Clayton Coffee & Tea

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COLD BREW EQUIPMENT

Here's The Deal

Cold-brewed coffee can be out of this world good. We're talking smooth, low acidity, high-caffeine, lip-smackin’ good. The problem is there are about 100 different brewing devices out there, lots of coffee to water ratio recommendations, and nothing ever seems to taste as good as the stuff you get in coffee shops or in a bottle.

We tested a lot of cold brew equipment over the years. Some great, some not so great. Some that have so many add-ons that you think you just bought a Swiss army knife (which are cool, don’t get us wrong), and others that seem so simple you are afraid you will get nothing brewed at all. But fear not, we have narrowed down a list of cold brewing equipment so you can rest easy!

Our Choice – The Filtron Cold Brew - $49.99

The Filtron is apparently the original cold brewing kit, created in 1949. We will take Filtron’s word for it because after we used it, it seems like they know what they are doing. What we find to be problematic with most cold brew equipment is that the agitation and saturation of the coffee grounds isn’t good enough. When you don’t saturate all your coffee grounds, you brew a flatter, gritty, acidic cup of cold brew.

The Filtron also has a plastic guard that fits beneath the water container and on top of the coffee grounds to ensure proper water distribution. This results in a better extraction. A paper filter lines the bed of the equipment to prevent that gritty taste that happens so often with cold brew. This paper filter also makes it easy to clean, the brew time takes 12-16 hours, depending on how strong you want your coffee, and it brews 64 ounces of cold brew. Really you can’t go wrong with this piece of equipment. The price is a bit high, but you are paying for quality.

Runner-Up - Toddy Cold Brew - $39.50

There is not a huge difference between the Toddy and the Filtron, in our opinion. However, after some testing we realized that the brew method for the Toddy wasn’t extracting as well as the Filtron. And in the case of all coffee, extraction is key.

This has to do with the way we saturate the grounds using the Toddy method. We don't feel like the Toddy allows for comprehensive agitation of the grounds so that's where it loses some quality points. Also, the cleanup is significantly more difficult because no paper filters are used as compared to the Filtron. While the price is competitive, we think spending the extra $10 is worth the no hassle clean up with the Filtron.