We encourage you to enjoy drinking Fazenda Original or Nitro cold brew coffees sold at our customers’ cafés, restaurants, and gourmet food markets. But maybe you’d also like to experiment with making it yourself. This blog post will show you how to make your own batch of cold brew at home.
The right equipment
Great news! You probably have all the equipment you need to make cold brew in your kitchen. If you already grind your own coffee, have a large mason jar and a way to filter it, you are ready to make cold brew coffee. Cold brew doesn't have to be complicated.
If you want some cold brew specific equipment, we love the Hario Cold Brew Pot. It's a one liter glass carafe with an integrated strainer basket. The Hario Cold Brew Pot makes brewing much cleaner (just pull the strainer when you're done brewing), and also serves double duty as being a great serving carafe. The tall and narrow design makes it compact & easy to store in most refrigerators.
Tasty Coffee Beans
Fazenda spent months creating our own special blend of cold brew beans we’d love you to try. You can buy them at our online store here. However, if you want to try beans you already have, just keep in mind that medium roasts tend to produce the better balanced cold brews.
Grind, baby, grind
Because your brew time will take hours instead of minutes, a coarser grind will allow many of the coffee flavors to fully extract, resulting in a better cold brew. Try using a grind that's coarser than what you'd use for your household drip machine, closer to the grind you'll use in a French Press. Your grind will be close to the texture of coarse sea salt, instead of a finer table salt size.
Filtering
Depending on what you’re using to make cold brew, this process will vary, but it’s important to remove the coffee grinds and sediment once the coffee is finished brewing. Some of our recommended devices actually have their own filtering mechanisms, so be sure to check the directions on them. But if you’re using a French press or a Mason jar to brew, you'll want to pour the finished brew into a sealable container, straining it through a fine mesh sieve with a cloth filter for a clean cold brew experience.
We don't recommend trying to use a paper filter. The very fine, small sediment tends to clog the filter when you pour it through. Cloth filters (either a specific product, like the CoffeeSock, or even just a clean kitchen cloth) do a good job filtering cold brew without clogging.
The Method
Our Cold Brew Blend features a special back label with brewing instructions; it's based off a ratio of 2 parts ground coffee to 5 parts water, by volume. If you have a kitchen scale, this is the equivalent of 90 grams of coffee per 1000 grams of water. This recipe is designed to produce a strong drinking strength cold brew, but some might prefer to dilute slightly.
Grind: Grind your beans to the desired coarseness and pour the grinds into your container or device.
Pour: Pour cold water slowly over the grinds.
Stir: Immediately after pouring, stir the mixture to make sure all the grinds are wet. Then a few minutes later, give the grinds another gentle stir in the water for about 10-20 seconds, making certain they are all submerged under the water.
Steep: Refrigerate the cold brew mixture for at least 12 hours. Note that some people will leave their cold brew to steep at room temperature on the counter; note that doing so will shorten your steeping time. Our recommendation is to let the cold brew steep refrigerated for 12-18 hours. If possible, part way through the steeping process, give the cold brew mixture another quick, gentle stir to help with the flavor extraction.
Filter: Filter the cold brew according to the directions on your cold brew maker or with the fine mesh sieve with the paper filter.
Basic serving suggestions
Now you have a delicious cold brew concentrate to enjoy at your leisure for up to a week in the refrigerator. You may wish to add ice, a little cold water, and/or your milk of choice to dilute the cold brew to your liking.
Fun cold brew recipes
Try these recipes using cold brew, just for fun. Enjoy!
Butter Mocha from Zenbelly-A decadent drink, for sure.
Cold Brew Coffee Ice Cream-A Vietnamese cold brew as ice cream
Boba Cold Brew-Like bubble tea? Give this cold brew variation a shot!
Coffee Barbecue Sauce-Try this on your favorite meats. Use cold brew for the “strong coffee.”
Do you love making cold brew at home? What are your experiences? Any helpful tips? Tell us here on the blog!