How To Make Cold Brew Coffee At Home: 3 Easy Methods

Some people find it difficult to enjoy a hot cup of coffee during summer, well for them we have a great recipe on how to make cold brew coffee. Better than a local coffee shop. Iced coffee or cold brew coffee always feels better during high temperatures than your hot brew. Though, I enjoy my cold brew coffee even during winters. And I have been doing it in various styles over the years but I find the following three methods to be best for those looking to do cold brew at home with minimum equipment or little fancy equipment. You can choose any one method which works best for you.

Today we are going to look at how to make cold brew coffee, in principle making cold brew coffee is very easy.

Cold Brew Recipe in Brief:

For cold brew, you will need freshly ground coffee beans, steep them in water for 12-24 hours, filter them, pour them over with ice. And you have homemade cold brew coffee. (detailed guide with three different methods is below)

Which are the best beans to use for cold brew coffee? Can I make cold brew with regular coffee grounds?

Some people recommend using leftover coffee or coffee that's getting old, but when you use such kind of coffee your cold brew is also gonna taste like leftover coffee. I highly recommended using the following cold brew coffee beans from our guide. Also, whole coffee beans are best to use and you can grind them before brewing.

Cold Brew coffee tastes best with sweet and fruity ground coffee or coffee beans some of the favorite ones are African coffees, naturally processed Ethiopian coffee is the favorite.

But I would suggest that you can also try and experiment with coffee beans roasted for espresso if you like, it will help you extract coffee better from ground coffee.

Can I Use Decaf Beans for cold brew?

Yes if you are someone who loves decaf cold brew coffee, you can surely go ahead and make your coffee with decaf coffee beans.

The procedure for making cold brew with decaf beans is the same as for the recipe mentioned below you can choose any one of the three which suits you the best. Though the best time for decaf cold brew is to steep the beans for 16 hours than 12-24 hours.

Coffee Concentrate vs Ready To Drink Cold Brew :

Ready to Drink: So for all of you looking to know the water ratio to coffee, well we have two choices, if you are looking to drink your coffee without diluting we would suggest you go with 40gms of coffee to 600 ml of water ratio. ie 40 gms of coarsely ground coffee to 100 ml of water.

Coffee Concentrate: But if you planning to dilute your cold brew coffee with water, milk, or tonic water then you need to go for cold brew concentrate which is 1 gms of coffee beans for every 6 ml of water.

i.e 100 gms of coffee grounds for every 600 ml of water.

Also, 12 hours of steeping if you want a lighter cold brew, 24 hours if you want cold brew concentrate.

Cold Brew Coffee Vs Iced Coffee

Cold-brew extracts the coffee over a very long period of time (12-24 hours), thereby limiting the amount of acidity and bitterness from the coffee taste. Thereby giving you a very smooth and best flavor. It helps avoid being a bitter coffee. Cold Brew doesn't use hot water for brewing unless using hot bloom method for cold brewing.

Whereas iced coffee is made from hot coffee by pouring ice over it and it's made instantly in 3-5 mins. It can have a little bitterness of coffee and higher acidity than cold brew. Sometimes it can taste water down but with our guide on how to make iced coffee, you won't feel watered down taste.

Cold brew coffee also has more caffeine than regular iced coffee.

Out Top 3 methods for making cold brew coffee:

There are various methods and various techniques to do cold brew coffee with various gadgets. We are gonna explore the three most popular and easy-to-do methods for making cold brew coffee at home.

1. Coldbrew coffee immersion technique (Easiest To Do At Home)
2. cold brew coffee with the french press (Easy)
3. Coldbrew coffee with tody method (Gold Standard of Cold Brew)

Alternate: Hot Bloom method, it requires using 1/3 rd water at 205 degrees Fahrenheit ie less than boiling water temperature, and then let it sit for one minute and then immediately adding remaining water which has to be cold you can also use pour-over coffee to get super smooth cold brew coffee.

You can check a detailed guide on how to make cold brew coffee with the hot bloom method.

Method 1: (Easiest at home)

Ingredients Needed:

1. Manual Coffee Grinder
2. Cold Brew Coffee Roast Beans
3. Pitcher
4. Measuring scale
5. Paper Filter
6. Milk (if you like it)
7. Choco & Sugar ( on taste)

Step by Step Guide for making Cold Brew Coffee with immersion technique:

Step 1: Coarsely Grind your coffee beans so that it's easy to extract the coffee during the brewing process. If you have a coffee grinder at home set it to the coarsest setting the one which is used for the french press. The ratio of coffee beans to water is : 40 gms to 600 ml of water

Step 2: Add the coarsely ground coffee to your pitcher, top it with 600 ml of water

Step 3: Let your coffee steep for 12-24 Hours. We would recommend at least 18 hours for the best cold brew coffee.

You will need paper coffee filters to filter the coffee grounds from your cold brew concentrate.

Step 4: Take a cup and add ice cubes from your ice cube tray then add your cold brew coffee concentrate to it. You can always top it up with cold water or milk.

Step 5: you can also add cocoa powder or refined sugar if you love it.

The rest of the brewed coffee you can store in a separate container in the fridge.

Method 2: How to Make Cold Brew Coffee with French Press Technique at Home

Items needed:

1. Freshly roasted coffee Beans
2. Fresh filtered Water
3. Burr Grinder
4. French Press
5. Coffee Filter
6. Milk, cocoa,
7. Coffee ice cubes (optional) or ice cubes

Step by Step guide on making Cold Brew Coffee with French Press

Step 1: Take your freshly roasted coffee beans and grind them coarsely like kosher salt or one which we do for the french press.

Step 2: Add the coffee grounds to the french press and pour water from the top.

Step 3: Place it in the fridge for 12-24 hours so that the ground coffee steeps in the water and coffee brews.

Step 4: remove the cold brew coffee from the fridge. Now slowly press the coffee press so that the fine mesh sieve removes the coffee grounds from our cold brew coffee and we have coffee without any coffee grounds in it.

Step 5: the cold brew is ready to drink, if you want you can always use a cheesecloth to filter the coffee particles from the cold brew coffee.

Step 6: Add ice to your glass and pour the cold brew coffee to it and drink

If you wish you can always add milk or soy milk if you are lactose intolerant. Or add cocoa powder to it if you love chocolate cold brew coffee.

Method 3: How to Make Cold Brew Coffee with Toddy Method

Ingredients:

1. Toddy System
2. Freshly roasted coffee Beans
3. Fresh filtered Water
4. Burr Grinder
5. French Press
6. Coffee Filter
7. Milk, cococa,
8. Coffee ice cubes (optional) or ice cubes

Step by Step Guide On Making Cold Brew With toddy :

Step 1: Set up your Toddy™ System: Place the stopper at the bottom of the toddy, the stopper will be cork-like. Then you have to saturate the 2" circular filter and then place it at the bottom of the container.

Step 2: Pour your grounded coffee into the Toddy™. Add your coffee into the toddy and then add water on top it which will begin saturating the grounds. DO NOT stir, as this may clog the filter. Using the back of a spoon, gently ensure that all the grounds are wet, and then flatten the coffee.

Step 3: Let the coffee steep: undisturbed, for 12-24 hours, depending on how you like it. Start with 12 hours and experiment from there, I like my coffee after 18 hours.

Step 4: Carefully place the brewing container onto the glass decanter. Remove the cork. Allow the coffee to flow into the glass decanter. This will take around 4-5 minutes. DO NOT stir the coffee, as this may clog the filter.

Step 5: Prepare your cup! You have made a cold brew concentrate. We recommend making each cup of iced coffee by combining 1 part coffee concentrate with 1 part water and pouring directly over ice. Mix the coffee how you like it, add milk or soy, and enjoy!

Why should you brew cold coffee?

This coffee-making method has a few things working for it:

The slow infusion helps pull great coffee flavors from the beans. It also helps in avoiding most of the compounds that make coffee taste bitter and sour. Thus making cold-brewed coffee incredibly smooth and almost sweet-like tasting. Perfect than iced coffee.

You can also adjust the concentration of your cold brew coffee, You can make it stronger or milder as per your taste. You can use our brew ratio calculator above for choosing the right mix of coffee.

Start with 100 gms of coffee to 600 ml of water. This will make a fairly concentrated coffee on its own, but it's perfect for pouring over ice or mixing with milk - or both. If that ratio of beans to water isn't quite to your taste, adjust it up or down until you hit the perfect balance for you.

It makes my morning: It saves me time in the morning and it also has higher caffeine content. I make a big batch over the weekend, starting it on Saturday or Sunday night and straining it the next morning, and then stash it in the fridge for an easy coffee fix all week long.

COLD BREW PRODUCT RESOURCES

In conclusion, you can also visit our product resources guide on:

1. Best Cold Brew Coffee Beans
2. Best Manual Grinders
3. Toddy System

I hope this recipe helps and happy brewing!