Copyright ©  2011 Yimes Media. Privacy Policy | Affiliate Disclaimer

Yimes Media, (A. Scott Williams), is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com

The actual process of  preparing cold brew coffee is not complex or difficult.

In fact  the short answer to the question how to cold brew coffee is: put coffee grinds in room temperature water and let it sit for a period of time and then filter out the grinds.

To get it right, takes a little more planning, but not much!

There are three variables that need to line up to make coffee that suits your taste.  How you adjust these variables will result in different tasting cold brew coffee.

The variables are:

Obviously the darker the coffee the stronger the resulting cold brew coffee concentrate will be.  Cold brew coffee generally is smoother and less robust than heat brewed coffee, so if you like a medium brew, start with a dark roast and if you like a dark brew start with an extra dark roast.

Regardless of the type of coffee you pick  to cold brew, you should choose medium grind or coarse grind coffee.  There are two reasons for this.  First the longer coffee is ground the more heat it is exposed to resulting in more acid.  Second, medium and course grinds are easier to filter and most cold brew systems call for a medium to coarse grind

This should be fairly straightforward to most:  the more coffee you use, or alternatively the less water you use the stronger the resulting cold brew coffee concentrate will be.

A General rule of thumb is to use 16 ounces (or one pound) of ground coffee and 9 cups of water to make a standard cold brew coffee concentrate.

More water will result in a weaker concentrate and conversely more coffee will result in a stronger cold brew coffee concentrate.

The general rule for 16 ounces of coffee and 9 cups of water is to brew it for 12 hours.

We have found that this is a minimum recommendation for brewing time.  

See our tip on how to cold brew coffee more economically for more information, but it rarely hurts to make a stronger cold brew coffee concentrate because it is easier and more economical to dilute the concentrate than it is to add more. For this reason we recommend 18 hours.

Because cold brew coffee is less acidic and smoother than heat brewed coffee, we have found that it helps to over brew your cold brew coffee.

What we mean is that a stronger concentrate is usually better.  You will get he same amount of concentrate but you can use less when mixing it with water or milk to make your cup of coffee.

By brewing a strong concentrate you cut the amount you use per cup thereby making each batch last longer.

How do you make a stronger brew?

You can add more grinds or cut the water, but doing this results in added cost or less final product.  Instead brew it a little longer.  Try 18 hours instead of 12.

Or you could pick stronger coffee.  If you like a medium cup of coffee, go for extra dark coffee grinds and then just add less of the concentrate , thereby saving you more for later.

One of the easiest and cleanest ways to actually cold brew coffee is to use a cold brew coffee maker like the Toddy Cold Brew Coffee System we review here.

You can also use a large french press.  Just put the water and grinds in the press, let it sit for 12-18 hours and then press and drain into a carafe for later use.  The problem with this method is finding a french press big enough to hold enough grinds and water to make the time needed worth it.

Because the process is so simple, you could use a plain old bucket. Again, all you do is mix the right amount of coffee with the right amount of water and let it sit for the right amount of time and then filter the cold brew coffee concentrate through a filter and store for later use.

For a list of ratios of coffee grinds to water and other  cold brew coffee recipe tips see our cold brew coffee recipe page here.