As a professional coffee roaster who sells coldbrew coffee by the cup at the largest farmer’s markets in Las Vegas every weekend I’ve learned a lot about coldbrew coffee, mostly because I ask a lot of questions and am always looking for new ideas and getting good feedback from our customers. We also have over 16 different single origin coffees in stock and have done several coldbrew cuppings to test theories and flavors to find what works best and which types of coffees are more appealing to the average coffee drinker.

I’ve also learned that there actually is no such thing as “the average coffee drinker”. Everyone does have there own unique preferences, but for the purpose of testing and sales I prefer to separate coffee drinkers into different demographics of flavor coniseures, including the lovers of 1) dark roast, 2) sweet coffee, 3) light roast, 4) cream & sugar, 5) traditional hot black coffee drinkers who refuse to even try coldbrew, and lastly the 6) sommelier who appreciates exploring the endless unique flavors that specialty coffees have to offer.

Knowing that everyone has their own coffee preference means that when I recommend a coffee to someone I first need to find out which type of coffee lover they are so I can help them find the best coffees for their preferences. I’m a firm believer that the best cup of coffee for someone is truly whatever cup of coffee they happen to like best. There’s no “wrong” way to make a coffee, there’s only better ways based on your own personal experience, as long as you’re open to testing and trying new coffees and brew methods that might help you find your “new” favorite coffee. “I mean, hey, you won’t know until you try, right!?”

Repeatability and curiosity are the two best traits any coffee lover can have. Repeatability means taking care to measure as many different aspects of a coffee in order to be able to make adjustments to any of those variables in the future, since tweaking each variable will produce different outcomes. Variables include grind size, time since roasting, water temperature, brewing techniques, ratio of water to coffee beans, total brew time, and time between brewing and drinking. This doesn’t mention all of the growing, farm processing, and roasting related variables that also have dramatic impacts on the flavor of the coffee itself before you even start to brew it.

Now to talk about coldbrew. Don’t worry if you’re not already familiar with coldbrew. Often confused with hot brewed coffee poured over ice, aka “iced coffee”, coldbrew is actually made by mixing cold or room temp water with ground coffee and filtering the resulting liquid from the grinds after some time.

As a home barista, if you take care to make your brewing repeatable you’ll be empowered to be able to tweak your brew and discover exactly which kind of coffee and brew method is your favorite for every coffee occasion.

Making Great Coldbrew is Easy

Making coldbrew coffee is literally as simple as soaking coffee grinds in lukewarm water for 1-24 hours and then removing the grinds. This is an extreme simplification of course, but the main principle is exactly this.

Here are the steps needed to brew coldbrew coffee.

How to Make Coldbrew At Home in 4 Easy Steps

1. Mix and stir coffee grinds and water into a waterproof container for brewing making sure all grinds are wet.
2. Set a timer for your desired brew-time, and wait. Typically 8-24 hours. Longer for refrigerator brewing, and shorter for room temperature brewing.
3. To end brew, strain out liquid coldbrew to separate it from the coffee grinds.
4. Serve liquid coldbrew either cold or hot. Then transfer remaining coldbrew into a drink-safe container and store in refrigerator around 39 degrees F. Lasts up to 2 weeks when kept cold.

After 2 weeks at refrigerator temperature the build-up of acetic acid will cause coldbrew to become more bitter and/or sour. The colder the temperature the longer the coldbrew will last. It may also be frozen for longer term storage.

Here’s a breakdown of supplies you’ll need.

Coldbrew Brewing Equipment

1. Coffee grinds. Portion depends on how much liquid coldbrew you want to make, we use 1 gram of coffee for every 8 grams of water (1:8 ratio), although many coffee shops use ratios between 1:10 and 1:16. I recommend using a coffee that was roasted in the past 3 weeks, preferably roasted in the last 2-14 days. Some roasters have coffees they recommend for coldbrewing, but you can technically brew any coffee in any way you’d like. For grinding coffee it’s ALWAYS better to use a Burr Grinder and grind your coffee yourself within 15 minutes of brewing. If you don’t have a Burr Grinder a blade grinder could be used, or you can as the roaster to grind the coffee for you. However blade grinders produce both large and small grinds which means your brew will not be consistent and you will have some grinds overbrewed and some underbrewed. Blade grinders will also make it harder to filter the water from your coffee after brewing.


2. Water Not all water is the same. You should never use distilled water with coffee. It’s good to use good tasting water to brew your coffee. In general it’s best to use some kind of mineral water with a TDS (total dissolved solids) between 90-200. The better your water quality the better the coffee. Water that has low TDS might over brew your coffee and water with too high TDS can under brew your coffee. The minerals and other qualities of your water can also dramatically affect how the organic acids and flavors in your coffee taste.


3. Container for brewing. Making cold brew is really just creating a mixture of coffee and cold water and letting it sit for a while. The sitting or “brewing” action takes place as the water soaks into the ground coffee bits and the water soluble molecules in the coffee get absorbed into the water. The container you choose can literally be anything that you can store drinking water in. Although since coffee can leave a brownish stain on some surfaces it’s wise to find some container you can dedicate to it. Here are some containers that might work great for cold brewing, all should have a very wide mouth opening because you need to out both grinds and water in it. A french press, a 1-5 gallon bucket, a lemoncold brewing, a mason jar, or any device made specifically for coldbrewing.


4. Filter and/or strainer. After brewing your coldbrew coffee you’re going to have to separate the water from the grinds. The best way to do this is with a coldbrew filter bag and strainer that are already the same size or larger than your brewing container. This way at the start of your brewing the filter and strainer can ALREADY be put inside the brewing container first BEFORE you add your water and coffee into your container. Why is this so important? Because separating water from coffee is a cinch if the coffee grinds are ALREADY inside your filter bag. The alternative would be to pour out your coffee through a strainer or filter which can get messy as the wet chunks of coffee unevenly fall out of your container as you pour the liquid coffee mixture out. For small batches you should use a french press with coarse grind, or a single serve coldbrew pitcher with built-in filters which are available online or in any major store.


5. Time. It’s obvious that it takes time to brew coldbrew but it’s not obvious how much time you should let your coldbrew sit brewing before you filter out the coffee grinds. After the brewing is completed you can store your coldbrew up to 2 weeks in your refrigerator, after which the acids in the coffee will build up and make it more acidic and bitter. Brew times for coldbrew can be as short as 1 hour and as long as 36 hours. My preference is to make the brew time match something in your schedule so you can brew overnight easily or have the coffee ready when convenient.

The bigger your coldbrew batch the longer you can save it in your fridge and less you’ll have to make new brew batches, although I don’t recommend brewing more than 2 lbs of coffee grinds at a time unless you have considerable arm strength and can lift 2+ lbs of wet coffee easily.

The more concentrated your coldbrew, using a ratio of less water and more coffee then the more drinkable coldbrew you will get from a single brewed batch. Concentrated batches can also be made with smaller brew devices and are more space saving in your refrigerator. Generally more concentrated brews will also taste fresh for longer periods of time.

Finer Points of Coldbrewing to Consider

There are a few other contextual elements to consider when tweaking your coldbrew process to get the best outcome, I’ve listed each point below with explanations of why they’re important.

1. Grind size: you should generally use a coarser grind with coldbrew. This is because coarse grinds are easier to filter out after brewing is finished and are easier to manage regardless of which filter system you use. I use a coarse grind that is slightly finer than the most coarse grind setting. I use a burr grinder to reduce fine particles as much as possible. I also use a Toddy paper filter to reduce coffee sediment buildup in my brews. Even if you were able to filter out fine particles, the time it takes for water to strain out of very fine grinds is very long and it can be very cumbersome or labor intensive to get all your liquid out of it.



2. Brew Time vs Temperature: I brew my coldbrew 9-12 hours with 2 minutes of stirring at the start to wet all grinds and 2 minutes of stirring at the end to loosen up grinds and make it easier to filter. The best options are whatever is easiest for you. I leave mine at room temperature overnight with a lid on it to prevent any foreign objects from getting in. You can brew yours in a refrigerator too but you will need 30-50% more brew time to get the same affect compared to room temperature brewing because the molecules in colder water move slower.



3. Stirring: To speed up your brewing at any time you can simply stir or agitate your coldbrew mixture. Stirring up the grinds in the water helps speed up the brewing action. If you were to stir your coldbrew non-stop you could probably achieve a similar brew in 1 hour that you would in 9 hours sitting still at room temperature.



4. Ratios: (Ratio of water to coffee.) Pay close attention to your ratio of water to coffee. I brew my coldbrew at a ratio of 1:6 with 1 gram of coffee for every 6 grams(ml) of water. 1 gram of water = 1 ml of water. After I brew I add water to make my ratio 1:8. This ratio is just at the limit of how dark I can drink coldbrew straight. If you prefer to drink coldbrew lighter you can just add water when you serve it. There is a huge advantage to brewing and storing your coldbrew as a concentrate, because you can brew more coffee, use a smaller container, and use up less space in your refrigerator after your brewing is finished.



5. Batch size & Draining: It is a big time and convenience saver to brew larger batches of coldbrew, but be wary of batch sizes that use 3 lbs of coffee or more. If you’re using a large bucket for brewing like I do with my Toddy filter & strainer in a 5 ballon bucket. I have to lift the entire wet strainer containing the mass of wet coffee grinds out of the bucket, wring it slightly to remove the large pool of coldbrew stuck inside it, and then hoist it above the bucket to put a strainer underneath it which site on the top rim edge of the bucket while the coffee drips out of it for 15 minutes. This process takes exponentially more arm strength the closer you get to 5 pounds of coffee grinds. 5 lbs of wet coffee grinds in a Toddy strainer can weigh up to 35 lbs when you initially lift it up out of the bucket. I recommend only brewing 2.5 lbs of coffee at a time unless you know for sure that you can lift 25+ lbs with one arm, or you have help. There are other brew systems that have a strainer at the bottom of the bucket with a spout, but these can take much longer time to remove the coldbrew liquid from depending on the filter hole sizes, grind size, and spout diameter. I find the bucket method strains out the liquid very quickly, but can require considerable arm strength for batch sizes over 2 lbs.



6. Type of Coffee to UseThere really is no such thing as a coffee bean that is just right for coldbrew. This is because everyone has different taste preferences. But here are some general guidelines to follow. Use a fresh roasted coffee from a local or specialty coffee roaster. Experiment with brighter lighter roasted coffees, darker roasts, and different origins. Try sampling the coldbrews served at local independent coffee shops that know the origin of the coffee beans and ask them why they chose that bean. Ask a coffee roaster for a variety pack of samples of different coffees to try out as coldbrew.

Coldbrewed coffee IS a unique and different experience than tasting coffee that is brewed using hot water. The expression of flavors in coldbrew are new and fun to experience and is sure to be an enlightening journey for any coffee lover. You may be surprised at the convenience and simplicity involved in making coldbrew for yourself. All you really need is water and coffee!

What’s your favorite way to make coldbrew coffee? And which coffee beans, process, roast, and origin do you personally like the most? Comment below.