Cold Brew Coffee: The Method, The Recipe, The Kit
Cold brew has a bit of a reputation problem. To some people it just means "iced coffee," to others it's a £4 can from the supermarket chiller, and to a fair few it sounds like more faff than it's worth. None of that is quite right. Cold brew is one of the easiest ways to make coffee at home, and once you've got the ratio sorted, it's very hard to mess up.
This is everything we think you actually need to know: what cold brew is, the kit that makes it easy, our go-to recipe, and which of our coffees we'd reach for first.
Cold brew isn't just "cold coffee"
The name causes most of the confusion. Cold brew has nothing to do with iced coffee, which is just hot coffee (usually espresso or a strong filter brew) poured over ice. Iced coffee is fast and hot-extracted. Cold brew is slow and never sees heat at all.
Instead, cold brew steeps coarse coffee grounds in cold or room-temperature water for anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. No heat means a much slower, gentler extraction. Because you're not pulling out the compounds that heat brings with it, the result is naturally lower in acidity, smoother, and rounder than hot-brewed coffee, closer to chocolate and caramel than the brighter, sharper notes you'd get from a V60 or espresso.
It's also strong. Cold brew is normally made as a concentrate, then diluted with water, milk, or more ice before drinking, which is one of the reasons it keeps so well in the fridge.
What you actually need
The appeal of cold brew is that it doesn't ask much of your kitchen. A few options, from simple to slightly more serious:
A jar and a sieve. Genuinely, this is enough. A large jug or kilner jar, a fine mesh sieve, and a piece of muslin cloth or a paper filter will get you a perfectly good cold brew. This is the cheapest way in and a sensible place to start if you've never made it before.
A dedicated cold brew maker, like the Hario Cold Brew Coffee Pot. It has a built-in mesh filter basket, so you just add your grounds, pour over water to the fill line, and leave it in the fridge — no separate filtering step, no muslin cloth, no faff. This is the one we'd point most people towards if cold brew is going to become a regular thing rather than a one-off experiment.
A French press. If you've already got one sitting on the shelf, it works well for cold brew too. Steep as normal, then plunge to separate the grounds from the liquid. Just be aware you may need to double filter if you are using this method. Our first French press cold brew was triple filtered using Hario V60's, as you can see.
Whichever you use, the constant is a coarse grind. Cold brew needs a grind similar to (or slightly coarser than) a cafetière — think sea salt rather than table salt. Too fine, and you'll get a cloudy, over-extracted brew that's a nightmare to filter cleanly.
Our cold brew recipe
This makes a concentrate, which you dilute to taste. It's not the only way to do it, but it's a reliable starting point.
Ratio: 1 part coffee to 5 parts water, by weight (so 100g coffee to 500ml water)
Method:
- Grind your coffee coarse. Closer to a cafetière grind than a filter grind.
- Add the grounds to your jar, jug or cold brew maker.
- Pour over cold or room-temperature water, making sure all the grounds are saturated.
- Cover and leave at room temperature or in the fridge for 12–24 hours. Room temperature extracts a little faster; the fridge is slower but keeps things fresher for longer if you're not around to filter it promptly. 16–18 hours is a good starting point.
- Filter through a sieve lined with muslin or a paper filter, or use your cold brew maker's built-in filter. You may need to filter twice if it's still cloudy.
- Store the concentrate in the fridge for up to two weeks.
To serve, we'd start around 1 part concentrate to 1 part water or milk, and adjust from there. Some people like it stronger, some like it properly stretched out over ice.
Our coffee recommendations for cold brew
Cold brew has a habit of getting used as a dumping ground for whatever's cheapest, on the theory that you can't taste the difference once it's over ice. We'd argue the opposite, and it's exactly why we like using our single origins for it. The long, gentle steep is a genuinely good way to taste what makes a single origin different, without any of the sharpness that heat brewing can bring. You get all the character, none of the harshness.
Brazil Fazenda Cachoeira — naturally sweet and low in acidity to begin with, which makes it an easy, obvious choice for cold brew. Expect nutty, caramel notes that come through clean over ice, with none of the sharp edges you sometimes get from hot brewing.
Uganda Mt Elgon — this one keeps more of its fruit and brightness than most coffees do after a long cold steep, so it's the pick if you want your cold brew to taste like something rather than just "smooth." A good one to try if you've only ever cold brewed darker coffees before.
Our honest recommendation: try both. Brazil Fazenda Cachoeira if you want a straightforward, crowd-pleasing glass of cold brew; Uganda Mt Elgon if you want to see just how much character a single origin can hold onto even after 18 hours in the fridge. Either way, you're tasting the coffee, not just "cold coffee."
A few things worth knowing
It's not decaffeinated. Cold brew concentrate is strong, and because it's often served over ice with less overall liquid than a cup of filter, the caffeine hit can genuinely be higher, not lower.
Time matters more than temperature. If your brew tastes weak, give it longer next time rather than adding more coffee. If it tastes bitter or harsh, you've probably gone too far, pull the steep time back an hour or two.
Don't skip the filtering. Coarse grounds and cold water still leave fines behind. A proper filter (paper or muslin) is the difference between a clean, smooth cup and something a bit gritty.
Cold brew rewards patience rather than precision, which makes it a nice one to have on the go over a weekend. Set it up on Saturday morning, and by Sunday you've got a fridge full of coffee ready whenever you want it.