Cold Brew

If you follow these simple steps, you can’t get wrong. I mean, maybe you can, but you’d probably have to be a 5-year-old playing around with coffee. Which, we hope you’re not.

1. Measure Your Coffee And Water

The ratio of water and coffee that you use to make your cold brew will help guide both the strength and flavor of your cold brew. For a nicely balanced cold brew concentrate, a common ratio is 1:5.

2. Grind Your Coffee Beans On A Coarse Setting

This is probably THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP in making cold brew.

You need to use very coarse coffee grounds, coarser than the typical preground coffee at your grocery store. With such a long steeping time, fine grounds will over-extract, and your cold brew will taste bitter or astringent, the opposite of that smooth flavor you’re craving.

3. Combine Coffee And Water

Brewing cold brew could hardly be simpler, especially if you have a dedicated tool like a Filtron or Toddy brewer. Simply combine the coffee and water at the ratio you determined, give it a good stir, and patience is the name of the game.

4. Set A Timer And Begin Steeping

The steeping time can vary a little bit depending on your grind size. We recommend experimenting with times between 14 and 20 hours, with 16 hours being a great starting point. 

If you don’t steep long enough, your concentrate will be WEAK and WATERY, but if you steep too long, it can taste bitter or astringent.

If possible, steep in your fridge. If your brewer/jar does not fit in your fridge, it’s okay to steep at room temperature, but get it in the fridge as soon as it’s done. Alternatively, you can build an ice bath with a bowl and some ice and use that to steep on your counter.

5. Strain And Filter Into A Clean Vessel Or Jar

If you’re using a big batch brewer, it will already have some type of paper filter. If you’re using a mason jar; strain your brew through cheesecloth, or use a coffee filter and filter it like you would with drip coffee. Store your cold brew coffee in the fridge.

6. Dilute, Flavor, And Enjoy

Once you’ve made your concentrate, there are tons of delicious things you can do with it.

The most common is to simply add milk or water at a ratio of 1:1, pour over some ice cubes, and enjoy. But feel free to experiment with more cold brew recipes from caffeinated popsicles to a cold brew martini.