How to Make Cold Brew Coffee at Home

Iced coffee .

We all want it .

There's so many recipes and contraptions out there to make cold brew .

And we've been testing them for a few years to see what the best easiest way really is .

If you strip down the process of making cold brew , all you really need is a container , some sort of straining device and coarsely ground coffee .

For all the brewing methods we're describing , you're going to be producing a coffee concentrate , which is really strong .

If you're going to want to dilute it with water or one of the most popular methods of making cold brew is using a French press .

A lot of people just have a French press lying around .

So this is a really easy way to make cold brew without buying anything extra .

You add your grounds to the bottom , fill it up with water and then put your plunger on top and wait 12 to 24 hours after that , you just plunge away pretty much ready to drink a small drawback to this method is that the filter in a French press isn't fine enough to actually get the sediment out .

So there's going to be a lot of tiny bits left in your coffee .

And if you think sediment in hot coffee is unpleasant , it's even worse than a cold drink .

Another popular method is just to use a mason jar and some cheesecloth .

This is probably the cheapest method you'll find and it definitely works .

But it's kind of a hassle to get the cold root .

Concentrate after you've filled your container with coarsely ground coffee and enough water , you'll have to like , basically tie it off with twine or a rubber band after you've waited for the 12 to 24 hours and then pour it into another container .

The problems come when you're actually trying to do this pouring .

Oh , it's pretty much just waiting for this to happen .

It's very slow and there's nothing really you can do here .

You just have to like , wait like this .

I don't know .

I have better things to do with my life .

This , this will take like 20 minutes .

Ok .

All right .

All right .

We're done .

Cheese cloth can get really clogged up , especially by coffee .

And so when I used to do this , I would have to move the cheese cloth around a lot , which is a little bit of a hassle .

And then once you've done that , the concentrate that you're left with is still not really clean .

It still tastes gritty , it still tastes , you can still taste the sediment and feel the sediment in your mouth .

And you know , as with the French press , that's not pleasant .

Our favorite cheap method for making cold brew is using a nut milk bag .

A nut bag has a really interesting design where it kind of acts in the same way as a tea bag does .

You can basically drape the opening of the nut milk bag around the opening of your mason jar and drop it in and all your coffee grounds will stay inside of the bag .

Once you're finished brewing , you can just like take this bag and pull it right out and then you can just like toss these out and then you have your coffee concentrate already right here .

No extra pouring .

It's not very fussy , but it's still imperfect the concentrate that you actually get out of this .

Still has a lot of the textural problems that our other sheath methods have had .

It's still a little gritty , it's still a little grainy and it tends to be not perfectly extracted .

If you want to get a clean texture , you can pass this through a paper filter , but you can't really do anything to fix that extraction .

At this point , we tested all three of these methods alongside various equipment specifically designed for making cold brew .

And even though it would be great to not have to buy anything extra to get that cup of coffee , we do think the results are noticeably better when you do our two favorite cold brew making kits are the Oxo cold room maker and the filtr cold brew maker .

The reason we love the oxo and why it's our top pick .

It's because it's so easy to set up and so easy to use .

Once you've actually added your ground coffee and your water in through this little rainmaker , this is called the rainmaker .

All you have to do after you've waited your 12 hours to brew is just push this little lever and then the coffee will go straight down .

It's kind of like magic .

The fact that it just stays up .

I mean , it's not magic , it's mechanics and the coffee produced by this is really tasty .

It has like a really , really fine mesh filter .

And so the consonant you get out of it is very clean .

It's not like oily or anything .

It just tastes good .

Another cold brew maker we like is the ft the process for brewing is similar to the oxo similar to any of our cheap methods .

You add coffee grounds to the main chamber and then add water on top of it and wait .

And the coffee produced by the is really good in every test that we've done for the last three rounds .

Tasters have liked coffee from the Filton more than any other method we've tried .

It just like has a full body that none of the other coffee makers or colder makers have achieved .

But the reason it's not our top pick is because it's a little bit more finicky you have to pull out this little rubber stopper yourself .

And I've never been able to use it and actually do that without spilling a little bit around on the counter .

You know , that's not a huge deal , but it is like kind of annoying .

Another drawback to the filtr is the reusable filter .

It's this felt filter that fits perfectly into a spot at the bottom of this brew chamber , but it's gross .

It's reusable and it just like , it's just like very hard to clean .

The company recommends like running it underwater until the water runs clear between every use .

Then occasionally boiling it in hot water , in between uses .

You're actually supposed to keep it inside of this little container in your fridge .

And you know , that's just weird .

I think it's just weird .

So that's why we prefer the Oxo a little bit more than the filtrate .

It's just easier to use , easier to clean and it makes coffee that's almost as good .

Of course , using cold makers involve spending a little bit of extra money .

Each one , each round tends to produce about like 10 to 12 cups worth of concentrate , which if you're drinking cold brew pretty regularly after not that long of a time that will pay for itself .

But if you value convenience and taste above everything else , we think these are the best options for getting your fix at home .

We ended up getting the best tasting coffee from this guy the oxo cold brew maker .

Wow .

Oh , sorry , that was sorry , sorry .

I don't know how that happened .

Come on down .