How to make Cold Brew Coffee at Home

Jamie Tobin Photography

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Date Posted

January 26, 2022

Cold brew coffee is a life saver if you’re a busy human, SAHP,
or small business owner + working from home + SAHM like me!!

Let me break it down for you in this post, stick around!

Cold Brew VS Iced Coffee

If you want to get technical…

Cold brew coffee is made with just that, cold water!

Iced coffee is prepared hot, then poured over ice.

Don’t fret though, you don’t need any special machine to make Cold Brew!

While I do use my Chemex to strain at the end, you can use any sort of pitcher combo that works for your life.

Ingredient List

1: Coffee Beans ground coarse

2: Water (room temp or a little cold)

3: Pitcher

4: Scale

5: Coffee Bean Grinder

6: Coffee Filter

7: Milk / half+half / heavy cream / syrup for sweet cream + cold foam (optional)

Step by Step instructions

Measure your coffee beans. This is key to great tasting coffee. I use a 16:1 ratio for bean to water. So if you use my photos as an example, I had 60 grams of coffee so I will need 960 gams of water (60×16=960). While you can use a scoop it is not always accurate due to the weight of some roasts of beans.
Grind your coffee beans coarse, the reason why is because you will be letting them soak over night and too fine will make your cold brew sludgy
Use a scale, zero it out once you get the weight of the pitcher + beans in it, then just add room temp or slightly cold water to the appropriate gram weight.
Stir the coffee + water, you want to make sure the grounds are FULLY saturated so that you get an even taste.
Let sit for 12-18 hours on the COUNTER. I tend to make cold brew at night, so it’s ready by morning.
When time has passed, grab a coffee filter, and another pitcher or bowl, whatever you have on hand to strain the beans out. This is where I use my Chemex + a coffee filter for ease of use since its already a coffee pot.
Pour over ice and enjoy!
Store any left over cold brew in the fridge for up to one week (if it lasts that long hehe!)
Make a sweet cream or cold foam to give Starbucks a run for their money!

Tips for GREAT Coffee

Use a simple math ratio to get the best coffee, hot or cold, if you start using a ratio you can easily duplicate and continue to make amazing cups of coffee over and over again.

Also pre wet your coffee filter before you put your coffee grounds in, this will take out that “cardboard” taste some filters contain.

Try a different ratio for different types of coffee, low temp – medium – high temp. Coffee beans range in variety of flavors. A safe bet is 16:1 for pour over methods.

Buy local coffee beans! Trust me, whole beans are the freshest.
My favorite local roaster in Waverly, Iowa is Think Well. Eric is a wizard and can help you decide what bean to buy based on your flavor pallet.

Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew Starbucks Dupe

You can easily exchange vanilla for any flavor syrup, but this one is the most popular!

Okay this is really easy to make, and I love a good cold foam to top any of my coffees.

I use a small milk pitcher that came with my espresso machine, but any cup will do to mix this.

Also, just stop buying pre made coffee cream, it’s so much easier and cheaper to make it yourself on demand. Plus you can buy local milks from farmers in your area!!

While you can use any type of milk (Cow / Almond / Soy / Oatmilk) they all will give you different results in terms of how fluffy the foam is.

I have found the best dupe for Starbucks cold foam is equal parts 2% cow milk + Heavy Cream + Syrup whipped for about 20-40 seconds with either a blender or whisk.

This recipe I used whole milk + halfhalf + vanilla bean syrup

So however you like your cold brew, with just a little bit of cream, or sweet cream + cold foam (like me!!) I really hope you try this out.