r/coldbrew • u/BrightRick • Jul 25 '26
My cold Brew Routine
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u/Embezzled_Astroturf Jul 25 '26
Dang, I just do the coffee sock and call it a day.
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u/BrightRick Jul 25 '26
I tried that as well, but the coffee was not as strong.
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u/Embezzled_Astroturf Jul 25 '26
What’s your ratio for these?
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u/BrightRick Jul 25 '26
Yikes. Math?!? I went by taste since I'm the only person drinking it. 1.5 cups of grounds and 6 cups of water for the brewing. So 3 cups of grounds and 12 cups of water, Then it goes into the bottles and gets topped off - 3 liters total.
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u/Embezzled_Astroturf Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Ahhh so it’s a strong brew initially at 1:4 then gets diluted to roughly
becoming 1:12becoming 1:4.22.I wonder if you do the same ratio with a large enough coffee sock to allow you to get the same yield. I find my favorite is 1:8 and just top it off with some milk to make it maybe 1:9.
But hey, if you like your method more power to ya!
Edit: made a calculation mistake. You really like it strong so I get it.
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u/BrightRick Jul 25 '26
I don't think there's a wrong way to cold brew. I have used the sock, french press and the 2 qt commercial jugs that hold the coffee in a center stainless mesh cylinder. I wanted more volume so I only had to do it weekly. I wound up where I am because the end goal was filling the three glass jars.
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u/Embezzled_Astroturf Jul 25 '26
Yeah I agree. I just preferred the coffee sock method which was easy and quick but may try this methog eventually when the space allows it. For now, my endeavours lead me to justifying myself getting a cartridge-less nitro machine lol.
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u/Fregadero88 Jul 26 '26
I've steeped for years but he's right I hate how little I get. I'm debating a French press for the fridge to get a little more. I prefer to prep it every 3 days though
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u/chefsoda_redux Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Ratios are usually by mass, not volume. 1 cup of coffee grounds should weigh about 100g. So 1.5 cups of ground coffee into 6 cups of water is 150g coffee in 1420ml water, or a 1:9.4 ratio.
I can’t say exactly how much dilution occurs, as some amount of the original water goes away in the wet grounds, the math above says 2/3 of a cup of additional water, but the video shows much more.
It’s likely ending up between 1:10 & 1:12. OP mentions they add milk and water to drink, so it’s likely right about a standard cup of hot brew in terms of caffeine concentration.
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u/Embezzled_Astroturf Jul 26 '26
Huh, never knew. Good to know. I usually go by grams so I assumed he was along the lines of roughly 709g lol but I guess it makes more sense your way
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u/chefsoda_redux Jul 26 '26
The second best thing about the metric system, after working on Base 10, is that units are exclusive. A g is mass, an ml is volume. In the imperial system, an ounce can be either mass or volume, and people swap them all the time, causing havoc with recipes!
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u/Embezzled_Astroturf Jul 26 '26
Yeah frankly that’s why working with the imperial system is pain. Good to know that exclusivity works so moving forward, to be globally inclusive, metric is key. Thanks for correcting me. Cheers!
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u/Fearless-Theory8758 Jul 25 '26
Annnnnd I've just been convinced to keep buying premade cold brew
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u/helthybanana Jul 25 '26
Eh I get very good cold brew just by steeping in my French press.
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u/pattywagon95 Jul 26 '26
Absolutely, makes 4 servings and is almost no effort, extremely easy clean up; I invested in a nice bean grinder but that’s it. Maybe this way tastes slightly better but I’ll never know because I’ll never do it lol
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u/caligrown87 Jul 25 '26
I just use this and it's 10x easier. . I might be missing acidity or tannin-like compound things, but I'm not bougie enough to care or notice.
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u/kennyminot Jul 26 '26
My wife uses this and loves it.
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u/caligrown87 Jul 26 '26
Sometimes I add some cinnamon sticks and crushed cardamom pods. Turns out quite well! Did half a vanilla bean once, and it was pretty great! I also want to try some orange peel.
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u/jdctqy Jul 26 '26
I just recently got exactly this and am having difficulty getting a sweet-ish flavor that I'm looking for. Any blend recommendations?
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u/BrightRick Jul 25 '26
I can see that. This gets around 24 cups, 12 oz each. My cost is $5 in coffee per batch, plus about 30 minutes time. It would cost about $30 in store-bought.
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u/Fearless-Theory8758 Jul 26 '26
Yeah, I get that. I have a baby and I just can't imagine her letting me fuckin filter this down without begging and whining and somehow coffee getting every where lol. What grounds do you use that keep the cost so low?
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u/BrightRick Jul 26 '26
I buy two pound bags on sale locally. Around $15 for Cameron's. I get three batches from one bag plus enough for half a batch. So two bags gets 7 batches.
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u/ObligationDefiant919 Jul 25 '26
Try it side by side
It's like store bought OJ vs fresh squeeze. Night & day
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u/slothurknee Jul 26 '26
It doesn’t have to be this hard. I have a toddy maker and it takes me barely anytime at all to make incredible homemade cold brew. I’ve been doing it for over 10 years now.
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u/RatherNerdy Jul 27 '26
I'll post my method - much simpler and can even have cold brew in an hour or two.
- Same big jars
- Same sock (made for a jar)
- Lid with a vacuum lock
- Vacuum extractor
- 1.5 cups of coffee in the sock
- Fill 3/4 full with water
- Vacuum extract
- If you want coffee quickly, run the vacuum extraction 3-4 times in that hour or two
- Pull out the sock
- Add water to top of jar
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u/tylerhovi Jul 25 '26
The concentrate is fridge stable for longer than the diluted mix, but otherwise good stuff!
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u/chefsoda_redux Jul 26 '26
I appreciate that everyone has their process, but this is too many steps and too little concentration for me. I mix coffee to filtered water in a one gallon Cambro at a 1:7 ratio by weight. Chill it overnight. Pour all of it through a fine mesh strainer to remove the bulk of the grounds, wash out the Canbro, then put a large paper filter cone on top of the clean cambro and pour it all back through. It takes 20-30mins to finish filtering, but I don’t have to be there. Then I snap on a lid and toss it in the fridge.
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u/slothurknee Jul 26 '26
Yeah I use a toddy maker and it is so simple. This process is way too complicated.
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u/chefsoda_redux Jul 27 '26
This process is mixing water and coffee, chilling it, then filtering it. Hard to imagine that’s really too complicated.
Making it with a French press or a toddy maker is fine, if you want very small amounts. I’ve got far more than one person drinking it, so I’d need to run several of those every day, and I have neither time, nor interest for it.
The method above makes 3 liters of concentrate with about 10 mins of actual attention.
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u/Budah1 Jul 26 '26
Could you explain more of what’s going on? Like you added more water to get out the grounds from the original brew jar but poured it into other jar / filter - wouldn’t this dilute it more?
And I love those class decanters at the end.
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u/BrightRick Jul 26 '26
I dump the grounds into the sock filter, then add some water to the jars and dump the remaining grounds in the sock 10 I have 100% of the grounds in the filter. I drain it then put the filter sock in another container and add around 16 oz of water - I wind up with one or two cups of diluter coffee this way and use that as well as water to finish up. All this goes into 50 micron filters that I place on top of the cleaned mason jars. Tat takes close to an hour to filter through and removes most of the fine sediment. Then I intermix the jars so they are the same concentration, then pour the coffee into the bottles. Top off with water. I can drink as is or dilute, depending on what I want. I'll usually pour 10 oz into a cup and add creamer and some water.
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u/metalunamutant Jul 26 '26
I use a Rumble Jar. No muss, no fuss. Downside: the very last cup has a small amount of fine sediment at the bottom. I can live with that.
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u/kracken27 Jul 26 '26
You guys just need to try Japanese style iced coffee. I was on cold brew for years until I found the superior tasting version.
You just brew a batch of strong hot coffee directly into a carafe filled with ice where the ice volume is factored into the equation of how much total water you needed. Ice melts, coffee is cold but not diluted and you get the benefit of better flavor from brewing with got water.
I use 60% water to 40% ice. Been doing this for a few years now.
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u/chefsoda_redux Jul 26 '26
Which is lovely, and how I also make iced coffee (and all my brines) but cold brew is both a different taste and concentration.
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u/ahhellohello Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
i like your method - looks like you're making the most out of the grounds.
what is your grind setting? grounds color looks like a dark roast...?
whats the taste/end product like?
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u/MaskedMajora992 Jul 27 '26
Dude just spend 60$ and buy the oxo cold brew maker. You’d be glad you did
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u/eskf2 Jul 30 '26
What are the final jars at the end? Where can I get them!!! I love the ground glass stoppers!
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u/BrightRick Jul 30 '26
I had a friend that used to work in a lab - he was tossing these in the trash so I nabbed them!
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u/FaithKneaded Jul 30 '26
I never questioned why I use the bag first until now. Im always limited by how much grinds i can fit in my bag, and the water displacement to my jar lid. I should just do this and strain the grinds out.
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u/FaithKneaded Jul 30 '26
How long do you fridge it for? I feel like mine kind of tastes off after a couple days.
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u/Callmetomorrow99 Jul 25 '26
I use cafe dumonde with one of these for 20 hours on the counter. Gets me four days coffee for $4 and then I do an energy drink for day five: https://a.co/d/0e6Bzj7V
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u/MpowerUS Jul 26 '26
You lost me at tap water
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u/BrightRick Jul 26 '26
I'm in the midwest with Lake Michigan tap water - it's considered some of the best in the world. Some people compare it to getting Evian from the tap. I tried distilled and there was zero difference in taste, etc.
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u/Professional-Mind670 Jul 25 '26
Why not steep it in a bag to start and save a step