How to Make Cold Brew at Home

With more people brewing at home than ever before, some people are probably missing their cafe favorites. Making Cold Brew coffee at home is much easier than you might expect and it’s a great way to beat the San Diego heat. Follow these steps and you’ll be on your way to sipping some tasty Cold Brew.

What You Will Need

1. Coffee (Whole Bean works best)
2. Coffee Grinder
3. Two 16oz Mason Jars
4. Water 
5. Scale (Any common kitchen scale works)
6. Coffee Filter (Any will do the trick)

Suggested buy not needed – Hario V60

Now that you have all of your items, it’s time to get started.

1. Choose Your Coffee

First things first, choose your coffee. We recommend anything that is a light to medium roast. Once you go above that more earthy, bitter flavors come out which may not be enjoyable for some. We are using our Barrio Logan medium roast as it is one of my personal favorites.

2. Weigh Your Coffee – 57 grams

It is important to have the correct ratio of coffee and water for taste. For this 16oz recipe, we recommend using 57 grams of coffee for the best flavor and caffeine content.

3. Grind Your Coffee

A coarse grind works best for Cold Brew. This allows the water to extract all of the flavors from the beans and also makes filtering later much easier. Any grinder will do the trick.

4. Place in a Jar and Fill With Water

Once your coffee is ground, you’ll want to put it in your mason jar. Give the jar a small shake to even out the grinds and fill with water. Since coffee is mostly water, we recommend using filtered water for a better flavor, but tap water will do just fine.

5. SHAKE!

Put the lid on and give that jar a good shake. Make sure all the grounds are getting saturated for an even extraction of coffee. You may even want to add a little more water and shake again.

6. Place in Refrigerator and Wait 24 Hours

Cold Brew is best when it steeps for 18-24 hours. We like ours to steep for the full 24 hours to get all of the flavors that we can. If you forgot about your Cold Brew, it’s probably still pretty tasty as long as its under 48 hours.

7. Filter

There’s a lot of ways to do this next step. The way we find the easiest is by using a Hario V60 with a metal filter, but any paper filter or even cheesecloth should do the trick. Let the Cold Brew filter from the grounds and into your second mason jar. Let sit for at least 30 minutes to let all of the goodness seep out.

8. Enjoy!

The Cold Brew will be pretty strong after it’s finished. If that’s the way you like it, you can drink it as it is. You could dilute it with some more water or milk to take the edge off. You could also get a little fancy and make your own Cold Brew Concoction like our Finest City or Cabrillo.

That’s all there is to it. There are many other brewing methods, but after a lot of trial and error, we found this one to be our favorite. The Cold Brew is best when consumed within 2-3 days. If you want to make more Cold Brew, simply multiply the recipe. We recommend using different roasts and playing around with the recipe until you find something you love.