Cold brew needs a container, a filter, coffee and time, which is why most cold brew equipment is optional. Here's what's worth buying, what a mason jar already does, and the ratio that matters more than any of it.
We are never paid for a review. Some links earn ShopCoffee a small commission at no cost to you. Details
● Reviewed July 2026, updated September 2026Next review: January 2027Prices and models move — tell us if something here is stale
What this is: a comparison built from each maker's own spec sheet and instructions, the National Coffee Association's published cold brew guidance, and one peer-reviewed study on cold brew acidity. We have not bench-tested these brewers.
What this is not: a taste panel across the devices, or a health claim of any kind.
Correction, September 28, 2026: until today this page said cold water leaves acids and bitter compounds in the grounds, gave steep times of 16 to 24 hours and a 1:8 ready-to-drink ratio with no source, put concentrate at "two to three times the caffeine of drip," said both brews "land around pH 5–6," said concentrate keeps "about two weeks" as our own figure, and said we make cold brew weekly in a mason jar and an OXO, which we have no record of. Those lines are gone; the figures are now the National Coffee Association's, a published study's, or the maker's, and say which.
Prices: where a maker's own site lists a price we quote it and say so (Hario USA, Toddy and Yama, read September 26, 2026); the OXO price is an approximate US street price. Materials come from each maker's published spec sheet, not from our own lab work. Store prices are from our store the same day; we sell those bags and say so.
Cold brew isn't iced coffee. Iced coffee is brewed hot and chilled. Cold brew never meets hot water at all — the National Coffee Association defines it as coffee made with "room-temperature or cooler water," typically with about 12 hours of contact between coffee and water.
The NCA says brewing without heat over a longer time gives "a smoother, more mellow cup" with "a less bitter, smoother taste." On acidity, a 2018 study in Scientific Reports (Rao and Fuller, "Acidity and Antioxidant Activity of Cold Brew Coffee") brewed six light roasts both ways and found the pH values "comparable, ranging from 4.85 to 5.13," while the hot brews had "higher concentrations of total titratable acids."
So cold brew measured about as acidic as hot coffee on the pH scale and carried less total acid. It's a different drink made from the same ingredient, not a better or worse version of coffee.
The practical upshot for equipment: the NCA's own equipment list is a "cold brew coffee maker, a French press or a container (carafe, jar, etc.)," filters, a scale and a grinder. A brewer adds convenience, not a different process, which is the honest framing for everything below.
A mason jar and a fine-mesh strainer make cold brew that is 90% as good as any device on this page. What you're buying with a dedicated maker is convenience, cleanliness, and repeatability — not meaningfully better coffee.
That's a strange thing to open a buying guide with, but it's true, and you'd work it out within two weeks of buying one anyway.
The mason jar method, as the NCA describes it: coarsely ground coffee in the container, add water gradually and stir so all the grounds are wet, cover, steep "in the refrigerator or at room temperature for 12 hours, or overnight," then strain "through a coffee filter or a fine mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth," twice if needed. If you already own a jar, the cost is the filter.
What it doesn't do well is the filtering, which is genuinely tedious — pouring saturated grounds through a lined sieve without a mess takes practice, and the last of the liquid drips slowly. If you make cold brew twice a year, live with it. If you make it every week through the summer, the $40 that eliminates the annoyance is money well spent, because the best brewing device is the one whose friction is low enough that you keep using it.
Buy for the cleanup, not the cup.
The best-designed solution to the filtering problem. Grounds and water go in the upper chamber; a rainmaker lid distributes water evenly over the bed rather than channelling through one spot. When it's done, you flip a switch and gravity drains the concentrate through a fine mesh filter into a borosilicate carafe below. No pouring, no sieve, no mess.
The filtration is the real advantage. The mesh plus optional paper filter produces concentrate noticeably cleaner than a strainer — less sediment, so the last glass tastes like the first rather than like silt. OXO's own spec sheet lists the parts as a "stainless steel filter, glass carafe, silicone gasket", calls the carafe borosilicate and the whole thing BPA-free, and gives a 40-oz capacity and a 9.5 × 9.5 × 14.7-inch footprint; it sells paper filters for it separately.
It takes counter space and has several parts to wash. If you make cold brew weekly for a season, it earns that. If you make it occasionally, the mason jar is genuinely fine.
The original, and still the standard for making a lot at once. Toddy's own page says "Since 1964, more than 1 million Toddy Cold Brew Systems have been sold at retail"; the company is based in Loveland, Colorado, the home system is made in the USA, and cafés use its commercial model (below), which is a meaningful endorsement.
It's a bucket with a stopper and a thick felt filter pad. Grounds and water steep in the bucket, you pull the stopper, and concentrate drains into a glass decanter. Yield is much larger than the OXO — enough concentrate for a week or two of daily drinking.
The felt filter divides people. It produces a rounder, heavier body than paper, which many prefer. But it must be rinsed thoroughly and stored wet in the fridge in a sealed bag, and Toddy says a felt filter "may be used up to 10 times (discard after 3 months)". The box now ships with two felt filters and three of Toddy's paper filter bags, and Toddy recommends the paper bags if the felt clogs. Forget a wet felt in a warm cupboard and you'll know immediately. If that upkeep sounds like a chore you'll skip, get the OXO.
Elegant and correct. A slim glass carafe with a full-length mesh filter basket: coffee in the basket, water in the carafe, 8–18 hours in the fridge, pull the basket out. Done.
It brews ready-to-drink cold brew rather than concentrate, which is either the appeal or the drawback depending on whether you want to dilute to taste. It fits in a fridge door and there's essentially nothing to go wrong. Hario's spec sheet: the pot is heatproof borosilicate glass, the strainer mesh is polyester, the lid, strainer frame and handle band are polypropylene, the bushing is silicone, and it is made in Japan. Brewed volume is 600 mL (MCPN-7) or 1,000 mL (MCPN-14).
The mesh basket lets through more fines than the OXO's filtration, so expect a little sediment at the bottom. At $25 that's a fair trade — and this is the pick if you want a device rather than a jar without spending real money.
A genuinely different method and a genuinely different drink. Instead of immersion, ice water drips through a coffee bed one drop at a time — a valve you adjust to roughly one drop per second. Yama's own page quotes "a unique 3-hour brewing process" for its 32-oz, 6–8-cup bamboo tower; slower drip rates run longer. The result, called Kyoto-style, is more delicate, more tea-like and more aromatic than immersion cold brew, because the coffee is continuously meeting fresh water rather than sitting in an increasingly saturated solution.
It is also a laboratory apparatus on your counter that requires you to dial in a drip rate and check on it. Nobody needs this.
Buy it if the process is part of the appeal and you'd enjoy tuning a valve on a Saturday. It's the only device here that produces something you genuinely cannot get from a mason jar — but that's an aesthetic argument, not a value one, and we'd rather say so.
Searching for the best glass cold brew coffee maker? Only one of these keeps the whole brew path in glass, and it costs $315. The honest budget answer is the Hario Mizudashi, whose pot is borosilicate glass with a polyester mesh and a polypropylene frame, at $25.50.
"Glass cold brew maker" usually means one of two things: you want the coffee to steep in glass rather than plastic, or you want a pitcher that looks good on the fridge shelf. Here is what each maker's own spec sheet says touches the coffee. We have not lab-tested any of this; we are reading the manufacturers' published materials.
If "no plastic in the brew path" is the point, our plastic-free coffee makers guide does the same part-by-part audit for hot brewers. No health claims either way: we list materials so you can choose, not because we can tell you a polypropylene lid changes anything.
This decides more than any spec. A cold brew concentrate maker is built to brew strong and be diluted: the OXO and the Toddy are the two here. Toddy's own recipe is 12 oz of ground coffee to 7 cups (56 fl oz) of water, which lands inside the 1:4 to 1:5 by weight the National Coffee Association gives, and Toddy says the concentrate keeps "up to 2 weeks in your refrigerator". You pour an inch or two of concentrate over ice and top with water or milk, which is exactly what cafés do, and one batch covers a week of drinks.
A ready-to-drink maker brews at drinking strength. The Hario Mizudashi is designed this way (Hario lists its capacity as "brewed volume", 600 or 1,000 mL) and so is a slow-drip tower like the Yama. You get a finished drink with nothing to dilute, and less of it per batch. A mason jar does either: brew at the NCA's 1:4 to 1:5 and dilute to taste, or use more water and drink it as is. We have no sourced ready-to-drink ratio, so we do not give one; follow the brewer's instructions.
People also land here searching for a cold brew machine for cafés. The home units above are the wrong scale. Toddy's commercial model, per Toddy's own instruction sheet, "is designed to brew 5 pounds (or 2 kg) of coffee at a time, with a yield of approximately 2.5 gallons" of concentrate from about 14 quarts of cool water; it uses a reusable strainer with a single-use filter bag you tie shut and later compost. We have not run one; that is Toddy's description, not ours.
Five pounds is exactly the bag size on our bulk shelf. Stone Street's Cold Brew Breakfast Blend, 5 lb is $85.50 today, offered whole bean or in a "Cold Brew (Coarse)" grind, roasted in Brooklyn and shipped by Stone Street; their words for it are "smooth flavor with bright notes and no acidity". Simple arithmetic on Toddy's 2.5-gallon yield: 320 fl oz of concentrate is about forty 8-oz pours, so roughly $2.15 of coffee per 16-oz drink diluted 1:1, before ice and cup. Buying by the case, or opening a wholesale account, is the next step: Stone Street's own wholesale desk is on our café and cart page, along with the other roasters who will talk to a shop directly.
| Maker | Method | Yield | Time | Price | Steeps in | Buy if |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OXO Brew | Immersion, concentrate | 40 oz capacity (OXO) | 12–24h | ~$50 street | BPA-free plastic → glass carafe | You make it weekly and hate straining |
| Toddy System | Immersion, concentrate | 12 oz coffee + 56 fl oz water (Toddy) | 12–24h | $49 (Toddy) | Polyethylene → glass decanter | You drink it daily and want volume |
| Hario Mizudashi | Immersion, ready-to-drink | 600 or 1,000 mL | 8–18h | $25.50 (Hario USA) | Borosilicate glass, polyester mesh | You want simple, cheap, glass and fridge-friendly |
| Yama Tower | Slow drip, ready-to-drink | 32 oz (Yama) | ~3h (Yama) | $315 (Yama) | All glass | The process is the point |
| Mason jar + sieve | Immersion, either | Whatever fits | 12–24h | ~$2 | Glass | You make it occasionally — honestly, most people |
| Toddy Commercial Model (not ranked, café scale) | Immersion, concentrate | 5 lb coffee → ~2.5 gal (Toddy) | 12–24h | Ask Toddy | Commercial container, filter bag | You sell it by the cup |
Equipment matters less than these four variables. Get them right and a mason jar beats a $120 tower used carelessly.
Grind coarse. The NCA lists a coarse grind for cold brew, on the rule that "the longer the coffee is in contact with water during the brewing process, the coarser the grind should be." If the batch tastes bitter or sour, its advice is to grind coarser; flat or watery, grind finer. If you're grinding at home, see our grinder guide; if you're buying pre-ground, ask specifically for cold brew coarse.
Ratio: 1:4 to 1:5 by weight (NCA). "1 gram of coffee to 4-5 grams of water": 100 g of coffee to 400–500 g (400–500 ml) of water. That is a concentrate; dilute it to taste with water, milk or ice. The NCA recommends a digital scale so you can repeat what worked.
Time: about 12 hours (NCA), "in the refrigerator or at room temperature for 12 hours, or overnight." The NCA notes steeping times vary widely in practice, and each brewer here publishes its own: follow the maker's instructions for the one you buy.
Use a roast that suits you. The NCA says you can use any beans you prefer. Medium and dark roasts are the conventional choice, and they are what roasters sell for cold brew; the NCA's roast guide says darker roasts brew less acidic coffee than lighter ones. Three bags on our shelf were built or recommended for it by their roasters; they are listed with prices below, and the full bean guide is the best coffee for cold brew.
Storage: we have no tested figure of our own. Toddy says the concentrate from its brewer keeps "up to 2 weeks in your refrigerator"; that is the maker's claim for its own system.
The conventional coffee for cold brew at home is a medium or dark roast, ground coarse; the longer answer is in our cold brew bean guide. These three are on our store, shipped by the roaster that made them, with the roaster's own words and the store price, re-read September 28, 2026. We sell them, so read this as a shelf, not a ranking.
It depends on how far you dilute it, and we have no measured figure of our own. At the National Coffee Association's ratio of 1 gram of coffee to 4 to 5 grams of water, cold brew is a concentrate, which the NCA describes as designed to be diluted with water or enjoyed with ice. For brewed coffee in general the FDA lists 113 to 247 mg of caffeine per 12 fl oz. We have not found a published figure for cold brew that we can stand behind, so we do not quote one.
Not by pH. A 2018 study in Scientific Reports (Rao and Fuller) brewed six light roasts hot and cold and found the pH values comparable, from 4.85 to 5.13, while the hot brews had higher concentrations of total titratable acids. So cold brew measured about as acidic on the pH scale and carried less total acid. The National Coffee Association describes the taste as less bitter and smoother. We make no digestive-health claim.
Yes. The National Coffee Association says you can buy and use ground coffee, and that grinding whole beans immediately before brewing guarantees maximum freshness. Make sure it is ground coarse, which is the NCA's grind for cold brew. Two of the bags on our shelf are sold in a cold brew grind by the roaster.
Optional, and a matter of taste. Paper produces a cleaner, more tea-like cup by catching fines and some oils. Mesh alone gives more body and texture. Try both with the same batch — split the concentrate, filter half through paper — and you'll know your preference in one sitting.
If you want the coffee to steep in glass, the Hario Mizudashi is the value pick: Hario's spec sheet lists a borosilicate glass pot, a polyester mesh strainer and a polypropylene lid, frame and handle band, at $25.50 on Hario USA's site. The only all-glass brew path is the Yama cold drip tower (hand-blown borosilicate, bamboo frame, $315 for the 32-oz tower on Yama's site). The OXO steeps in a BPA-free plastic chamber and drains into a borosilicate carafe; the Toddy steeps in a polyethylene bucket and stores in a glass decanter. A mason jar is glass, and free if you own one.
The OXO and the Toddy are concentrate makers: brew strong (the National Coffee Association gives 1:4 to 1:5 coffee to water by weight; Toddy's own recipe is 12 oz of coffee to 56 fl oz of water) and dilute to taste, which is what cafés do. The Hario Mizudashi is designed for ready-to-drink strength straight from the pot (600 or 1,000 mL brewed volume), and a slow-drip tower like the Yama also produces a drink you serve as is. A mason jar makes either; only the ratio changes.
A medium or dark roast, ground coarse, is the conventional choice, though the National Coffee Association says you can use any beans you prefer. The three bags on our shelf were built or recommended for cold brew by their roasters (Stone Street, Quills, Zoka); the full answer is in the best coffee for cold brew.
Making cold brew a few times a summer: a mason jar and a sieve. We mean it. Spend the money on better beans.
Making it every week: the OXO, for the filtering alone. Drinking it daily and wanting volume: the Toddy. Wanting a device without spending much, or wanting the steep in glass: the Hario. Wanting a project, or wanting every part in glass: the Yama. Selling it by the cup: Toddy's commercial model and a 5-lb bag.
Then pick a coffee you like and check the date on the bag; how to read it is in our freshness guide.
Shop coffee from the roasters The best coffee for cold brew →