as long as 2 months in the freezer. Although you can drink it after two months the flavor will be extremely compromised, and the flavor and quality of the coffee will both be lost.
A coffee shop won’t want to freeze coffee that’s been sitting around to later serve to their customers as it could potentially be a health risk. Also, with the amount of coffee ice cubes a shop would need it would also take a lot of resources to make, store, and maintain coffee ice cubes. This would increase store costs which would also increase the costs for the drink.
Freezing whole bean or ground coffee before brewing is not recommended. Coffee is a deodorizer and will take on other flavors in the freezer. This will impact the coffees flavor along with decreasing the oils in the bean and you will end up with a weaker tasting coffee.
Final Thoughts
Can you freeze brewed coffee? You bet! Before writing this article I started making a tray of coffee ice cubes covered with saran wrap. For me, my main motive is to cool down my coffee a little after it’s brewed. I’m just not the type of person to like really hot drinks.
I’ve found that freezing brewed coffee was a perfect solution to my hot coffee problem. I didn’t need to wait 20-30 minutes for the coffee to cool down, and the coffee didn’t taste watered down at all. So the coffee ice cubes was a perfect solution for me. The next time I have more coffee cubes left over I think I’ll try some of the recipes!