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- Buying cold brew coffee every day from a local shop can be extremely expensive, and so can buying concentrate from a grocery store.
- To save money, I started using this $60 cold brew maker by Brim to brew my own concentrate at home.
- It takes up a lot of space, but it makes really delicious, grit-free batches of cold brew that last me about a week at a time.
I am a firm believer that there are certain things worth spending extra money on for the sake of saving time and energy — but cold brew is not one of them.
The convenience tax is a high price to pay for something you consume every day. Don't get me wrong — I'm not opposed to a visit to your local coffee shop for a special cup you couldn't make for yourself, I'm just saying that it actually takes a lot less time, money, and energy to make your daily cold brew at home than to stand in line to wait for it every day.
For a long time, I was spending time and money nearly every day buying cold brew at my local shop. At about $4 per cup, it started to add up, so I began buying the concentrate instead and making it myself at home. At $11 a week, even that was still adding up to a lot more than I felt I should have been spending.
So I decided to start making my own cold brew at home.
I've been using this $60 cold brew maker by Brim to make large batches of concentrate that I keep on hand for busy mornings. It's an upfront cost that pays for itself after just a few weeks, since each batch produces about seven servings (and I'm pretty generous with my serving sizes).
Here's how it works:
The Brim cold brew coffee maker has two main parts: a glass carafe and a large brewing container with a valve.
To make a batch, all you have to do is pop in a reusable, included filter into the brewing container, fill it with 12 ounces of coffee grounds, and pour in three and a half cups of room temperature water to saturate them (there's a fill line on the glass carafe that marks exactly this volume). Once the grounds are saturated, you'll need to pour in another round of three and a half cups of water before popping ite included airtight lid onto the brewing container. Let it sit for 12-24 hours (I usually do about 18-20 hours) to fully brew.
Once the time is up, set the brewing container directly on top of the glass carafe. The weight of the container against the secure brim of the carafe will release the valve, allowing your filtered cold brew to stream out. After about 15-20 minutes, your carafe will hold roughly five to six cups of cold brew concentrate.
I use a 20-ounce iced coffee tumbler in the morning, and I pour what is probably about three quarters of a cup of concentrate in it. I meet that with a combination of water and almond milk, plus a ton of ice cubes to fill it all out. I get about six or seven servings per batch.
Pros and cons of the Brim cold brew maker:
Pros:
- A reusable felt filter allows for completely smooth, grit-free cold brew — and you'll get two with your order.
- The large batch format means I don't have to brew multiple times a week.
- Airtight lid for brewing container seals in flavor and keeps grounds from drying out.
- Lid for glass carafe allows for a small gap in the spout so you don't have to take it off to pour.
- Easy to clean and dishwasher-safe
Cons:
- Takes up a lot of space to store. This is pretty much my only major gripe.
- Discarding large amounts of grounds is kind of a pain.
Here's how much money it saves:
After absorbing the initial cost of the cold brew maker, each cup of coffee costs between $0.75 and $2.00 when taking into account the type of beans used.
If you go for the super cheap Dunkin' Donuts, Folgers, or generic beans or grounds, you'll end up paying very little per cup — but it gets more expensive if you go for better quality coffee. I use beans that are somewhere in between, so I've gotten mine down to about $1.15 per cup.
Compared to the ~$4 I was spending every day before work, I've saved an average of $14.25 per week (or $57 per month, or $684 per year) — and this isn't including the coffee I buy over the weekends.