How can I maximize cold brew yield without harming flavor?

Question

Currently I make coffee two ways: hot coffee using a moka pot, and cold brew using a Coffee Toddy. Both of these methods produce concentrated coffee. However, I've noticed that my liquid yield for cold brew using the Toddy is less than half that of the moka pot, even when you take the differing strength of the concentrates into account.

To put it another way: when making moka, 12oz of coffee lasts me about 12 days, whereas for Toddy cold brew, it only lasts me around 7 days. In fact, I can get a better cold coffee yield by making moka and pouring it over ice than I can doing cold brew -- but I don't want to go that way because it's so wasteful of energy.

I realize that cold brew will never have the extraction ratios of moka, but are there ways I can improve the yield for cold brew extraction, at least a little, without degrading the flavor? Either using my existing Toddy system, or some other system?

Answer 1

It generally depends on your brew ratio (# grams of coffee to # grams of water) some people go with 1:6, 1:7, etc.

And keep in mind the higher your ratio is the less concentrated the coffee will be, so for example if you brew 140 grams of coffee at the 1:7 ratio you would need to add about 980ml of water which would produce a larger yield than it would if you used the 1:6 ratio, but the later one would be more concentrated.

I also saw some people that use a lower ratios then dilute the yield with water to make it less concentrated.