Essential Brewing equipment
Brewing great coffee doesn’t just happen; it takes a methodical and intentional approach to achieve great results. You could have the most sought after coffee in the world paired with an amazing brewer, but if you are not prepared with the proper equipment needed to repeatedly make a great cup, you will find yourself constantly disappointed and frustrated by a subpar product. That being said, here are a few items that we think are a must-have and that, if utilized and used correctly, will greatly increase your quality and your ability to consistently achieve that quality.
grinderPurchasing a solid burr grinder, you increase your quality output immediately. Once coffee is ground, you begin to lose some of the key elements of taste and flavor, seeing as you have just pulverized these baked seeds, literally grinding them down to powder. This process starts a countdown that sees 50% of flavor quality being lost 15 minutes after grinding! Being able to grind coffee fresh before each brew is essential to seeing a measurable improvement.
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ScaleLike we have said, achieving great results is not our only aim, but making sure we are able to repeat those results is equally important. What’s the point of brewing a great cup if we do not know what we did to make it great? A key component of brewing great coffee is knowing how much coffee to use and how using more or less coffee will lead to different results. Adding a scale to your brewing set up will afford you the opportunity to more accurately determine your brew ratio, which will guide your taste preferences, helping you know how to best brew coffee for you not just once, but consistently.
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goose neck kettleWhile brewing coffee is at its core an intense chemical reaction, we want to make sure that our contribution does not create unnecessary chaos to an already turbulent process. By adding a goose neck kettle to your manual brewing set up, this helps you direct the flow of water while brewing, ensuring not only a more even extraction, but also aiding in consistency over several brews.
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Our Theory on Coffee
Coffee is simple and intricate, comforting and dynamic, humble and audacious all at once.
It is a wildly beautiful and terribly mystifying thing, carrying with it many different meanings for many different people. For us at Honest Coffee Roasters, coffee means exceeding expectations and standing for excellence with every seed we source, roast, brew, and serve.
Coffee means bringing people together from different places and backgrounds in one space and watching a community take shape. Coffee is at the center of not merely how or what we do, but why we do what we do. That’s what coffee means to us, what does it mean to you?
It is a wildly beautiful and terribly mystifying thing, carrying with it many different meanings for many different people. For us at Honest Coffee Roasters, coffee means exceeding expectations and standing for excellence with every seed we source, roast, brew, and serve.
Coffee means bringing people together from different places and backgrounds in one space and watching a community take shape. Coffee is at the center of not merely how or what we do, but why we do what we do. That’s what coffee means to us, what does it mean to you?
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v60A standard in the specialty coffee industry, the v60 is a pour over brewer that, like the Chemex, owes much of its success to the paper filter that helps to produce a very clean and flavorful cup of coffee. With an elementary design of vertical “S” grooves inside the brewer leading down to a hole about a half inch in diameter, the v60 is engineered to make quicker cup of coffee. This is a great tool to redefine your home brewing experience, challenge your skills and produce a great cup of coffee.
This is an example of a continuous pour recipe, where you only have two to three pours during the entire brewing process. |
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Kalita waveA product of Japanese ingenuity and expertise, the Kalita Wave is a pour over brew method with a simple design that produces a delicious cup of coffee containing equal parts flavor and body. This is attributed to the flat bottom design and the number of holes in the bottom of the brewer to control and direct flow rate.
This is an example of a pulse-pour recipe, with measured pours happening at specific times during the brew. |
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AeroPressThe Aeropress was designed in 1984 and is known as a hybrid brew method, combining both full immersion and percolation. This tool can make anything from something closely resembling a shot of espresso, to a delicious full cup of coffee! This recipe will be utilizing the inverted method of brewing.
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French PressOne of the most classic and widely used brew methods out there, the French Press is a full immersion brewer where the water and coffee come directly into contact and steep for a longer period of time. Using a mesh, metal filter, the end product usually has a heavy body due to the sediment that passes through the filter when it is plunged to end the brew. If you prefer a full bodied coffee, the French Press is one you need.
This recipe mimics the taste of a cupping, also another full immersion brew method that is used by our roasters to sample current coffee offerings. |