Brewing Coffee Manually

Better coffee. One cup at a time.

Tag: drip brewing

The Bee House Dripper

March 24, 2015 / / 8 Comments

In light of my Brewing Coffee Manually challenge, I thought I would review my best-loved dripper and long-time manual brewing companion. The Bee House Dripper.

The Bee House is a ceramic dripper made in Japan. It comes in two sizes, large and small, as well as a variety of colors (ten to be precise). It retails for around twenty dollars. The elegant design and wide availability have made it one of the favorite drippers of the manual brewing world.

What I like about the Bee House dripper

It is made of ceramic

Ceramic brewers are an upgrade from the inexpensive plastic Melitta dripper that I often recommended for the manual brewer who is just starting.

Ceramic is better at retaining heat than plastic. If you are preheating your brewer and brewing vessel, the Bee House helps to keep your grounds and water at a fairly consistent temperature while brewing.

Additionally, some people have serious qualms about brewing with plastic. If you don’t relish the idea of pouring 205 degree water over a plastic dripper and then drinking the results, a ceramic brewing may be for you.

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What is Chicory?

What is Chicory Coffee?- Some History and Brewing Experiments

February 22, 2015 / / 6 Comments

What is Chicory and why is it mixed in coffee?

Coffee culture has a long history with coffee alternatives and additives. It seems that nearly since it’s discovery, people have been trying to replace, alter and enhance it. In Mark Pendergrast’s book Uncommon Grounds, he names more than 65 things that have been used for coffee additives. Some of my favorites are brewery waste, burnt rags, and dog biscuits.

“The list of coffee adulterants indeed is amazing: almonds, arrowhead, asparagus seeds and stalks, baked horse liver, barberries, barley, beechmast, beetroot, box seeds, bracken, bran, bread crusts, brewery waste, brick dust, burnt rags, burrs, carob beans, carrot, chickpeas, chicory, chrysanthemum seeds, coal ashes, cocoa shells, comfrey roots, cranberries, currants, dahlia tubers…” (Uncommon Grounds, 60) You get the picture.

Of all the things that have been added to coffee over the years, chicory, a blue flowered plant native to Europe, is probably the most familiar and successful. The leaves of the plant are sometimes use as salad greens. The chicory root is roasted, ground and used to produce a bitter “coffee substitute.” It is probably most well known in New Orleans style coffee which can be up to 40 percent chicory.

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Coffee outside pour-over brewing
Photograph by Ken Englert

Getting Started- Pour-Over Brewing 101

November 11, 2014 / / 4 Comments

A Genuine Handmade Cup of Coffee

Brewing a cup of coffee manually- without a coffee maker, can be a relaxing and enjoying daily ritual. It can also seem pretty daunting at first. If you are curious about manual brewing, the barrier to entry is actually really low. It can be about as simply as you want it to be.

One of the most popular methods of manual coffee brewing is a manual drip brewer, also known as a pour-over. This method is comparable in concept to what a standard coffee maker does with some very important exceptions.

Probably the most commonly known manual brewing method is the French press. Nearly everyone is at least familiar with the iconic glass pitcher and plunger attached to a screen combination. If you are interested in a French press brewing guide, it can be found here.

One important difference between an automatic drip coffee maker and a manual drip brewer is the water temperature. Many automatic coffee makers simply do not get the water hot enough to extract all the flavors you want out of your coffee. Water that is just off the boil, around 200-208 degrees Fahrenheit is widely accepted as the standard for ideal water temperature range.

Most pour-over brewers are a simple design— a device filter extracted ground coffee from hot water. Still, there are lengthy YouTube videos, heated forum debates, and even a manual brewing championship. Don’t get too caught up in all the technical details. You are just brewing a cup of coffee. It’s going to be great.

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