I Tested 13 Cold Brew Coffee Makers to Find Three Favorites

In the early 2000s, cold brew coffee was a niche item, a drink for those in the know who sought it out in specialty coffee shops or combed through online forums trying to perfect their at-home brews. When I first learned about cold brew, it defied everything I thought I knew about coffee. It even sounded sort of silly to describe to someone else. “You just throw coffee grounds in cold water and just...let it sit there?” In the nascent days of cold brew, it would have been easy to write off the trendy new drink as a fad.

But it's now clear that cold brew is here to stay, and there are hundreds of gizmos and gadgets that promise to help you make the best cold brew coffee at home. After hours of rigorous testing, brewing, and drinking, here are my three favorite cold brewers to make the perfect cup in the comfort of your kitchen.

What Is Cold Brew? 

What makes cold brew unique is the slow extraction process. Coffee is brewed for a long period of time (usually between 12-24 hours) in cold or room temperature water, strained, and served either cut with water or straight up (if you’re feeling wild and under-caffeinated).

A full day to make coffee might seem complicated, but cold brew is the “set it and forget it” of all coffee-brewing techniques and you don’t need much to make it great, so small details really make a huge impact. (If you'd like to read more about cold brew, this explainer covers all the basics.)

Is an Instant Cold Brewer Worth It?

We found (after testing) that some instant cold brew makers did not produce a true cold brew concentrate. Rather, they made coffee at drinking strength. "Cold brew" technically refers to the style of brewing and not the drink itself, and most instant cold brewers produce weaker, cold coffee and aren't worth it.

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Cold Brew Coffee Maker

A great cold brew coffee maker has two jobs: it has to make great coffee, and it has to be simple to use. While cold brew is easy to make, it can be incredibly messy, so a brewer that’s easy to clean is a necessity.

The Testing

I ultimately found that the design of the brewer had a significant effect on the coffee’s final flavor. Most of the cold brewers I tested fell into two categories: a full immersion brewer that allows water and ground coffee to interact freely or a glass carafe with a cone-shaped basket to hold grounds. I also tested a slow-drip brewer.

At the end of the day, the brewers that made the best cups of coffee won out. I tested all samples without knowing which was which: I made coffees on each brewer, drained the concentrate (every cold brewer yielded a “concentrate” that was meant to be diluted once ready to drink), and labeled each concentrate in a mason jar with a number. Then, my partner, Jesse, who also works in coffee (and was the coffee writer for Serious Eats), diluted each sample and randomly arranged them by letter. We sampled the first two test batches and then brought in another friend, who owns a local coffee shop in the neighborhood, to test the final batch with us. Everyone recorded their impressions silently and then we talked about the results once we all tasted and made our determinations. 

As a control, I bought cold brew from a local shop and picked up a bottle of ready-made cold brew to test alongside the samples.

I put each of my brewers through two rounds of randomized testing. Once I eliminated my least favorite brewers, I then designed a third test, broken up into two parts. Finally, I considered usability and ease of cleaning.

Test 1: Standardized Brewing

For this test, I wanted to brew every coffee exactly the same, regardless of the instructions that came with each machine. Based on Stumptown Coffee's Brent Wolczynski’s recommendations in this cold brew FAQ, I used the ratio of 12 ounces of coffee (a standard retail bag size) to 64 ounces of water (for easy math, that ratio is 1:5.33, so if you know how much coffee you’re using, just multiply by 5.33), and scaled this up and down based on the capacity of the brewer. 

I didn’t agitate any of the ground coffee when brewing, so I did notice that some of the brewers had dry spots that weren’t fully saturated. Some of the brewers specifically say not to agitate—the Filtron and the OXO brewers both have a perforated lid with dozens of tiny holes meant to drop water on the coffee almost like rainwater, so for this first round I didn’t agitate. 

I brewed each sample for 16 hours at room temperature with filtered water and used a coffee readily available in my grocery store (Wonderstate Coffee’s Driftless Blend, which is usually made up of a rotating selection of coffees—as of this writing, it’s actually composed solely of a coffee from Mexico. They give each coffee a rating based on how light or dark the coffee is roasted, one being light and five being dark roasted, and this received a 4/5). I let the brewers drain, put the coffee in the fridge for two hours, and then labeled each one from 1-12 in identical Mason jars. I also bought ready-made cold brew from the store and cold brew from my local coffee shop to use as controls. 

Then I asked Jesse to randomly assign each jar a letter and relabel them, noting which letter corresponded to each number—he didn’t know what the numbers meant, and I didn’t know how the samples were arranged once we switched to letters. We diluted each sample with a 1:1 ratio—each glass got two ounces of cold brew concentrate and two ounces of filtered water—and we added two ice cubes to each drink. We cupped the coffees separately, took notes, and then, together, shared our favorite samples. 

I held onto these samples and tasted them a week later to see how the flavor changed and degraded over time. Wolczynski recommends hanging onto cold brew for about a week, and I noticed that brewers with paper filters made coffee that retained its original complexity and deliciousness, which is likely because paper filters are better at removing oils that can quickly go rancid.

Test 2: Sampling Based on Instructions

For the second test, I used the same coffee and employed each brewer’s instruction manual to make coffee. We kept some things uniform for the sake of consistency: we brewed for 16 hours this time (almost every instruction manual gave a 12- to 24-hour time frame). We also diluted each sample based on the manual’s suggestions. 

We recorded our results and, combined with our impressions from Test 1, we whittled down the field to our four favorites. 

Test #3: Maximize the Potential

Once I settled on our four favorite brewers, I decided that this test should maximize the potential of each brewer. However, I still wanted to do some of the testing without knowing which brewer produced which coffee, so I broke up the testing into two phases. 

Phase 1: I used a different coffee—a light-roasted single-origin coffee from Ethiopia—to determine how well each brewer would work with a range of roast profiles and origins. I followed the protocol set in Test 2, then sampled each coffee and evaluated the results. 

Phase 2: Once I knew which coffee was from which brewer, I experimented with dilution. I tried to achieve the most balanced cup possible.

Usability and Ease of Cleaning

Cold brew is a messy game because you have to transfer ground coffee once the brewing process is done. There’s nothing worse than dropping a bag of cold, wet grounds on the floor, and even if you’re careful, you’re likely dripping cold brew somewhere. 

Removing the grounds from your finished product was incredibly easy with some brewers and a logistical nightmare with others. I also took into account the size of each brewer, how easily it sat on my counter, and what extras it came with. 

The Best Cold Brew Coffee Makers

The Best Cold Brew Coffee Maker

OXO Compact Cold Brew Coffee Maker

$35 $30 at Amazon $35 at Oxo

What we liked: Compact? Check. Easy to use? Check. Affordable price? Check. Makes delicious coffee? Check. The OXO compact brewer ticks every box. 

The OXO is deceptively simple. You don’t need a scale to measure out coffee—the brewer has a dot on the front to indicate where you fill your coffee up to. It also comes with a carafe that has a dot to indicate how much water to use, and the carafe doubles as a depository for your concentrate once you’re done brewing. There’s even a cute lid with a silicone seal to keep your coffee fresh. 

Design-wise, the OXO brewer has two key features that differentiate it from the rest of the brewers I tested: the rainmaker showerhead and a spring-loaded base that only dispenses cold brew when nestled on top of the carafe. Is this rainmaker essential? No, but what it does is ensure that your coffee grounds are saturated evenly.

The spring-loaded valve release is so wonderfully clever that I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw this function on other cold brewers in the future. All you have to do to dispense cold brew is to place the carafe below the brewer….and walk away. It takes about 10 minutes to fully dispense, and you don’t have to awkwardly hold a bag of grounds over your brewer to get every last drop of cold brew.

Coffee from the OXO performed consistently well. The first coffee I tried tasted like chocolate, which is a classic cold brew note, and it had a nice balance between flavor clarity and body. It also stood out in Test 2, and I was pleased with the recommended dilution instructions (OXO recommends a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio of coffee to water, and I think somewhere in the middle was the right amount). On Test 3, the Toddy and the Filtron allowed the flavors of Ethiopian coffee to shine more than the OXO, but it still produced a fun and exciting drink. 

What we didn't like: The OXO brewer doesn't have a paper filter, but the mesh screen built into the base does a great job filtering out most silt and grit. Some coffee oils will end up in your final brew—this was fine initially, but when I tried the brewed coffee a week later, I noticed some funkiness; I much preferred older cold brew produced by brewers with a paper filter. However, the OXO compact brewer only makes about 16 ounces of cold brew concentrate, so I imagine most people would work through that amount in a week or less.

Key Specs

• Capacity: 24 ounces (3 cups)
• Yield: 16 ounces of concentrate
• Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Filter style: Reusable stainless steel
• Accessories included: Rainmaker shower head, glass carafe with lid

The Most Versatile, Large-Batch Cold Brew Coffee Maker

Toddy Cold Brew Coffee Maker System

$55 $49 at Amazon $49 at Sur La Table View on Webstaurant Store

What we liked: If you’ve worked in a cafe or ordered cold brew from one, you’ve likely had a Toddy-brewed coffee. The home version of the Toddy cold brewer works exactly like its industrial counterpart and produces clean and sweet coffee that holds well over time. 

The Filtron and Toddy performed similarly and feature a lot of the same design elements: They’re both plastic buckets with a hole at the bottom for coffee to drain out of, and they both have a place for a felt screen to help with filtration. Both come with their own comically sized proprietary paper filters, which contribute to the cleanness of each cup. 

I picked the Toddy because its parts are easier to replace. The Toddy brewer came with four felt screens, two stoppers, and three proprietary paper filters. The Filtron came with one felt screen, one stopper, and three filters. I also googled “order more Toddy filters” and “order more Filtron filters” and got way more hits for Toddy filters than Filtron ones. 

Jesse didn’t pick out the Toddy on the first test, but I did, and I’m glad because the coffee brewed on the Toddy was vastly improved by one simple step: agitating the grounds. I didn’t agitate them on Test 1 as per the protocol, but I did in Test 2 and found the coffee to be much fuller and richer in flavor. The Toddy brew held up well as it sat in my fridge and reacted well to the single-origin coffee, displaying the most balance and showcasing the high notes of stone fruit and sugar candy sweetness. 

What we didn't like: The Toddy makes enough cold brew for a crowd (a full liter), but it can be annoying to clean. If you’re into a zero-waste brewing experience, the paper filter can be kind of a bummer, but the Toddy gives you instructions on how to brew with and without the filter (spoiler alert: they’re essentially identical, you just don't use the filter).

Key Specs

• Capacity: 48 ounces (6 cups)
• Yield: 32 ounces of concentrate
• Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Filter style: Reusable felt filters
• Accessories included: Glass decanter with lid, 2 reusable filters, 1 silicone stopper, silicone brewer lid

The Best French Press-Style Cold Brewer

Coffee Gator 34-Ounce French Press Coffee Maker

$34 at Amazon

What we liked: As a person who’s never been a huge fan of French-pressed coffee (I prefer filter coffee), I am constantly surprised by how versatile the French press can be. This was the wildcard out of our picks, but, as Jesse pointed out, the French press is just a less fancy version of all the immersion brewers we loved. 

The French press as a cold brewer is vastly improved with just a few tricks. When I tasted the French press after Test 1, I noted a pronounced heaviness. For Test 2, since the French press didn’t come with cold brewing instructions, I used a Stumptown recipe from Wolczynski’s FAQ. Per his recommendation, I decided to run the final brew through a paper filter to pick up some of the grit at the bottom of the cup. I also agitated the grounds and made sure they were well mixed with the water. 

I think the flavor of coffee made in the OXO and the Toddy (and the Filtron) was slightly more nuanced, but the French press performed far and away better than any of the brewers that used a cylinder mesh or metal filter. 

What we didn't like: The mechanics of a French press aren’t much different than most cold brewers. The only noticeable difference is that it takes forever to run the final brew through a paper filter—I set up my Kalita brewer with a paper filter, poured the concentrate, and was still waiting for the final dregs to drain out an hour later.

Key Specs

• Capacity: 34 ounces (4.25 cups)
• Yield: 20 ounces of concentrate
• Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Filter style: Reusable stainless steel
• Accessories included: None

The Competition

• Hario Mizudashi Cold Brew Coffee Pot: The manufacturer’s instructions say to let the coffee steep in the refrigerator. However, the cold brew maker was too tall to easily fit in a standard-size fridge. The lid also didn’t create a perfect seal, so it couldn’t be stored on its side. The finished cold brew after six hours was pretty weak, lacking flavor and body. If you use the Mizudashi, just brew at room temperature.
• Hario Cold Brew Coffee Wine Bottle: The Hario bottle’s tasting results were almost exactly the same as the Hario Mizudashi. It appears they use the same type of material for their filters and a similar brewing process. The silicone top was flimsy and didn’t form a perfect seal. A screw-on lid would be preferable.
• Bodum Bean Cold Brew Coffee Maker: This device works exactly like a French press, meaning when the brewing is finished, the grounds get pushed to the bottom of the chamber. To fully separate the grounds from the cold brew, the coffee needed to be poured into another pitcher, requiring you to have a separate container on hand. Overall, it did a fine job, but we recommend just getting the Coffee Gator French Press Coffee Maker, which operates the same way but is also insulated, making it a good match for hot coffee, too.
• Filtron Cold Water Coffee Concentrate Brewing System: If I had to rank all the brewers in terms of taste, the Filtron would have won—but just barely. The differences in flavor were so minute and weren’t worth how finicky it was to source and find parts. 
• TAKEYA Patented Deluxe Cold Brew Coffee Maker: This is one of the most popular devices on Amazon, but its design resulted in under-extracted coffee and it was a pain to clean. 
• OXO Good Grips Cold Brew Coffee Maker: If I had to describe the OXO Good Grips Cold Brew Coffee Maker, I’d say it’s like they took the best parts of the Filtron and made them more functional and prettier to look at. But it simply didn’t pass the taste test, and its compact counterpart brewed a superior cup. 
• KitchenAid KCM5912SX Cold Brew Coffee Maker: I had high hopes for the KitchenAid KCM5912SX Cold Brew Coffee Maker because it looked like it was designed to fit in the fridge and the spigot for dispensing coffee seemed clever, but its mesh screen was difficult to remove (and heavy—you had to hold it over the top to let cold brew drain) and the coffee it produced was mouth-puckeringly bitter and strange. 
• County Line Kitchen Durable Cold Brew Mason Jar Coffee Maker: The County Line Kitchen Durable Cold Brew Mason Jar Coffee Maker had the same flaws as the TAKEYA—it was under-extracted and weak.
• Ovalware Airtight Cold Brew Coffee Maker: Out of all the brewers with a cone-shaped mesh or metal filter, the Ovalware is the most attractive and doubles as a brewer and pitcher, but it suffered the same problems as other brewers with similar designs. 
• Bruer Cold Drip Coffee System: This uses a slow drip to make cold brew, but it’s difficult to use and makes a very distinctive cup of coffee—one that I enjoyed a few sips of but found to be overwhelming.

FAQs

How do you make cold brew coffee?

We have a guide to making cold brew coffee here, including what to do, what kind of coffee to use, and how to make cold brew in a French press.

Does cold brew have more caffeine than hot coffee?

Usually, cold brew does have more caffeine than hot coffee. This is because cold brew is made with a much higher ratio of coffee to water than drip coffee. (This is also why you dilute cold brew prior to drinking it.)

What's the difference between iced coffee and cold brew?

Iced coffee can be hot coffee that's chilled and/or just poured over ice, while cold brew is brewed for a long period of time (at least overnight) with cold or room temperature water. This results in a concentrate that's often diluted with water prior to drinking.

How do I choose a cold brew coffee maker?

The best cold brew makers are easy to use and clean and brew delicious coffee. Our favorite overall cold brew coffee maker is from OXO. However, it is on the small side, so if you want to brew a large batch of concentrate you're better off getting something larger, like this system from Toddy.

What's nitro cold brew?

Nitro cold brew is infused with nitrogen gas (it's usually served out of a tap, which is what dispenses the gas into the coffee). This results in coffee with more bubbles, a creamy top (like beer!), and a somewhat hoppier taste.

How do you use a cold brew coffee maker?

Cold brew coffee makers are simple to use, and most work in the same way. The first step is to set up your filter—most have a reusable filter pad that sits at the bottom of the brewer. The next step is to add your coffee. Many brewers have recommended brew ratios, but an easy, go-to cold brew ratio is one pound of coffee for every gallon of water. Pour the water over the coffee, make sure everything is saturated, and then let it brew for at least 12 hours. Once you drain it, you'll need to dilute the cold brew concentrate to taste.

How long does it take to make cold brew coffee?

Many cold brewers come with specific brewing instructions and steep times, but, on average, most recipes call for 12- to 18-hour brew times. Cold brew strength and flavor reach full saturation around 12 hours and there's a wide window before the coffee starts to take on acrid flavors (usually around the 24-hour mark). The best practice is to think about cold brew as overnight coffee: set it up just before dinner, then filter it in the morning.

Why We're the Experts

• For this review, we tested 13 cold brew coffee makers. We also recently retested more cold brewers (including the Hario Mizudashi Cold Brew Coffee Pot and
  Hario Cold Brew Coffee Wine Bottle) against our top picks. Our favorites still stood out as the very best, which means they've held up to more than two years of consistent review.
• Ashley Rodriguez has made hundreds of gallons of cold brew in her 10 years behind the bar.
• Ashley has written many of Serious Eats' coffee reviews, including on espresso machines and milk frothers.
• Dylan Ettinger helped to update this review, testing some newer cold brewers. Dylan is a contributor with more than a decade of experience working in the specialty coffee industry.