I am interested in brewing a large batch of cold brew on monday (2-2.5 gallons at a time) for a multi day poker event I am hosting at my house. My experience so far is that filtering it after it is done steeping is quite a slow process for even a half gallon sized batch. I don't have enough sowdens to brew it directly in the softbrewer to hit these batch size goals.

Anyone come up with any techniques to filter it more rapidly at these batch sizes?

5gallon buckets and paint strainers.

endlesscycles wrote:5gallon buckets and paint strainers.

+1 This.

Take it a step further, beer making shops sell both 5 gallon buckets and the paint strainer bags used for dry hopping (extremely micro-fine weave would work perfectly for coarser iced coffee brew), but the added benefit of going to a home-brew shop is both of these would set you back a whole whopping $20.

And you could get it with a spout tapped in to the bottom. So you could literally just dump a bunch of fresh good quality ice on top, pop the lid back on and have as many guests or whomever easily serve by just turning the spigot. Especially if it's in a glass over ice, maybe some simple syrup and cream. You'd be in heaven and would be able to serve a huge crowd very cheaply. Start the batch well in advance and you'd have hardly any work to do.

Awesome, this is exactly the kind of tip I was hoping for. I'll be running to the brewer supply store tomorrow. Thanks!

So I had my big event, and brewed 3 gallons of Bodka Breakfast Blend using some hopping bags, and it was a huge hit! The service at Bodka was fantastic, and the coffee was a great choice for a big room full of people with varying levels of coffee interest. The coffee snobs to the instant coffee drinkers all loved it.

Also, since this was a big Poker event, the high caffeine content, combined with the cold brew caffeine extraction resulted as one guest called it: "a defibrillator in a cup."

Thanks for the help in learning to prepare these huge batches.

This is a great idea....