Cheers

Chris

It seems that like anything, people can get as much into something as they want and fuss over the details. That’s fine, this is a new hobby for me so we’ll see if I too obsess over it as the coffee becomes noticeably better tasting.

My question for Scott and everyone else, is why not just use a simple garden watering can? Even pour from a shower-head-like device without risking infringement on the Raomatic? Plus for those of us looking for a pour over kettle, the garden can comes in larger capacities than the fairly small Hario shown above.

If there is a problem with this method I’d like to know, but if not, a simple Amazon search points here: http://www.amazon.com/Gardman-WC4007-1-32GAL-Large-Stainless/dp/B000WEIKS8/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1244414904&sr=8-9
Stainless, and I can’t think of a reason why you couldn’t heat right on a burner.

Your resulting brew was one of two types: either you had proper brew strength but underextracted grounds at the top and overextracted grounds at the bottom, or your brew strength was a little low and the bottom was properly extracted and top grounds underextracted. (Given your standard water: grounds ratio, total extraction time, and batch size, it’s less likely your grind was so fine that the brew strength was too high)

I believe this because I’ve brewed thousands of one-cup pourovers in the past few months and have taken hundreds of readings with the extractMOJO refractometer and have tasted those hundreds of cups and played with an ungodly number of variations of pouring techniques.

If you doubt I am correct, I invite you to make a chemex with your technique, excavate a section of spent grounds from the top of the filter, excavate another section of grounds from the bottom of the filter, dehydrate the two samples, and then re-brew them using any immersion method and identical brewing parameters. Then check the respective brew strengths of the two re-brewed cups, and you will find the coffee made with the spent grounds from the top of filter has much higher brew strength. (Because those grounds were much less extracted the first time around and have a lot more extractable solids remaining. This test is a trick borrowed from Jim Schulman’s excellent brain.

The only answers I know to this pouring problem for chemex or any pourover percolation brew are to use a fair amount of agitation (not recommended because it is dicey and nearly impossible to replicate brew-to-brew) or to shower the water onto the grounds at a much slower rate. Much like in an auto-drip brewer, the flow rate of water onto the grounds should be similar to the flow rate of coffee out of the filter. The key is to not let the grounds rise too high in the filter, because in a pure percolation system (i.e. not a steep-and-release like the “abid brewer” I hear you have) the drainage will be slow and too much of the grounds will stick high up on the filter and too early in the process these grounds will cease to participate in the extraction. A flat or slightly domed bed of spent grounds (much like a syphon dome) is visible evidence of even extraction.

At Cafe Myriade we have rigged up a “shower head” of sorts (affectionately dubbed the “Raomatic” by Anthony) that allows us to pour boiling water into the shower head and have it dispensed at the proper temperature and flow rate onto the grounds. The difference between the cups brewed with the shower head and those brewed by manually pouring the water is dramatic. (Unless you want to stand and pour through the entire brewing cycle AND have an impressive ability to pour at a consistent rate.) The shower-head brews are far superior and also perfectly repeatable.

You could also simply pour your water onto the grounds at a much slower rate (say, over a 3-minute time), keeping the grounds from risisng too high. That will improve the evenness of the extraction, though you may have to change your grind to get the best-tasting cup.

Respectfully yours,
Scott Rao

This week we’ll get the Chemex out of the Kitchen Cabinet for new brews.
Keep up the good work James.