So. After a year or two on the aeropress and a hand grinder. Iām thinking of upgrading the method.
Considering a Baratza Encore electric grinder. Then moving to pour overs. I think I need a gooseneck kettle, adjustable temp.
Iām trying to decide between a v60 and a chemex. Leaning the chemex because of ease of making two cups at once.
Anything else I should be thinking about? Thoughts?
*I dunno the best place to get this stuff in AUS. Iām linking Prima for reference only, not endorsing them. I just order from there because itās close to me and they have a ton of gear.
You need a gooseneck but not adjustable temp. If you donāt have a stovetop burner or whatever to heat your kettle on then ok, maybe, but I wouldnāt pay extra for temp. I have this one Hario one below, but goosenecks end up costing a bit so Iād just go for the best deal on any brand you find (under $30 USD would be really good).
Get the plastic V60 02 that costs < $10 USD if youāre brewing 2 cups. Yeah sure the other materials might look nicer but theyāre conductors that steal heat from your water and they break easily. I donāt recommend Chemex to people as a first brewer and definitely donāt think itās easier for making two cups. Just go straight to the V60 instead. Itās the industry standard for pourover.
You can get a Hario server to go with it. If you like pretty, the olivewood is nice:
Get the original untabbed filters that come in a box (40 count) if you can find them at decent price. The tabbed ones will work but are more sensitive to your grinder and technique.
Figure out your water situation. Iād recommend getting something like Third Wave Water packets at first because itās easy. You wanna make sure your water is a control, not a variable, when youāre learning how to do this. These are one packet per gallon of water so not sure how that applies to you.
You also need a scale. The one I like is called the MyWeigh Barista but is discontinued (you can still find it though). Really prefer having 0.1g resolution and accuracy and the ability to make it not auto-shutoff. The other stuff feels like useless bells and whistles to me.
The Encore is solid, reliable, and the industry standard entry-level grinder. However, itās a conical burr which produces more fines than flat burrs by design. That means itās more difficult to produce a unimodal distribution around the target particle size, an ideal outcome for specialty pourover. That said, you can still make great coffee with the Encore. If you think thereās a chance youād want to upgrade in near future or simply have a larger budget, consider going with a flat burr grinder.
Iād go to the V60 setup I described above. Dollar for dollar, you want to be putting your money into grinders. Iād rather have a $500 grinder and $9 plastic V60 than a $250 grinder and $250 brew / misc if that makes sense. Like, give me a $2,700 EK43, a $9 piece of plastic, and nothing else and Iāll MacGuyver you a world class cup of coffee somehow using various kitchen supplies.
Amazing post. Thank you.
A couple of follow up questions.
I think electric is better/faster in Aus because of the higher voltage. I understand stove top is standard in the US.
Is temperature control not important? I thought you wanted consistently just under boiling temp?
Regarding the water. I think melbourne water is pretty good. However I will look further.
On grinder. Are there any price points where theres a major up in quality? Is there an entry level flat grinder in a similar way the encore is?
I donāt think your temperature needs to be that controlled. I have an analog thermometer in my kettle and it seems good enough.
Pretty good means nothing though because we arenāt talking about clean water. Thereās a very tight range of alkalinity and somewhat wider range for carbonate hardness that will produce great coffee. Several detailed posts about it in this thread.
The cheapest viable flat burr that Iām aware of is the Fellow Ode at $299. However, it had some initial design flaws and Iām not sure if those have been rectified. Iām hesitant to recommend it. The new Baratza Vario+ is $599 and closest thing to what I have. If youāre confident buying used on eBay or somewhere, you can get an older Vario with steel for about half that. Btw, when I say flat burrs, you want STEEL flat burrs, not ceramic.
Iām using an espresso machine in one of the teacherās rooms.
Only gotta pay 5 koruna (about 25 cents) for a double espresso. I can spend the time I used to use for making coffee for sleep.
French press on weekends
the only thing I would add to the above is that if youāre going to use a conical grinder, Iām not sure youāll notice a huge difference between the aeropress and the V60.
I get some pretty amazing cups from the V60, but itās got a wider range than the aeropress. And thatās not the V60 per se, itās just letting whatever grinds I put in it do their thing. If the grinder is inconsistent, the output will be inconsistent. he V60 will absolutely make you aware of the limitation of your grinder, because youāll see the evidence every time you brew (āhigh and drysā).
The aeropress, on the other hand, somehowā¦ compresses the range? Iām not sure what it is, the output is more consistent, the lows are higher but the highs are lower. In any case, the cost is pretty minimal, so you should definitely do it just to add some variety to your routine.
BTW, thanks for linking to Prima again, Iāve been checking all the various baratza dealers waiting for the Vario W+ to restock and they have it, boom, snap ordered.
Yeah this is very likely true. More consistent with lower ceiling and higher floor on the Aero, and thatās almost definitely due to the immersion brewing component. Neither are expensive though so could totally just grab both. I definitely bricked a lot of V60s with the Encore whereas now it basically never happens.
:vince_mcmahon_head:
Nice. Make sure you have dry erase markers
btw, how big of a deal is seasoning the burrs? I find it hard to believe that running 10 lbs of cheap beans through the grinder is going to make any significant difference, is this necessary?
I really dunno. Tough thing to test scientifically imo. Iād go with whatever Baratza and Ditting say.
Itās cool that Baratza acknowledges hyper alignment and even encourages modding and diy stuff for those who are comfortable with it. Thatās a major reason why I support them. They are easy to work on and parts are available. Thatās a beautiful grinder u got comin btw.
A few questions that might sway things. First and most importantly, what kind of flavors are you hoping to extract and how clean / transparent do you want them to be? Do you have a hard budget on this?
yeah baratzaās pro-tinkering philosophy is absolutely a huge reason Iām buying this thing
glass V60 clone ā¦ but itās double walled? I might be interested.
My level of coffee geekery is well below anyone here. Iām just mainly looking for better than I currently have.
Hand grinder is a pain to adjust. And in combination with the aeropress Iām getting pretty inconsistent coffee.
In terms of flavors. Iām a big espresso fan. Go too is normally an straight shot. Or else if the cafe will do it well, a short macchiato.
A few times with the aeropress Iāve had really great cups. Not anything like an espresso but with a full range of coffee flavors.
I was considering a home espresso maker. But from what Iāve read, I think the cost/practice/skill required to get close to good cafe coffee would be prohibitively higher compared to pour over
I think this is essentially the thing - I love espresso but I just canāt bring myself to do it at home. At the cheap end, youāre basically never going to get anything even remotely like what you will get even at a starbucks, and the amount of money it costs to āmove upā is huge and the returns are very, very much diminishing. You can spend a lot of money and still have a very mid setup, and to really do it ārightā youāre going to have to spend megabucks AND put in a lot of effort.
On the pourover side, though, I can spend a few hundred and basically be turning out a better cup than even some of the best specialty shops (generally they arenāt dialing in their grinders for the best cup on a specific roast, theyāre just using the standard recipie for each bean, etc). Even with my current grinder (which I think I spent ~$150 on 12 years ago) I can get a pretty decent cup (by which I mean better than what I might expect from a place like Counter Culture or Intelligentsia) ~80% of the time, and an amazing cup 5% of the time.
Iām suddenly less interested after reading up on some of their other products
this is 100% woowoo
I do think a double-walled glass funnel would probably solve the heat retention issue people have with regular glass drippers, but this level of woowoo makes me think they havenāt done the level of engineering/testing I would want on the actual size/shape/angle/etc of the functional part of the funnel.
