Here's The Secret To Making Amazing Double-Strength Cold Brew Coffee With Next To No Effort

The Business Insider office recently got into cold brew coffee and the simple recipe will help you make some of the best, most aromatic and caffeinated joe you've ever tasted.

Never heard of cold brew coffee? It's basically what you're getting out of your office coffee contraption, only the caffeine is weaponized and it doesn't taste like crap. It's also easier, cheaper, and remarkably tasty. So it's actually nothing like what you're getting out your office coffee contraption.

The gist of our recipe is based off this awesome BoingBoing post by Cory Doctorow from a few weeks back. After weeks of trial and error, we think we've perfected the recipe for fellow coffee novices.

We've also reached out to Noah Belanich, the co-founder of Joyride Coffee Distributors, a guy who is basically the Gus Fring of New York City cold brew coffee. Those guys sell cold brew by the keg, and Noah was kind enough to offer a few more tips to help nail it.

So here's the recipe.

You're going to need like four things, two of which you need to probably buy from a store. The first thing you need is coffee. Get an espresso roast.

Walter Hickey / BI

Next you're going to need one of these. They go for like ten bucks, and are essentially a glorified reusable tea bag. Pick one up in a Whole Foods or just order one here.

Walter Hickey / BI

So you're going to want to get the coffee ground to a medium grind. This is one area where we diverge from the Boing Boing and Joyride advice. They advocate a coarse grind, but after our experimentation we've found that a medium grind gives us the flavor we really like. A coarser grind will mean that the coffee is less bitter, if that's what you enjoy.

Walter Hickey / BI

Put four and a half ounces of the coffee into the nut milk bag and cinch it closed.

Walter Hickey / BI

Put the nut milk bag into the bottom of a two quart pitcher and fill it to the brim with water.

Walter Hickey / BI

Then throw it in the fridge. Belanich advised us that 11 hours and 40 minutes is the optimal amount of time to brew the coffee. According to Noah, this amount of time "produces less final product but we think way tastes way sweeter and extracts fewer of the bitter notes." We agree.

Walter Hickey / BI

The next morning, get ready to be blown away. See, when you conventionally brew a cup of coffee, the hot water dissolves some undesirable acidic oils in the coffee bean. That's why crappy coffee really hits your stomach. Cold brew avoids that, and only dissolves some of the most aromatic flavors. According to Toddy, cold brew is 67% less acidic than conventional brews. As a result you get a low-acid and incredibly tasty coffee.

Walter Hickey / BI

Give the bag a squeeze - to get that super concentrated coffee back in the pitcher - and then dump the grounds. Wash the bag and you're ready to go for the next round.

Walter Hickey / BI

What remains is a coffee concentrate. You can dilute it 1:1 with water and still get a staunch cup of joe.

Walter Hickey / BI

Then, bottle it up and either bring it to the office or refrigerate it as long as you want. Cold brew, unlike conventionally brewed coffee, doesn't go stale. When coffee is heated and then cooled, the chemistry changes and the compound 2-furfurylthiio - which contributes to that amazing coffee smell - degrades as it cools off. Cold Brew, which never changes temperature, doesn't have to deal with that, and so it doesn't go stale!

Walter Hickey / BI