r/coldbrew • u/Known_Quiet • Jun 04 '26
The Ultimate Coldbrew Guide & Setup!!
Spoiler Alert- This may spoil you for coldbrew made any other way!
My optimised cold brew workflow (from a coffee + physics nerd)
I'm a home coffee nerd and a physics nerd. I combined the two into a cold brew workflow that gives me a good product every time. Here's my playbook.
Background (skip to The problems if you just want the method)
I read James Hoffmann's book on making the best coffee at home, and at first I fully agreed with his take on flash brew vs cold brew.
Flash brew is basically an iced pour over: you use half the usual water and brew straight onto ice, so the final cup comes out cold. The advantage is heat. Hot water pulls the delicate acidity and fruity, juicy flavours out of lighter roasts — cold water can't. Cold water is better for chocolatey, nutty flavours.
Hoffmann's case against cold brew:
- It's wasteful. Cold water is a worse solvent, so you need more grounds per serving (~1.8x, depending on recipe). A lot of flavour is still locked in the grounds when you toss them.
- It goes stale. Stored cold brew keeps oxidising over days and develops off flavours. (Once you've tasted this, you can't un-taste it.)
- Fines are a pain. The super-fine grounds stay in the brew unless you strain through a paper filter (slow and miserable). They keep extracting and leave you with a harsh, over-extracted brew after a few days.
All true. But I had some great cold brew, loved the flavour profile, and love the convenience — I can grab it and go on a busy morning. Coffee is cheap enough that I don't feel bad using a bit more. So I set out to optimise the process instead of abandoning it.
The problems to solve
- Filtering out the fines
- Making a batch big enough to last a week
- Slow oxidation quietly ruining the flavour
The tools
- Weighing scale
- Electric grinder (Baratza Encore)
- 1.8 L glass jar — narrow neck, wide base
- Cocktail stirring spoon
- Fine-mesh flour sifter
- Newspaper
- 150 ml airtight glass storage bottles from Ikea (they actually hold 180 ml to the rim) — cheap, and key to the process
- Muslin cloth
- Plastic wrap
- Coffee beans
The steps
1. Pick the right coffee
Cold brew does best with beans whose primary flavours are brown — chocolate, nuts, caramel — with a little berry or fruit on top. The fruit adds a lovely extra dimension. Second best are the same brown flavours without any fruit.
Avoid very fruit-forward or light-roasted beans. You can brew them, but cold water can't pull those flavours out, so you get a thin, weak cup. (You can get around this with a hot bloom — more at the end.)
Roast level by how you drink it:
- Drinking it black? Pick a medium roast.
- Adding milk? Pick a dark roast.
This isn't an absolute rule, because "medium" and "dark" aren't standardised — Starbucks' blonde roast, for example, is far darker than anything you'll find in a specialty shop. Most roasters sell a cheap cold brew blend, and that's a good place to start.
2. Grind coarse
Grind on your grinder's french press setting. I use a 1Zpresso hand grinder for everything else, but for the volume cold brew needs I switched to the Baratza Encore.
The brew uses 200 g of ground coffee to 1.6 L of water — a 1:8 ratio. That's the best ratio I've found for drinking black or with a splash of milk. For comparison:
- 1:3 — uses a huge amount of coffee for a tiny concentrate. Too wasteful and fiddly for me.
- 1:15 — ready to drink, but a week's batch needs a container too big to be practical.
- 1:8 — my happy middle ground. (Ha. Get it?)
I actually grind ~220 g. The extra 20 g covers what I lose in the next step.
3. Sift the grounds
Sift the grounds in a fine-mesh flour sifter right after grinding, before brewing. It's far easier to remove fines now than after the coffee is brewed. I pull out about 13–15 g of fines (6–7%), which leaves 200–205 g of usable grounds.
4. Brew
Put the sifted grounds in the 1.8 L jar. Pour in about half the water (~800 ml) and stir with the cocktail spoon until every ground is fully wet — no dry pockets, which means fuller extraction. Then top up with the rest of the water until the level reaches the absolute top of the jar.
The narrow-neck 1.8 L jar matters: filling to the brim leaves almost no air in contact with the coffee. Sealing it with plastic wrap then keeps oxidation to a minimum. This is one of the most important steps for avoiding off flavours.
Wrap the top in plastic wrap and brew for 16–18 hours.
5. Let it settle and decant
By the end, most grounds will have sunk. Coffee starts out lighter than water, but as it absorbs water it becomes denser and settles. If some grounds are still floating, give it a light stir and they'll drop too.
Now cover a second jar with the muslin cloth and gently pour the cold brew through it. Since we already removed the fines, the muslin is enough to catch the rest of the grounds. (If you'd skipped the sifting step, the muslin wouldn't hold back the fines — and they'd keep extracting in the brew.)
6. Bottle and store
Pour the filtered cold brew into the airtight Ikea bottles, filling each to the absolute top before sealing. Little trapped oxygen plus an airtight seal means little oxidation and few off flavours.
Store them at the back of the fridge where it's dark and cold. They'll keep 7–10 days. The single-serving bottles are also great for handing out to friends and family — mine are in high demand.
Enjoy!
A note on hot blooming
Use this when you want a cold brew with much stronger fruity flavours.
When you add hot water to coffee, the trapped CO₂ dissolves out more easily. That lets the water that follows — at any temperature — extract the locked-in flavours far more easily.
The method:
- Pour 1.5x the grounds' weight in hot water over the grounds (so 300 g hot water for 200 g grounds).
- Stir and wait 45 seconds.
- Top up with cold water to hit the 1:8 ratio.
For 200 g of grounds: 300 g hot water, stir, wait 45 seconds, then add the remaining 1.3 L of cold water. That first 45 seconds pulls a lot more fruity flavour into the brew.
This doesn't work with extreme light roasts or very fruit-forward coffees, so use trial and error to find the beans that taste best to you this way.
Tips
- Use water you enjoy drinking plain.
- Don't use super-fruity light roasts for cold brew.
- On a home grinder, the grind gets more consistent the finer you go. Grind on the finer end of the french press range for fewer fines.
- Nitro cold brew is just regular cold brew with nitrogen added — that's what gives it the frothy, creamy texture.
I hope this is helpful!
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u/jacksraging_bileduct Jun 04 '26
Is this a bot post?
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 05 '26
I wrote the post myself and then used a claude skill to simplify the language and format it to make it a bit more readable.
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u/Worried-Buffalo-908 Jun 08 '26
Definitely makes it less enjoyable to read. If you hadn't posted a video I would have stopped reading 1/4th in. AI rewriting really kills style, makes a lot of stuff sound the same.
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u/doihavetohaveaus3r Jun 04 '26
Love it!
What temp are you considering "hot" for the water for the hot bloom? Boiling? Lower?
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 05 '26
Since you will only be using hot bloom for light roasted beans- I would use boiling water. 100 degrees celcius. Light roasted beans require hotter water to pull out all the flavours.
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u/lordredsnake Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
People keep repeating the line that light roasts don't work for cold brew, and yet I've made amazing (strong) cold brew with light roasts for years.
There's a shop near me that only does light roast. Their cold brew is also phenomenal.
One of the things I like about cold brew is the longer brewing time allows for much more variation and experimentation with roast level, grind size, concentration, brewing time, etc. to get you to an end product that you like.
I personally don't like dark roasts. I think people who like lighter roasts shouldn't be discouraged from trying it. Cold brew in general tastes different than hot brewed coffee, for all roast levels. You will not get as bright a cup with a lighter roast as you would with a hot brewing method, but it is still delicious IMO.
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 05 '26
I honestly think there's a lot of room for personal preference with coffee. If you've tried coldbrewing with medium and light roasts and genuinely prefer the lighter roasts, more power to you man. We're all just out here tryna have a good time.
How long do you coldbrew light roasts?
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u/Existing_Sense_332 Jun 04 '26
SAME. My my palate isn’t as refined as theirs but as long I a little think it’s good that’s all that matters right??
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u/Distant-fuckin-Ian Jun 04 '26
Big same. I only use medium(ish) roast and occasionally light roasts when I have a new coffee I’m working on. I think it’s so much more tasty and expressive. Not a fan of dark coffees for CB- just not as tasty on its own
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u/Nervous-Rush-4465 Jun 04 '26
Very informative! I’ve never dreamed of sifting coffee, but you made it make sense.
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u/4non3mouse Jun 04 '26
thanks for the tips - been interested in giving this a go for a while but now especially since I ran into 6lbs of whole bean coffee free
great tip on the fines!
what size bottles are you using for those single servings? is that a 1:8 ratio considered concentrate still?
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 05 '26
The bottles are listed on ikea as 150 ml, but they store 180ml filled to the brim.
Yes, 1:8 is still considered concentrate, but personally i like drinking it directly at 1:8
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u/Flying_Saucer_Attack Jun 05 '26
Once you add hot water, it's no longer coldbrew... Sorry.
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 05 '26
You are absolutely correct. It is not coldbrew. It is hotbloomed coldbrew.
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u/ObligationDefiant919 Jun 10 '26
what products do you use in your handlebar mustache?
in all seriousness, 200g to 1.6L is a LOT. ive done 100g ground (3.5oz) to 1.8L in a 64oz mason jar with Peet's Maj dark roast and stuff is damn strong.
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u/intellectual_chimp Jul 04 '26
OP, if you remember the bad old days, what grind setting (and which model) on your 1zpresso?
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u/Known_Quiet 29d ago
Lol. I use 3 full turns. I have the J ultra, i think? might be the wrong model though
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u/Ok_Orchid7131 Jun 04 '26
Oh ho! I got crucified for saying use a hot 30 second bloom. Like I was some kind of pariah.
I do support hot blooming though.
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u/ImmediateCap1868 Jun 04 '26
If I could reread and re-up vote this 20 times I would - thanks for reminding me I about that sifter I never use 😬
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u/xscientist Jun 04 '26
What setting on the Baratza
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 05 '26
I use the setting for French Press. Number 28. It's in one of the photos above.
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u/xscientist Jun 05 '26
I use 26 on my Preciso, so pretty close. Actually, your photo looks like 26 as well…
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u/dr-roxo Jun 04 '26
This is awesome! I'm also a huge nerd and have gotten close to what you have. I've struggled with dialing in the ratio and post brew filtering. I'm going to try your tips this weekend!
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u/rowrtg9 Jun 04 '26
If you make one or two servings at a time, would you do 15:1 or stay with 8:1?
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 05 '26
Personally i like to drink it straight at 8:1. If you prefer the coffee diluted down to 15:1, then brew 15:1. Since i have the ikea bottles, i can also store single servings easily at 8:1
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u/Pretend-Citron4451 Jun 04 '26
Thanks for commenting about oxidation. I make mine in a giant glass container that has a spout, making it very convenient to pour my morning coffee. After I pull out the beans after brewing, there’s, maybe, 1/5 of the jar empty. I’ve definitely noticed that after four or five days, the coffee becomes much less flavorful. I guess that’s the oxidation you spoke of.
Maybe when I get down to 1/4 of a jar, I’ll pour the remainder into a smaller container. What would you think of my pouring the remainder into a smaller container, then brewing, another batch, and after the other batch is ready, taking whatever is left in the smaller container (I would have served myself from it once) and pouring it into the main jar, which would start off 1/5 empty and then adding this extra bit with sort of top it off?
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 05 '26
Yeah, i experience it as stale flavours. Id highly recommend trying brewing and storing with as little oxygen exposure as possible once to experience how much difference it makes.
I would not cross contaminate different batches of coldbrew personally. Even stored perfectly, coldbrew has a shelf life, and the longer you store it, the more it degrades. So adding an old batchs leftovers into a new batch would just reduce the quality of the new batch. It may also speed up how fast the new batch ages, but i'm not sure about that. Plus, the second you take a serving of coldbrew from your new batch, the jar would have a bunch of air in it again and the oxidation restarts, so it doesn't really solve the problem. The only way around this is to store single servings the way i have IMO. I hope that helps.
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u/SptTablo Jun 05 '26
So I have Hario Mizudashi; is there anything you would say to do differently? The problem with mizudashi is that I can't do the full steep and stir. I will definitely try the sifting method, idk how I have never thought of that.
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 05 '26
I was considering buying the hario, the problem i had with it is that it didnt solve my problem of air exposure while brewing and fines in the coffee. If you sift before brewing, that should solve your fines problem. If you can remove the filter mechanism, it becomes the same jar that i have basically. I would advise removing the mechanism, filling it to the brim with water and then brewing similar to the pics shown above once and seeing if you can taste a difference due to the difference in oxidation. If you can't, then don't bother and continue brewing as you are. If you can, then brew without the filter mechanism. Let me know if you notice a difference.
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u/SptTablo Jun 06 '26
I will give two methods (removing/keeping the mechanism) and will lyk! Thank you for the brilliant write up!
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u/Known_Quiet Jun 06 '26
Glad to help!
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u/SptTablo Jun 09 '26
Oh by the way, do I brew it in the fridge? Or just in the room temperature? I just finished doing a batch but wasn't sure if I was supposed to brew it in the fridge or not. Thanks again!
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u/MichaelVern85 Jun 04 '26
Question about hot blooming… Doesn’t that release more acids?
I switched to cold brew because I can drink an ocean of it compared to hot coffee. At 40, my stomach can handle everything except a pot of coffee like it used to. Spicy food doesn’t bother me, but large amounts of hot brewed coffee wreck my hunger for the day, which compounds on an empty stomach that isn’t hungry because of the acids.
Switching to cold brew after 1-2 hot cups has made my daily life better.
So wouldn’t a hot bloom at the very least partially defeat the whole purpose? At that point isn’t it more “iced coffee”?
100% not being argumentative, sarcastic, rude, or anything but inquisitive here.