How to Brew Cold Brew Coffee

April 17, 2026 Travis Hasenour

The first time I saw “cold brew” coffee being served in a coffee shop, I thought, oh wow I wonder what fancy process they use to brew that. I imagined a giant steel vat and the barista wearing safety gear and pouring liquid nitrogen into the coffee like it’s a futuristic space propellant—all in the back of the coffee shop. PFFT. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It’s literally coffee grounds and room-temp water. That's it. So let’s get into the why and how for cold brew coffee.

Why we love cold brew

🚗 Great for busy bitches on the go

One of the biggest advantages of cold brew coffee is that it’s something you can make ahead of time. Instead of brewing coffee every morning, you can prepare a batch of cold brew concentrate, and quickly make a morning latte by pouring the coffee over ice and adding syrup and milk. Boom, done.

😋 Brew to your taste

Cold brew is highly flexible. You can change the strength of the coffee by:

Using more or less coffee grounds
Brewing at room temperature or in the refrigerator
Brewing for shorter or longer periods of time
- Cold brew is typically steeped for anywhere between 6 and 24 hours. I find that 8-12 hours makes a balanced extraction at room-temp.
- This long steeping process extracts flavor slowly without heat, producing coffee that is generally smoother and less acidic than hot brewed coffee
Adjusting the coffee-to-water ratio
- You can brew a concentrate with a ratio of 1:4 or 1:5 coffee to water. Or you can make a weaker brew for ready-to-drink coffee.

🧊 Only the simplest equipment needed

Because cold brew coffee is brewed at room temp, you don’t need a coffee maker. All you need is a container to hold water, and way to filter out the coffee grounds.

Buy a cold brew pitcher — For about $20, you can buy a cold brew pitcher that has a metal infuser to hold the coffee grounds. This is how I personally make my coffee concentrate. It’s convenient.
Or for a more broke-bitch method — Use a quart-sized mason jar, or a regular-ass pitcher you already have. The only thing is you’ll need to filter out the coffee grounds either while it’s brewing or after it’s done.
- You can buy cold brew steeping bags, they’re just extra large tea bags.
- Or you can strain the coffee grounds after brewing by pouring through a strainer like a fine mesh or a cheese cloth. Be careful to give the water time to drip through, or you’ll spill all over the counter.

🫘 Don’t forget: Use coffee with a coarse grind

Cold brew works best with coarsely ground coffee, similar to the texture of coarse sea salt. Coarser grounds prevent over-extraction and bitterness during the long steeping process. If you use too fine of a grind, more surface area is in contact with water, so it will extract too many compounds and create bitter or muddy flavors. We don’t want that. We want a smooth and sweet cold brew.

Our Cold Brew Recipe (1:5 Ratio)

Here’s the cold brew recipe we coffee gays use! This produces a strong concentrate that needs to be diluted with milk to make a latte or water to make an iced coffee.

Ingredients

170 grams coffee, coarsely ground
Water
Half-gallon pitcher

Instructions

Add 170 grams of coarsely ground coffee to your pitcher.
Slowly the pitcher completely with water. Stir gently to ensure all the grounds are saturated.
Let the mixture brew for 12 hours at room temperature.
Strain out the coffee grounds using a filter, strainer, or cheesecloth.