So I know the accepted practice for cold brew is to do a coarse grind, and to brew somewhere between 8-24 hours depending on whether you’re doing it at room temperature or in the fridge.
But is this really necessary? Could I just use a finer grind and brew for less time? I’m asking because when you grind coarse, you end up having to use a lot more coffee beans (mass) than you would for the equivalent volume of any other type of coffee.
For context, I’m using a coffee sock which is just a glorified reusable coffee filter, so I don’t think that grind size is going to impact filtration that much.
Just try it. When I started making cold brew I did a bunch of experimenting with grind size and brew time. I dont grind much different from when I make hot coffee, but I found the brew to improve up to 24h or so. Anything less than 18h or so was not acceptable. One thing you can try if you want to speed things up is a hot bloom before adding the rest of the brew water and moving it to the fridge.
Did you ever experiment with the difference between brewing room temp and fridge?
No, I wrote off the room temp idea since coffee can spoil easily at room temp.