How to Make Cold Brew Coffee at Home

Quick Summary

Cold brew coffee is coffee brewed with cold or room temperature water instead of hot water. The slow extraction — typically 16–24 hours — produces a smooth, naturally sweet concentrate with significantly less bitterness and acidity than traditional hot-brewed coffee. You don't need special equipment. A jar, some coarsely ground coffee, water, and a strainer are all it takes.

We get asked about cold brew constantly at farmers markets. Once the weather turns warm in the Chicago suburbs, it's the first thing people want to talk about. The good news: making cold brew at home is one of the simplest brewing methods out there, and it rewards fresh coffee more than almost any other method.

Key Takeaways:

One reason cold brew is so popular is that the equipment list is almost comically short. You probably already own everything you need. Here's what to gather before you start.

That's it. No goose-neck kettle, no thermometer, no scale (though a scale helps if you want precision). Cold brew is the most forgiving brewing method you'll find.

This method produces a ready-to-drink cold brew (not a concentrate). If you prefer concentrate that you dilute with water or milk, see the ratio adjustments in the next section.

Grind your coffee beans on the coarsest setting your grinder offers. You want a chunky, uneven grind — closer to raw sugar than fine sand. If you're buying pre-ground coffee, ask for a French press grind or select the coarsest option available.

Why does grind size matter so much? Cold brew steeps for hours, and fine grounds extract too quickly even in cold water. The result is a muddy, bitter brew that defeats the whole purpose. Coarse grounds extract slowly and evenly, which is how you get that signature cold brew smoothness.

Add your coarsely ground coffee to the jar or pitcher. Pour cold or room temperature water over the grounds. Give it a gentle stir to make sure all the grounds are fully saturated — you don't want dry clumps floating on top.

For a ready-to-drink cold brew, use a 1:8 ratio — 1 cup of ground coffee to 8 cups of water. This produces a smooth, full-flavored brew you can pour straight over ice without diluting. For a stronger concentrate that you'll cut with water or milk later, use a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio instead.

Cover your container and place it in the refrigerator. Let it steep for 16–24 hours. That's the window where the flavor is fully developed without tipping into over-extraction.

Steeping at room temperature (around 68–72°F) works too and extracts a bit faster — you may find 12–16 hours is enough at room temp. The fridge method takes a little longer but gives you more control and a cleaner result. Either way, you'll know it's done when the brew is dark, rich, and smells intensely like coffee.

Set a fine mesh strainer over a clean bowl or pitcher. Line it with cheesecloth or a paper coffee filter if you want a super-clean, grit-free result. Pour the cold brew slowly through the strainer. Discard the grounds (they're great for your garden — coffee grounds add nitrogen to compost).

Transfer the strained cold brew to a sealed container and store it in the fridge. It'll stay fresh for 5–7 days, though the flavor is best in the first few days. That's one of the best parts of cold brew: make one batch on Sunday and you're set for the work week.

The ratio of coffee to water is what determines whether your cold brew is ready to drink straight or needs to be diluted. There's no single "right" ratio — it depends on how you like to serve it.

We recommend starting with the 1:8 ratio for your first batch. It's strong enough to hold its own over ice without tasting watered down, and mild enough that most people enjoy it straight. If you find it too strong, you can always add water or milk after the fact. You can't un-concentrate a weak batch.

These two get confused constantly, but they're made in completely different ways and they taste different too.

Iced coffee is regular hot-brewed coffee that's been cooled down and poured over ice. It's fast (ready in minutes) but tends to taste more acidic and can get watery as the ice melts. Cold brew is never heated at all. The cold water extraction pulls out different compounds from the coffee grounds, resulting in a naturally smoother, sweeter, less acidic cup.

Research from UC Davis found that hot-brewed coffee had roughly 28–50% higher acid concentration than cold brew, despite similar pH levels. That lower acid extraction is a big part of why cold brew tastes smoother and sits easier on the stomach for a lot of people.

Any coffee you enjoy can be used for cold brew. That said, certain roast levels and flavor profiles tend to shine when brewed cold.

Medium and medium-dark roasts tend to produce the most crowd-pleasing cold brew. The cold extraction pulls out the chocolate, caramel, and nutty notes beautifully while leaving behind most of the bitterness. Light roasts can work too, but they'll produce a lighter, more tea-like cold brew with fruit-forward notes — great if that's your thing, but not what most people expect.

Freshness makes a bigger difference in cold brew than almost any other method. Because you're steeping for hours, stale coffee has nowhere to hide. Those flat, papery flavors that you might mask with cream in a hot cup? They come through loud and clear in cold brew. Using freshly roasted beans — ideally within 2–4 weeks of the roast date — is the single biggest upgrade you can make.

During the air roasting process, the chaff (the thin, papery skin on every coffee bean) gets blown away by the hot air current and collected in a separate chamber. In traditional drum roasting, that chaff stays in contact with the beans, and some of it chars. That burnt chaff is one of the reasons drum-roasted coffee can taste bitter or ashy.

With cold brew, you're extracting for 16–24 hours. Any harshness in the beans has a long time to seep into the water. Starting with air roasted coffee -  where those bitter compounds were already removed - gives you a cleaner starting point and a noticeably smoother result.

These are the coffees our customers come back to specifically for cold brew, based on years of feedback at markets and online:

Kite & Key Blend - Our bestseller and the most popular choice for cold brew. The dark chocolate, walnut, and caramel notes come through rich and smooth when brewed cold. Medium-dark roast, so it holds up over ice without fading.

Live Wire Espresso - If you want a bolder, more intense cold brew that stands up to milk or cream, this is the one. Dark roast with a full body that doesn't quit.

Costa Rican Tarrazu - For a lighter, brighter cold brew with fruit-forward notes. This one is great for people who want something refreshing and a little different from the typical chocolate-and-nut cold brew profile.

Cold brew is forgiving, but sometimes a batch doesn't come out the way you expected. Here are the most common issues and how to fix them.

Cold brew is one of the simplest ways to enjoy coffee at home, and it rewards good beans more than almost any other method. Make a batch this weekend and taste the difference fresh, air roasted coffee  makes. Once you try it, the coffee shop version never quite hits the same.

Don't feel like making it yourself? We also sell ready-to-drink cold brew coffee in 12 oz cans — same air roasted beans, brewed low and slow, lightly infused with nitrogen for a crisp finish. No sugar, no additives, just coffee and water.