I brew in a Chemex!
I like how I can brew for like 3 people at a time or just myself. Now that it's summer, I've been brewing Mexican Chiapas over ice nearly every morning.
I've got a chemex and love iced coffee... Talk to me about this "brewing over ice" method?
Basically you just take some portion of the water in your recipe (I usually do 40%, personally) and replace it with ice. So, you're effectively brewing a very short ratio, but diluting it to be the same as your normal concentration. Since your extraction will drop, you may need to grind a little finer or do a little more agitation to compensate.
Chemex is still one of my favorites. You first enjoy a meal or drink with your eyes, and the Chemex is easily my most beautiful piece of coffee hardware. I just love the classic look of it.
Americano の bialetti I am drunk now though
I brew coffee in AeroPress using James Hoffman's recipe. It's simple and produces tasty results.
The AeroPress is my daily driver, simple and delicious.
Sometimes the simplest is the most delicious.
As already mentioned, James Hoffmann is a treasure.
I own a french press, but I have been using it only for a tea. On weekdays I make my morning coffee with an AeroPress. For the weekends I have a Chemex after I got after I realised even my unrefined hand brew is better than any automatic coffee maker can do. Actually this is my second Chemex, because a huge chunk splitted somehow from the first after a year amfya half of use. If it happens again, I will get V60 or something else more durable. I also have a 2 cup Bialetti moka pot for making milk drinks.
There is a semi-automatic espresso machine at my work place but that has only convinced me it's not worth the hassle and dialing in a good cup is really difficult.
I stopped using milk with filter coffee at home when I switched to bying whole beans and found out coffee can be actually good as is when you don't buy the bulk pre-ground stuff. And in last few years there have been a lot of local roasteries popping up and I found out I really like the juicy and maybe slightly sour natural processed ones. But I'm too stingy to be always bying the best stuff, also you need to have a baseline to compare the good stuff :þ
My current grinder is a Fellow Ode. A bit more pricier than I thought I would get, but it was the only reasonable upgrade immediately available when my Wilfa Svart broke.
The coffee shop I go to had these beans that were soaked in cherries before they were roasted or something? I need to read the label again but I've been liking them.
Edit: the label says "the seed is left in cherry, sealed in a bin, CO2 buildup creates pressure, this imparts fruity flavors to the seed. The seed is them removed and processed where it dries in cherry"
Sounds like anaerobic fermentation! I have had some seriously funky and delicious beans that went through that process. I even saw one that did the same, but introduced peaches into the fermentation to attempt to impart some of that flavor as well.
https://sprudge.com/what-does-anaerobic-fermentation-mean-for-coffee-192474.html
Black and White's Elkin Guzman Strawberry Catiope was delicious, and made for really wild espresso milk drinks in particular. The process is wild:
After this initial bout of fermentation, a mother culture of microorganisms is added to the tanks. These microorganisms have been fed molasses and strawberries for four days prior to encountering the coffee cherries, which gives them energy for fermentation and contributes flavor to the lot. The coffee is then left to ferment with this strawberry-infused culture for an astonishing 270 hours before being dried on raised beds until it reaches 10.5-11% humidity.
The coffee cherry is the fleshy fruit portion of coffee that surrounds the bean. Usually removed pretty soon after harvest from my understanding. Sounds like they are using something similar to carbonic maceration, which I usually associate with wine. Sounds yummy!
Espresso
Eureka Specialita Mignon
18.3G of whatever bean I want that day
Lelit Elizabeth
So damn good every morning
I've been replying on my v60 daily now, never fails to make a good cup! Maybe I'll make an aeropress once every so often each month for a change.
Recently started making Japanese style iced coffee and that's been fantastic for the warm weather!
I have also been experimenting with a Flair Neo, but I've yet to make something I'm entirely satisfied with.
So as a foreigner who has lived in Japan for 15 years, what is Japanese iced coffee, specifically? Really weak instant coffee with coffee cubes mixed in? I'm not trying to be rude I honestly don't know
I'm using a small (12 oz) Bodum french press. 1:12 ratio with a 30 second bloom and 4 minute additional steep. The procedure seems to work fine to my tastes but I'm still getting a feel for it since I've only used it a half dozen times so far.
I would highly recommend taking a peak at James Hoffmann's method. I feel it has been the most efficient method in removing that sludge at the bottom of the cup.
I bumped into that method while doing a quick look into tips for brewing with a French Press. I may give it a try one of these mornings I'm feeling like taking things at a more leisurely pace.
I've really been enjoying my Bialetti brikka pot. It turns out that the trick with that pot is that you shouldn't fill up the water reservoir all the way up to the valve, because then it overheats easily.
I've been on a Turkish coffee kick last week after an ethno trip to central Bulgaria. 2 tbsp of extra fine ground coffee (Mehmet Efendi works great, also my local roastery made me a floral/chocolatey, blend if you're into specialty) in a cezve (about 150ml).
Stir before putting on the stove on medium-high heat. Do NOT stir after this point. Just before the water starts boiling, it will foam a little, remove the foam with the cezve off the stove, with a teaspoon and move it to your cup. When it boils for good slowly pour half of it in the cup and put it back on the stove for another 15 seconds. Pour slowly again. Wait for 3-4 minutes to cool and settle and enjoy. Do mind the coffee grounds at the bottom. Drink as is or with lokum, or a biscuit to the side.
If you want to sweeten the coffee, do so as you add the coffee powder, NOT afterwards.
I use a hario switch. Basically a v60 but with a switch like clever. Pretty versatile
Me too. I love thé hario switch. More forgiving than the V60 and you can try so many receipe...
I’m about a month into brewing with a V60 (ceramic). Wouldn’t say I’ve perfected anything yet (coming from French press). Currently brewing a local roaster’s medium roast at 15 to 1, Baratza Encore now set to 13. Making a couple cups at a time. Hopefully will have some time to research methodology a bit more and get more comfortable toying with formula and approach.
Where are my Jura peeps at?
Pricey but I love my Jura and it makes a great cup of coffee.
I very between the aeropress, one cup v60 and the wife's beans to cup machine depending on mood and how early it is
Hario Switch, using Tetsu Kasuya's recipe, which works out to be somewhat less fussy for me than James Hoffmann's one cup V60 recipe.
For iced coffee, it's Japanese iced coffee all the way, or cold brew with a French press using cheaper beans when I don't have the energy to brew a pourover.
I'm really keen to buy a proper machine in the next year or two. Thinking something like the Quick Mill Pippa.
I was doing V60 for a while but Aeropress is my go-to now, even for an instant "coldbrew" in a pinch.
Bodybrew Bod for cold brew. Love it, so easy to use, so easy to clean.
Normally I use a Bialetti 1 cup, but lately I've been using a second-hand Irmel moka pot I found. Had to buy a new gasket for it.
That's a beautiful looking machine, I can see why you'd want to get that! I still don't know which machine I'm going to get, thought I think I want to start with something like the flair 58 and maybe a nanofoamer.
Currently enjoying the comfort and familiarity of where my coffee journey really started: Ethiopian natural ground in 1zpresso K-Max and brewed with Hoffman’s Ultimate v60 Technique in a clear plastic v60.
I have the same grinder! :)
I want to move some days from v60 to something easier….. so my wife could make coffee for me once in a while lol. Apart from a machine or a French press… what good and easy?
The Hario Mugen works pretty well with one-pour recipes, so that's one of the easier options for a pourover.
Flat bottom brewers (Kalita/Orea/Timemore B75) are probably more forgiving than a V60, but not necessarily easier in terms of the number of steps / workflow. Aeropress would probably fall into this category as well.
I use a modified rancilio silvia. It has a PID with the boiler set at 216°F. I also have it moded for pre-infusion. I do a 10 second pre-infusion and a shot time of ~27 seconds. 20 grams in 40 grams out. There is an awesome local roaster, light house roasters, they have a variety of beans to choose from. I'm still learning and chasing that perfect shot.
Aeropress loosely following James Hoffman's recipe at ~18g/300ml. Using a Knock Aergrind at 1:8, and the Aeropress stainless steel filter.
Depends on the mood a bit, mostly a variety of Moccamaster machine, Bialetti or small French press. Cheaper Beans for the machine, and the quality stuff for the two others ☕
I'm using clever dripper for my manual brew, enjoying coffee bean from West Java, Indonesia. Still pulling a double shot once awhile, just when I need a (stronger) quick fix.
I’ve recently been using a Timemore B75 dripper with Kalita 185 filters. I use Lance Hedrick’s Ultimate Pourover Recipe with good results so far on a 21:350 brew ratio. As for beans, I have a Guatemalan open right now that I’m grinding at around a 3.0 on a Fellow Ode with 2.0 burrs.
With the B75, I’m able to grind a bit finer than the recipe suggests and still get a fast drawdown.
Have you tried larger batches? I'm a big fan of Hedrick's recipe but found it tricky especially on the Orea when doing 500mL
I tried a 30:500 batch this morning, and it actually turned out surprisingly well first try. I definitely had to be a lot more aware of my pouring rate, and should probably go a click courser. I think the grind size is probably the biggest factor for a brew this big.
I haven’t tried anything larger yet, but I can definitely see how a 500ml batch would be pretty tight in a brewer this size. I even had a little trouble with the stock papers at 350ml, but that’s because they sit slightly below the rim of the brewer, where the 185s don’t. I’ll have to try a 500ml brew and see how it goes.
Currently I'm definitely in that "got a new Orea" camp : D
I got my "negotiator" a couple days ago and have been trying to get the hang of using it with flat filters. (I got some of the hilariously expensive sibarist ones to try.) It's a little fussy to get everything situated, especially compared to the very easy workflow of the Mugen that has been my main brewer.
Today it's already pretty warm here so I did a batch of iced coffee using Rogue Wave's Doi Seket. 55 on the ZP6, 28 grams of coffee, 300g of water, 200g of ice, doing a simple 5 pours of equal size.
This coffee has been a bit tricky to brew for me, with a papery astringency that has been tricky to avoid, so I dropped the temp down a little bit in brewing, which seems to have helped somewhat.
Ditto Ghostx. I also do James Hoffman’s AeroPress recipe. If I’m making for more than myself, I do the AeroPress AeroPress recipe which allows me to distribute the coffee more evenly and it makes a nice, crisp and snappy cup!
1zpresso J-Max grinder and Cafelat Robot is my daily driver. I use 20g in and 40g out with a 5sec 2-bar preinfusion and usually get it done in about 30 sec at 6 bars of pressure. I started running at 6bars a couple of months ago instead of the classic 8 and I prefer the change.
I've been pretty busy the past year, and most recently I've just been lazy, so lately I've just been using my French press. I have a cheap calphalon espresso machine but I guess at some point I'll clean it and use that again.
Edit to add: I also use a bialetti moka pot for laziness.
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