Filtering large batches of cold brew

[elguapo]

Hi,

I'm interested in hearing other people's technique in filtering large batches (multiple gallons) of cold brew. We have our our preferred ratios down and have been using large buckets to brew and then we french press and serve. It's good, but it's muddy. Yama drip towers are great, but if we need 5 gallons a day, we're gonna need 5 Yamas, which is going to be well over $1000....

We've tried bucket brewing and then sending it through a Filtron, but it takes forever to drip through. I know a lot of people like Toddy, but I've always felt the coffee is better through other methods.

How do big company's like Stumptown brew and filter cold brew? There's no way they are using Toddy or Filtron, so is it a pump style filter? Our local beer/wine making place recommended this:

Buon Vino: Manufacturer of Fine Wine Making Equipment and Accessories - Superjet and Minijet Wine Filters, Filter Pads, Automatic and Gravity Bottle Fillers.

It's a pump filter for wine, but will it filter away flavor too? It's too expensive to try and decide not to use ($200), plus the cost of buying filters.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

 

[vintageflair]

My suggestion would be keep it as simple as possible. I usually brew in 25 litre buckets and when you have 4 or 5 to filter things can get messy and time consuming. Cotton sacks would be my suggestion, buy enough material to make sacks that fit your buckets. Coffee goes into the sacks along with water, and after your allowed brew time has passed lift the sack and squeeze/press what's left. It should be almost good enough to drink straight but filtering again is no harm.
One thing you said was your coffee was muddy, maybe grind a little coarser, somewhere close to French press I find gives the best results, and give the brew a good stir every 4 hours. Also don't compact the grinds into the sack and just drop it in, things need space to brew.

 

[quantumbeancoffee]

We use the toddy commercial brewer for our large batches of cold brew. Just use a very course grind (30 on a virtuoso) and the results are amazing. No mud whatsoever, simply cut it to ratio 2-1 or 3-1 and it's ready to drink. It can brew close to 3 gallons of cold brew concentrate. You could run 2 commercial Toddys and yield close to 6 gallons for the price of $150 plus price of coffee. Also I believe the commerical toddy brews slightly different than their retail model. With the commerical there is a bag filter and a strainer providing a much cleaner taste. Hard to say how the big dogs are doing it, and I doubt they are going to enlighten us on their technique anytime soon