The AeroPress is famous for its simplicity. Forget concentric circles and multiple pours, you simply add coffee, add water, stir, and press. Fortunately, making cold brew is similarly straightforward – although with plenty of room to experiment as you find your ideal recipe. 

1. Set Up Your AeroPress 

Whether you prefer brewing with the traditional or inverted method, the first step to good cold brew is preparing your AeroPress. You should begin by making sure it is clean and dry.

Next, set up the AeroPress and place a filter in the cap. It’s a good idea to rinse your filter with hot water once it’s in place. This will help it adhere to the cap and also reduce any paper flavors. Some people also like to experiment with doubling up on filters or using metal ones. Metal ones will allow more of the oils through, creating greater body, as well as resulting in less waste. Paper filters, on the other hand, will create a cleaner and lighter brew as they keep all the oils out. 

 2.  Prepare Your Coffee & Add It to The Chamber

The AeroPress’ beauty lies in its versatility. You can use it with a wide range of coffees and experiment with grind size, steep time, brew ratio, and more.

Despite the AeroPress’ flexibility, there are some guidelines to follow. The cold brew recipe calls for a fine grind. When brewing coffee, the finer the grind, the quicker the flavor and aroma compounds will extract. Coarser grinds are best suited for recipes with long steep times. 

Add 16-18 grams of coffee/

3. Add Water

According to the official AeroPress recipe, a standard AeroPress coffee should be brewed with 80ºC/175ºF water. Then you should stir the coffee grounds and water for about 10 seconds before pressing.

For cold brew, you should add tap or room temperature water up to the number two mark (which, by my calculations, is around 130 grams of water). Some people also choose to use filtered water, because certain minerals commonly found in water can slow down or speed up extraction. 

This amount of water should be enough to create a coffee concentrate, which will be the base of your cold brew. Alan tells me, “Pressing the concentrate and then adding water makes a smoother cup… than pushing all the water through the grounds,”

Once you’ve added the water, stir for a whole minute. Don’t be tempted to skip this step, or you’ll be left with a weak drink.

4. Press

Pressing gently is the fastest press, Pressing hard can compact the coffee particles into a barrier, making your work even harder. If you start to feel too much resistance, so that it becomes hard to keep pressing, pause for 10 seconds. 

Once you’ve finished the press, you can now remove the ground coffee from your AeroPress and clean the device.

5. Add More Water 

Now that you have your coffee concentrate, you can proceed to add chilled or icy water to make an 8 oz cup/237 ml cup of coffee.

On a hot day, there are few things as refreshing as a cold brew. With this AeroPress recipe, you can skip the 24-hour brew time and start sipping on your coffee in less time than it takes an electric kettle to boil. Just make sure to use a fine grind and stir well before pressing.