The Toddy is a plastic brewing container with a hole in its base, a stopper to plug it, a felt filter that sits over the hole, and a glass decanter to drain into. Toddy has sold it since 1964, and the home model is made in Loveland, Colorado. The amounts, times and care steps below come from Toddy’s brewing guide, version 8-2026, and its product page, both checked October 18, 2026. For cold brew in general, without a Toddy, our cold brew concentrate guide is the place to start.
Our 2020 video predates this revision. It uses seven cups of water and repeats a “67% less acid” figure that we look at below; follow the written recipe for amounts.
What’s in the box
Toddy’s product page lists the brewing container with its lid and handle, the glass decanter with its lid, two reusable felt filters, a silicone stopper and three paper filter bags. Toddy calls the system BPA-free; its guide lists the brewing container as HDPE plastic and the felt filter as polyester.
The Toddy needs its own filters. Its guide says ordinary paper coffee filters won’t work; you need Toddy’s felt filters and, for the method below, its paper filter bags.
Toddy’s recipe, in its own numbers
Toddy gives two methods. The one in our video is its “dual filtration” method: a paper bag sitting on the felt filter. Toddy recommends it for easier cleanup, the most cold brew per batch, and a wider range of grind sizes.
- Coffee: 340 g (12 oz), ground coarse
- Water: 8 cups (64 US fl oz, 1.9 L), filtered. That’s about 1:5.6 (calculated: 1,893 g ÷ 340 g). Toddy’s own quick reference rounds it to 1:5.5.
- Time: about 10 minutes to set up, then 8 to 24 hours at room temperature, then however long it takes to drain
- Makes: about 40 fl oz (1.2 L) of concentrate, Toddy’s guide says; its product page gives 36 to 38 fl oz. Our estimate agrees: 1,893 g of water, less about 680 g held back by the grounds at roughly 2 g per gram of coffee, leaves about 1,213 g, or 41 fl oz (calculated, with our Brew Guide’s working figure).
- Press the stopper gently into the outside bottom of the brewing container and turn it a quarter turn to seal. Dampen the felt filter and set it in the inside bottom of the container.
- Open a Toddy paper filter bag and set it in the container. Pour in 340 g of coarsely ground coffee, then 8 cups of filtered water.
- Stir the grounds gently with a spoon or spatula until they are all wet, then twist the top of the bag tightly closed.
- Leave it to steep at room temperature for 8 to 24 hours.
- Set the container on the glass decanter and pull out the stopper so the concentrate drains into the decanter. Throw away the bag and the grounds.
- Keep the concentrate covered in the fridge and use it within 2 weeks. To serve, start with one part concentrate to two parts water or milk, over ice or with hot water.
Toddy says the stopper needs no great force: press it in gently and give it a quarter turn.
Toddy’s other method uses the felt filter alone, its original method from 1964, which Toddy says gives a polished concentrate with virtually no sediment. You pour the water and coffee in layers (1 cup of water, half the coffee, 3 more cups, a 5-minute wait, the rest of the coffee, the last 4 cups) and don’t stir, because stirring can clog the felt. If any grounds stay dry, press them under with the back of a spoon.
Smaller or bigger batches. Toddy’s product page gives 4½ cups (1.07 L) of water for 8 oz (230 g) of coffee, and 9 cups (2.13 L) for a full pound (450 g); a pound fills the container nearly to the top and makes a stronger concentrate, so dilute it more.
Grind
Toddy asks for its coarsest setting, or a French press grind if a coffee shop grinds for you, and its guide says a coarse grind is what keeps the filter from clogging. If your grinder has no settings, Toddy’s tip is to grind for about 75% of the time you’d use for hot coffee.
How strong to serve it
Toddy’s 1:5.6 makes a concentrate, not a drink. Toddy suggests starting at one part concentrate to two parts water or milk and mixing to taste. Here’s what that and two other mixes give for an 8 fl oz (237 ml) glass, before ice:
| Mix | Concentrate + water or milk | Strength, illustrative |
|---|---|---|
| One to two (Toddy) | 79 g + 158 g | about 0.9–1.2% |
| One to one | 118 g + 118 g | about 1.3–1.8% |
| Two to one | 158 g + 79 g | about 1.8–2.4% |
The strengths are total dissolved solids, calculated the way our Brew Guide estimates cold brew: 15 to 20% of the coffee’s weight dissolved, about 2.7–3.6% in the concentrate itself. That’s an assumption, not a measurement. For comparison, the SCA’s brewing chart uses 1.15–1.45% as its reference range for brewed coffee, so Toddy’s one to two lands at or just below the bottom of that range and one to one at or above its top.
At one to two, a batch makes about 15 of these glasses (calculated: 1,213 g ÷ 79 g). Ice dilutes further as it melts.
Caffeine. By the model behind our Caffeine Calculator, which estimates caffeine from the coffee used, Toddy’s concentrate carries about 95 to 210 mg per 100 ml, so an 8 fl oz glass mixed one to two has about 75 to 165 mg (calculated and rounded to 5 mg). The calculator puts an 8 fl oz cup of drip coffee at about 105 to 195 mg, so a Toddy glass at Toddy’s dilution is in the same range. Mix it stronger and the caffeine rises with it. Our caffeine guide has the full table.
How long to steep it
Toddy’s range is 8 to 24 hours at room temperature. We let the batch in our 2020 video go about 18 hours, and our own sweet spot has been 14 to 16: rich and developed without harshness.
Here’s something that surprised me. Megan Fuller and Niny Rao steeped 35 g of coffee in 350 ml of water at room temperature, 70–77°F (21–25°C), and found that caffeine and one chlorogenic acid reached a steady level after about 400 minutes, roughly 6 to 7 hours, instead of the 10 to 24 hours typical recipes call for. That’s two compounds, not everything that dissolves. Cordoba and colleagues found the rest keeps coming: with a coarse grind, their brews’ dissolved solids rose from about 1.5–1.6% at 14 hours to about 2.0% at 22 hours, and their three trained tasters gave the coarse 14-hour brews the higher overall scores. Neither study used a Toddy or Toddy’s ratio.
So the middle of Toddy’s range is a sensible start. Change the time a few hours at a time, and keep everything else the same.
Room temperature or fridge. I usually steep at room temperature for convenience, as Toddy’s guide does. Food safety leans the other way: at the University of Georgia, Angela Parra’s research found that Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria survived in cold brew for about 9 to 12 days, and Bacillus cereus for more than 30, though none of them grew. The university’s report says cold brew is unlikely to spoil if it’s brewed and stored in a refrigerator for a limited time, and that contamination usually comes from the ingredients or an unclean setup. Whichever you choose, wash your hands and every part of the Toddy first. Jessica Easto steeps her cold brew in the fridge; our concentrate guide has her recipe.
How long it keeps
Toddy’s guide says the concentrate stays fresh for up to two weeks in the fridge, best kept in the glass decanter with its lid or another airtight container. Our 2020 video gave 7 to 10 days, a more cautious figure; Easto gives one to two weeks.
The research doesn’t extend that window for homemade concentrate. In a Clemson University study, sealed bottles of ready-to-drink cold brew kept low bacterial counts over 42 days in the fridge, but the researchers didn’t test for pathogens, and they concluded that flavor, not microbes, limited how long it kept. Our concentrate guide goes through that study and the University of Georgia’s. Keep the concentrate covered and cold, and mix it a glass at a time.
Is Toddy cold brew “67% less acid”?
Our 2020 video repeated a well-known claim that Toddy cold brew has 67% less acid. A one-page Toddy promotional sheet, “The Benefits of Cold Brew,” uses the figure but gives no test method, no definition of acid and no study, and it isn’t on Toddy’s current product page or in its brewing guide. We found no published study behind it, so we can’t say what the 67% measures; Toddy’s older spec sheet calls the coffee “low in acid and gentle on sensitive stomachs” without a number. Three published studies compared cold and hot brews made from the same coffee:
- Rao and Fuller, 2018: six light-roast coffees, cold brewed for 7 hours at room temperature and hot brewed for 6 minutes. The pH was comparable, 4.85 to 5.13. Titratable acidity, the total amount of acid, was lower in every cold brew, by about 10% to 40% depending on the coffee and the endpoint (our calculation from their tables). Hot brews also had higher antioxidant activity.
- Rao, Fuller and Grim, 2020: one Colombian coffee at three roast levels, 20 g of coffee to 200 ml of water. The cold brews’ pH was 0.20 to 0.36 units higher (from their table; the paper’s text says 0.34), and their titratable acidity about 3%, 11% and 26% lower from light to dark (calculated from their table). The cold brews also had fewer browned compounds and lower dissolved solids. For the light and medium roasts, caffeine came out much the same hot or cold.
- Cordoba and colleagues, 2019: two Colombian coffees; the cold brews’ pH was 4.81 to 4.92, against 4.36 and 4.44 for the hot brews.
So cold brew does carry less total acid, by amounts well short of 67% in these studies, and its pH is the same or slightly higher. None of them tested a Toddy brew or measured how anyone’s stomach responds. If acid is a medical concern for you, ask your clinician. Our low-acid coffee guide covers what else changes acidity.
Which coffee to use
In our 2020 video we suggested an African coffee if you like a fruit-forward cold brew to drink black, a Latin American coffee for chocolate notes with milk and sugar, or a balanced house blend for something that works both ways. That’s a starting point for taste, not a finding; Toddy’s guide doesn’t pick an origin. Whatever you choose, grind it coarse.
Cleaning and the felt filter
These steps are Toddy’s own, from its guide:
- After a batch: throw away the grounds and the paper bag, take out the felt filter, and rinse it in water, without soap.
- Between batches: put the damp felt filter in a resealable plastic bag in the freezer.
- Replace it: Toddy says a felt filter can be used up to 10 times, and should be thrown away after 3 months. Paper bags are single use.
- Washing: the parts are dishwasher safe, but Toddy recommends hand-washing the reusable parts for the longest life. To push the felt filter out, use your hands, a straw or a chopstick, not a knife from underneath.
If it won’t drain, or the glass tastes wrong
Most Toddy trouble is a slow drain. Toddy’s guide puts it down to a grind that’s too fine, water poured too hard, or grounds stirred in the felt-only method, all of which send fine particles down to the filter. If it stops draining, Toddy suggests pushing the rounded end of a dinner knife down through the grounds until it touches the filter and gently scraping the top of the filter. Next time, grind coarser, pour gently, or use a paper filter bag.
For the taste of the glass, change one thing at a time. We put the steep time before the grind for sour or bitter, because a finer grind is what clogs a Toddy’s filter:
| If the glass is… | Try first | Then, as a separate change |
|---|---|---|
| Too weak, but tastes fine | Mix it stronger, such as one to one | More coffee for the same water |
| Too strong, but tastes fine | Add more water or milk | Less coffee for the same water |
| Sour, thin | Steep a few hours longer | Grind a little finer, if it still drains |
| Bitter, harsh | Steep a few hours less | Grind a little coarser |
Our concentrate guide has more on cold brew fixes; it changes the grind first, which suits a jar better than a Toddy.
Buying one
The Toddy Home Cold Brew System was listed at $49 on Toddy’s own site when checked October 18, 2026. It’s also sold on Amazon as the Toddy Cold Brew System (Amazon search); check that the listing is the home model, with the glass decanter, rather than Toddy’s larger commercial brewer.
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Sources
- Toddy, Home Cold Brew System Brewing Guide, version 8-2026: parts, Methods 1 and 2 for coffee, steep time, storage, serving ratio, cleanup and FAQs (yield, grind, stirring, larger batches, filters, stopper), checked October 18, 2026: toddycafe.com (PDF)
- Toddy, “Toddy® Home Cold Brew System” product page (what’s included, price, FAQs on batch sizes, yield and storage), checked October 18, 2026: toddycafe.com
- Toddy, “The Benefits of Cold Brew,” one-page promotional sheet (“67% less acid,” with no method or study), undated, hosted by WebstaurantStore, checked October 18, 2026: webstaurantstore.com (PDF)
- Toddy, “Toddy® Cold Brew System (aka Toddy® Coffee Maker)” spec sheet, 2018: wholesale.toddycafe.com (PDF)
- Megan Fuller and Niny Z. Rao, “The Effect of Time, Roasting Temperature, and Grind Size on Caffeine and Chlorogenic Acid Concentrations in Cold Brew Coffee,” Scientific Reports 7 (2017): 17979, abstract, Methods and Results: doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-18247-4
- Niny Z. Rao and Megan Fuller, “Acidity and Antioxidant Activity of Cold Brew Coffee,” Scientific Reports 8 (2018): 16030, abstract and Tables 2 and 4: doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34392-w
- Niny Z. Rao, Megan Fuller and Meghan D. Grim, “Physiochemical Characteristics of Hot and Cold Brew Coffee Chemistry: The Effects of Roast Level and Brewing Temperature on Compound Extraction,” Foods 9, no. 7 (2020): 902, section 2.3, section 3.1 and Table 1: doi.org/10.3390/foods9070902
- N. Cordoba, L. Pataquiva, C. Osorio, F. L. Moreno Moreno and R. Y. Ruiz, “Effect of grinding, extraction time and type of coffee on the physicochemical and flavour characteristics of cold brew coffee,” Scientific Reports 9 (2019): 8440, Methods, Table 1 and the sensory results: doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44886-w
- S. N. Lopane, J. U. McGregor and J. R. Rieck, “An investigation of the shelf life of cold brew coffee and the influence of extraction temperature using chemical, microbial, and sensory analysis,” Food Science & Nutrition 12, no. 2 (2024): 985–996: doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.3812
- Lillian Sosbee, “Can cold brew coffee make you sick?”, University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, January 30, 2024 (Angela Parra’s research): fieldreport.caes.uga.edu
- Jessica Easto, Craft Coffee: A Manual (Agate Surrey, 2017), p. 60, “Cold Brew” (keeping one to two weeks), and pp. 217–218, “The French Press Cold Brew Method”