Batching Cold Brew Can Save You Loads Of Money On Coffee. Here's Why

Coffee shop cold brew isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It's a convenient way to catch a little caffeine without burning your tongue, and baristas can use it as a foundation for a ton of drinks. But those aren't the only reasons coffee shops love cold brew. It's one of the higher profit margin coffee drinks you can sell — a fact that's exemplified by all the canned and bottled cold brews on the market (we ranked store-bought cold brews so you can skip the duds). Make cold brew at home and you'll see why coffee sellers are so committed to the drink: A cold brew coffee at a coffee shop generally costs between $3 and $6, while the homemade version will generally cost between .075 and$1.25 per cup. A switch to homemade cold brew will save you money on coffee, and batching it will lower that bill even more.

For some insight on how homemade cold brew can save money, we turned to Andrea Allen, co-founder of Onyx Coffee Lab in northwest Arkansas. She's the 2020 U.S. Barista Champ and 2021 World Barista Runner-Up, and she compares coffee shop vs. homemade cold brew to home cooking and restaurant dining: "Coffee is an ingredient, and just like in cooking, buying ingredients is usually more economical than buying a meal at a restaurant," she says. "Purchasing a bag of coffee will cost less than processing the same volume of cold brew you could produce from that bag."

Consider homemade cold brew as a concentrate that should be combined with water or used as an espresso-style base for iced coffee drinks. It's made by submerging coffee grounds in cold water for 12 to 24 hours and then filtering out the grounds (avoid this mistake to sidestep a bitter batch). Cold brew will store in the fridge for about a week, ready for your next iced coffee moment. You just need a few key components to get started: a good coffee grinder, a cold brew setup, and high-quality filtered water. "Whatever flavor the water has goes directly into your coffee," says Allen.

Batching cold brew means you're making it in bulk, between 1 quart and 1 gallon at a time, so your home cold brew setup should start with a container that's big enough to fully submerge the coffee grounds in cold water. From there, you'll just need a filter.

Filters are made from metal, paper, and cloth, and each impacts the cold brew differently. Allen explains that metal filters create a heavy-bodied coffee and paper filters create a coffee with "higher flavor clarity," so choose your filtration style based on your preferences. Grind size also impacts the flavor of coffee, so get a grinder that can create coarse ground coffee for cold brewing.