- Iced coffee, we all want it.
There's so many recipes and contraptions out there
to make cold brew, and we've been testing them
for a few years to see what the best, easiest way really is.
If you strip down the process of making cold brew,
all you really need is a container,
some sort of straining device, and coarsely ground coffee.
For all the brewing methods we're describing,
you're gonna be producing a coffee concentrate
which is really strong.
You're gonna wanna dilute it with water or milk.
One of the most popular methods
of making cold brew is using a french press.
A lot of people just have a french press lying around,
so this is a really easy way to make cold brew
without buying anything extra.
You add your grounds to the bottom,
fill it up with water and then
put your plunger on top and wait 12 to 24 hours.
After that you just plunge away,
it's pretty much ready to drink.
A small drawback to this method is that
the filter in a french press isn't fine enough
to actually get the sediment out.
So there's gonna be a lot of tiny bits left in your coffee.
And if you think sediment in hot coffee is unpleasant,
it's even worse in a cold drink.
Another popular method is just to use a
mason jar and some cheese cloth.
This is probably the cheapest method you'll find,
and it definitely works but it's kind of a hassle.
To get the cold brew concentrate
after you've filled your container with
coarsely ground coffee and enough water,
you'll have to, like, basically tie it off with
twine or a rubber band after you've
waited for the 12 to 24 hours and then
pour it into another container.
The problems come when you're actually
trying to do this pouring.
(somber music)
It's pretty much just waiting for this to happen.
It's very slow and there's nothing really you can do here,
you just have to, like, wait like this.
I don't know, I have better things to do with my life.
This will take like, 20 minutes probably.
Okay, alright, we're done.
Cheese cloth can get really clogged up,
especially by coffee, and so when I
would used to do this, I would have to
move the cheese cloth around a lot
which is a little bit of a hassle.
And then, once you've done that,
the concentrate that you're left with
is still not really clean.
It still tastes gritty, it still tastes,
you can still taste the sediment
and feel the sediment in your mouth.
You know, as with the french press, that's not pleasant.
(bright music)
Our favorite cheap method for making
cold brew is using a nutmilk bag.
A nutmilk bag has a really interesting design
where it kind of acts in the same way as a teabag does.
You can basically drape the opening of the nutmilk bag
around the opening of your mason jar and drop it in,
and all your coffee grounds will stay inside of the bag.
Once you finish brewing, you can just like,
take this bag and pull it right out.
Ugh!
And then you can just like, toss these out
and then you have your coffee concentrate
already right here.
No extra pouring, it's not very fussy.
But it's still imperfect, the concentrate
that you actually get out of this
still has a lot of the textural problems
that our other cheap methods have had.
It's still a little gritty, it's still a little grainy
and it tends to be not perfectly extracted.
If you wanna get a clean texture
you can pass this through a paper filter,
but you can't really do anything
to fix that extraction at this point.
We tested all three of these methods alongside
various equipment specifically designed
for making cold brew.
And even though it'd be great to not have to
buy anything extra to get that cup of coffee,
we do think the results are noticeably better when you do.
Our two favorite cold brew making kits are the
OXO cold brew maker and the Filtron cold brew maker.
The reason we love the OXO and why it's our top pick,
it's because it's so easy to set up and so easy to use.
Once you've actually added your ground coffee
and your water in through this little rain maker,
this is called the rain maker, all you have to do,
after you've waited your 12 hours to brew
is just push this little lever
and then the coffee will go straight down.
It's kind of like magic, the fact that it just stays up.
I mean it's not magic it's mechanics.
And the coffee produced by this is really tasty.
It has like a really really fine mesh filter
and so the concentrate you get out of it is very clean.
It's not like oily or anything, it just tastes good.
Another cold brew maker we like is the Filtron.
The process for brewing is similar to the OXO,
similar to any of our cheap methods.
You add coffee grounds to the main chamber
and then add water on top of it and wait.
And the coffee produced by the Filtron is really good.
In every test that we've done for the last three rounds,
tasters have liked coffee from the Filtron
more than any other method we've tried.
It just like, has a full body that
none of the other coffee makers,
or cold brew makers have achieved.
But the reason it's not our top pick
is because it's a little bit more finicky.
You have to pull out this little rubber stopper yourself,
and I've never been able to use it
and actually do that without spilling
a little bit around on the counter.
You know, that's not a huge deal,
but it is, like, kind of annoying.
Another draw back to the Filtron is the reusable filter.
It's this felt filter that fits perfectly into a spot
at the bottom of this brew chamber, but it's gross.
It's reusable and it just like,
it's just like very hard to clean.
The company recommends like, running it under water
until the water runs clear between every use,
and then occasionally boiling it in hot water.
In between uses you're actually
supposed to keep it inside of this little
container in your fridge and, you know, that's just weird.
I think it's just weird.
So that's why we prefer the OXO
a little bit more than the Filtron.
It's just easier to use, easier to clean,
and it makes coffee that's almost as good.
Of course, using cold brew makers
involves spending a little bit of extra money.
Each once each round tends to produce
about like, 10 to 12 cups worth of concentrate
which, if you're drinking cold brew pretty regularly,
after not that long of a time that'll pay for itself.
But if you value convenience and taste
above everything else, we think
these are the best options for getting your fix at home.
We ended getting the best tasting coffee from
this guy, the OXO cold brew maker.
Oh sorry, that was, sorry sorry.
(laughter)
I don't know how that happened.
Come on down!