Crew Review: 5 Easy Ways to Make Cold Brew Coffee at Home

Five simple methods, ranked by taste, effort, and time.

It may seem like cold brew would require complex equipment or careful brewing, but it’s actually one of the simplest ways to make coffee! This brew method is smooth, delicious, and easy to batch brew. All you need is a vessel, coarsely ground coffee, a filter (or at least a way to strain the coffee grounds out), and refrigerator (even this is optional for the brewing part)! Read on for 5 easy ways to get your cold brew fix at home.

What We Cover in This Video

The video above covers the following:

• 5 easy ways to make your cold brew at home, including the simple method we included above, all the way up to machine assisted brewing.
• Scoring on taste, effort, and the time it takes for each brew method.
• What flash cold brewing actually is and how it tastes.
• All of the details on the low effort, mason jar and water approach.

Cold Brew 101: A Few Things to Know First

There’s a few things worth knowing about cold brew coffee before we jump into the brew methods. First, some methods of making cold brew produce a concentrate that you should dilute before drinking, other methods to produce a ready to drink cold brew. You also might be thinking that cold brew and iced coffee are the same thing, but they really aren’t. Iced coffee is hot coffee brewed over ice, whereas cold brew is made by steeping the coffee in cold or room temperature water (usually overnight). Iced coffee retains the acids and body/flavor of hotter coffee, just watered down a bit. Cold brew has a distinct smooth flavor.

You’ll also want to keep in mind that you need freshly ground medium-coarse coffee for cold brew, no matter how you’re making it. Finally, we scored these methods on a scale from 1-5 and included taste, effort, and total time (prep + brew time) for our metrics.

Method 1: Orange Spice Infused Cold Brew

One of the fun parts about cold brewing is that you can add flavors to your brew. For an orange spice infused concentrate you can combine filtered water, medium-coarse coffee grounds, an orange ring, a couple of cinnamon sticks, and some star anise. Store these overnight in the fridge and strain the next day for a delicious flavored concentrate! You can also find concentrates of flavors at most grocery stores in a pinch!

Score: Taste 4 · Effort 2 · Total Time 3

Method 2: Flash Cold Brew with the Fellow Aiden

Some newer brewers (like the Fellow Aiden) feature a flash cold brewing option. These methods brew at lower temperatures than standard drip, and use a longer brewing time. The result is coffee that tastes much closer to cold brew without quite as much time involved. This type of brewing produces a ready to drink cold brew approximation, but it does tend to come out warm so you’ll want to add some ice.

Score: Taste 5 · Effort 4 · Total Time 5

Method 3: Overnight Tea-Bag Steep

You can actually use a tea bag (or mesh filter if it’s fine enough) for an overnight cold brew. Just add your medium-coarse grounds to your tea brewing container and drop it into a pitcher of water (either in the fridge or on the counter). Important to note here that you don’t want to pack the grounds in as they do need room to move around during brewing for proper extraction. The biggest upside here is the next day you can just lift the tea bag or filter out with no mess!

Score: Taste 4 · Effort 2 · Total Time 2

Method 4: French Press (or AeroPress / OXO Rapid Brewer)

You can actually use a press brewer for making cold brew too. Whether you use a French Press, an AeroPress, or something like an OXO Rapid Brewer, this method is a breeze. Just add your medium coarse grounds and water to the brewer, then let it steep overnight. The next day you can press it like you would with a hot brew in order to strain the grounds out. Voila! Easy cold brew.

Score: Taste 3 · Effort 4 · Total Time 2

Method 5: Mason Jar + Pour-Over Filter (The Easy Winner)

Our last brew method is the lowest effort of the list - the mason jar and filter. This classic cold brewing method just requires medium coarse grounds and water in a mason jar to start. Steep this mixture as we’ve discussed, then the next day you’ll want to pour it through a pour over filter to strain out the grounds. A genuinely easy method, and you can control its strength based on how much coffee you use in the process. This is an excellent way to cold brew on vacation when you are staying somewhere for a few days and need a coffee fix too!

Score: Taste 4 · Effort 1 · Total Time 2