Cold brew is the most patient coffee there is, and honestly the laziest, in the best possible way. No kettle, no timing your pour, no technique at all. You stir coffee into cold water tonight, go to bed, and wake up to something smooth, sweet, and ridiculously easy to drink. If hot coffee sometimes feels a little harsh, cold brew is your friend: its pH is actually similar to hot coffee, but it carries less of some of the sharp-tasting acids, so it drinks really mellow. Let's make a batch.
What you need
- A big jar, pitcher, or even a French press
- Coffee ground coarse (like raw sugar)
- Cold filtered water
- Something to strain with: a fine mesh sieve plus a paper filter, cheesecloth, or the press itself
The ratio
For ready-to-drink cold brew, go about 1 part coffee to 8 parts water by weight: 100 grams of coffee (roughly 1 1/4 cups of grounds) to 800 grams of water. Want a stronger concentrate you can stash and dilute all week? I've got a whole cold brew concentrate recipe that uses a punchier 1:5.
Step by step
1. Combine and stir
Coarse grounds into the jar, pour the cold water over, and stir until every ground is wet.
2. Steep 12 to 18 hours
Cover it and leave it on the counter for 12 to 14 hours, or in the fridge for 16 to 18. And don't get greedy, longer is not better. Past about 20 hours it starts pulling woody, bitter flavors.
3. Strain
Pour it through a sieve lined with a paper filter, or just plunge it if you used a French press, then get all the liquid off the grounds.
4. Serve
Over ice, with a splash of cream, or straight up. It keeps in the fridge up to a week, which makes it the perfect Sunday-night move for a week of effortless mornings.
The best beans for it
Cold water pulls out sweetness and chocolate beautifully but mutes the bright, delicate stuff, which is why medium and medium/dark roasts shine here. Both of my blends crush it: Rise & Shine goes syrupy and caramel-sweet, and Resurrection Espresso tastes like chocolate milk's grown-up cousin. Specialty-grade beans matter even more in cold brew, because there's nowhere to hide. Fresh and sweet is the whole difference between cold brew you tolerate and cold brew you crave.
