Cold Brew Concentrate: One Batch, a Week of Coffee

Cold brew concentrate is basically meal prep for coffee: twenty minutes of effort on Sunday, and every morning that week your coffee is already made and waiting in the fridge like a gift from your past self. Strong, smooth, ridiculously convenient. Here's how I batch it.

Concentrate vs regular cold brew

Regular cold brew (a 1:8 ratio) is ready to drink as-is. Concentrate uses a stronger 1:5 ratio so you dilute it to taste, which means one jar does everything: cut it with water for black coffee, pour it over ice with milk for a latte, even mix it into recipes.

What you need

• 200g coarsely ground coffee (about 2 1/2 cups of grounds)
• 1,000g (1 liter) cold filtered water
• A big jar or pitcher, and something to strain with

How to make it

1. Combine

Grounds in the jar, water on top, stir until everything's soaked.

2. Steep 16 hours

Counter or fridge, covered. Sunday evening to Monday morning is the natural rhythm.

3. Strain twice

Once through a mesh sieve to catch the grounds, once through a paper filter or cheesecloth for a clean, silky result. Don't squeeze the grounds, that just pushes bitter sediment through.

4. Store

Sealed in the fridge, it keeps beautifully for 7 to 10 days.

How to serve it

• Iced coffee: 1 part concentrate, 1 part water, over ice.
• Iced latte: 1 part concentrate, 1 part cold milk (full iced latte recipe).
• Hot coffee, weirdly enough: 1 part concentrate, 1 part just-boiled water. Smooth and instant.

Dial It Your Way

• Stronger: dilute less (try 2 parts concentrate to 1 part water), or steep the full 18 hours.
• Smoother/milder: dilute more, and don't steep past 20 hours or it turns woody.
• Sweeter: stir in a little simple syrup or maple (dissolves in cold way better than granulated sugar).

Cold water pulls chocolate and caramel and leaves the harsh stuff behind, so medium and medium/dark roasts shine. Rise & Shine makes a syrupy, caramel-forward concentrate; Resurrection Espresso leans full-on chocolate milkshake. Since concentrate is coffee with the volume turned up, specialty-grade beans matter double here.