How to Make Cold Brew Coffee

Cold brew is the least demanding method on this site. Water never gets hot, so the compounds that make coffee taste sharp or bitter are mostly never extracted at all. What you get instead is sweet, heavy, and very low in acidity — and it takes about four minutes of actual work spread across a day.

Start with this recipe

This makes roughly 500ml of ready-to-drink cold brew.

1. Combine 60g coarse-ground coffee with 600g cool water in a jar or brewer.
2. Stir until no dry pockets remain. Dry clumps float and never extract.
3. Cover and steep 12–16 hours at room temperature, or 18–24 hours in the fridge.
4. Strain through a fine mesh sieve, then through a paper filter if you want it cleaner.
5. Serve over ice.

Steeping on the counter extracts faster than steeping in the fridge, so if you refrigerate, push toward the longer end of the range.

Ready-to-drink or concentrate

This is the decision that confuses most people, and it is just a choice of ratio.

Concentrate is the more practical choice if you drink cold brew regularly. It takes up less fridge space, keeps slightly better, and lets you decide the strength in the glass rather than at brew time. Dilute it 1:1 to start, then adjust.

Remember that ice dilutes too. A glass filled with ice can add 50–100g of water as it melts, which is enough to make a well-judged ready-to-drink batch taste thin by the bottom of the glass. Brewing slightly strong and pouring over ice is the fix.

Grind and steep time

Coarse, like sea salt. Cold brew’s long steep makes fine grounds a liability: they over-extract into harshness and turn straining into a slow, silty mess.

• Too fine — muddy, woody, hard to filter, bitter despite the cold water.
• Too coarse — flat and weak even after a full steep.

Steep time is a gentler dial than grind. Between 12 and 16 hours at room temperature, most of the difference is strength rather than quality. Push much beyond that — or past about 24 hours in the fridge, where extraction runs slower — and coffee starts picking up woody, papery flavors that no dilution will fix.

Filtering

Straining well is what separates good cold brew from gritty cold brew.

1. First pass: a fine mesh sieve, or lift out the brewer’s basket. Let it drain on its own — do not squeeze or press the grounds, which forces bitter fines through.
2. Second pass (optional): a paper filter, a cloth, or a paper-lined sieve. Slow, but it removes the silt that makes cold brew taste heavy on the tongue.

If you are using a French press as a cold brew vessel, plunge gently and decant everything immediately. Coffee left sitting on the grounds keeps extracting even cold.

Storage and freshness

Keep finished cold brew refrigerated in a clean, sealed container.

• Undiluted concentrate: best within about 7–10 days.
• Ready-to-drink or diluted: best within 2–3 days, since it is mostly water.

It rarely spoils dramatically; it fades. Aroma goes first, then sweetness, leaving something flat and cardboard-like. Make batches you can finish rather than brewing a large jar you will still be working through next week.

Adding milk shortens that window considerably — mix it by the glass, not by the jar.

Fix the cup

Cold brew is not iced coffee

Two different drinks, often confused on menus:

• Cold brew is brewed cold from the start. Smooth, sweet, low-acid, and slow.
• Iced coffee is brewed hot and then chilled. It keeps the brightness and acidity that cold brewing leaves behind.

If you want cold coffee that still tastes fruity and sharp, you want the second one — brew pourover directly onto ice, replacing about a third of the water with the ice in the carafe so it does not end up watery. If you want smooth and chocolatey, cold brew is the right tool.

For more on why the same beans taste different depending on temperature and method, see flavor profiles.