How To Make The Very Best Cold Brew At Home

You can make glorious-tasting cold brew right at home, and you only need two ingredients!

• Dark or medium roast coffee beans work best for making cold brew.  
• OXO’s or Ovalware’s cold brew maker both are excellent choices for your brewing vessel.  
• Make sure you use water that tastes good when making a batch of cold brew.   
• You can grab my cold brew checklist and recipe card at the very bottom of this page. Click here to jump right to it.

Cold brew has become a staple of coffee shop menus nationally no matter what season. There’s just something about that smooth, chocolatey taste that have won many over. And while it’s convenient to just order a quick cup of cold brew, shelling out $5 adds up quickly.

Luckily, you can make your own cold brew at home and save a great deal of money. The best part of all is that cold brew only requires two ingredients: coffee beans and water!

Here are a few extra tips on how to make the very best cold brew at home. 

Watch this video on how to make the best cold brew at home!

You can and should use dark roast beans.  

For the best cold brew, use a dark or medium roast coffee. Ultimately, most cold brew ends up tasting pretty much the same: chocolatey and smooth. Much of the coffee’s original flavors is lost in the brewing process, so it’s not in your best interest to use your favorite artisan coffee beans.

One brand of coffee that I’ve been particularly impressed with for both its ability to make good cold brew and for its charitable work is Fire Department Coffee. 

Not only does FDC’s Donut Shop Coffee excel in making great cold brew, but 10 percent of their net proceeds go to support groups that help firefighters and first responders who have been injured on the job or who are facing other serious health challenges.

Make sure you use water that tastes good on its own. 

Besides finding the right kind of coffee beans, it’s essential to use water that you like the taste of on its own. If you have bad tap water, do not use it to make cold brew coffee. Coffee is 98 percent water, which means that the quality of your water used in making any kind of coffee will impact the resulting brew. 

Either opt for filtered water, use spring water, or go bottled as a last resort (if you have no other environmentally-friendly options available to you. 

Invest in a good cold brew coffee maker or use a cheesecloth & mason jar. 

I have extensively reviewed the top cold brew makers on the market including the OXO Good Grips Cold Brew Coffee Maker, the Toddy Cold Brew System, the Ovalware RJ3 Cold Brew Maker, the Takeya Cold Brew Coffee Maker, and the County Line Kitchen Cold Brew Coffee Maker. 

My personal recommendation is the Ovalware because I live in a household of two, and that’s all my husband and I need in terms of the brew yield (about 8 coffee beverages). It’s also small enough to store in my fridge and in my cupboard without needing to make a ton of space. 

For a larger household (or if you consume a lot of cold brew in a week), I’d go for the OXO. It’s relatively large when it’s set up to brew, but it does an excellent job of brewing cold brew coffee concentrate. It also makes a lot since it is concentrate (12 to 14 beverages), which just means you need to cut it down by adding water or milk. This will make your brew yield last longer. Just make sure you have the counter space for it prior to purchasing. 

Budget-Friendly Option: Another option for making cold brew is to use a cheesecloth (as the filter) and a large mason jar. See this post for a step-by-step tutorial on how to make cold brew coffee at home without any fancy equipment!

Let it brew for the right amount of time. 

Where you place your cold brew brewing vessel will determine how long you should let your cold brew steep. You can either set your cold brew coffee maker on the counter or in the refrigerator.

If you decide to steep on your kitchen counter at room temperature, it can take approximately 12 hours to brew properly. But if you want to steep your cold brew in the fridge overnight, then another 3 to 5 hours are required to reach the same level of extraction. 

For more cold brew making help, start our free mini course & learn to make the best-tasting cold brew at home. Sign up below!

The Very Best Cold Brew Recipe