New Clever Coffee Dripper Tests

[Sweet Maria's]

I wanted to tell all that I have been doing a lot of brew tests lately to check taste and extraction from various types, including the new Hario V60 (results not that great). actually the traditional porcelain drip cone with one drain hole was a great performer.

Now the CCD really isnt a typical dripper. With a real dripper, technique matters a lot - you can't just dump a lot of hot water in a normal dripper and get great results.

But we had some issues with the CCD and grind. We were under-extracting with a coarse grind. We hit the correct extraction and best cup results with the following recipe:

-fine grind, on the fine end of filter-drip grind, but not espresso grind for sure.
-20 grams coffee
-350 grams hot water
-3 minute steep until drain, 4:30 to 5:00 until last water drains out of coffee
-cover immediately with a plate
-lift plate and stir at 1:00
-as mentioned, start draining at 3:00

we separated the brew - the first half to drain measures 1.22 to 1.25%, a bit strong.
The second half measures 1.19%. The blend of the 2 was better than either alone.

That is typical for any drip brewer: take a sip of the first cup that comes from a technivorm and it is way strong and cloying in a syrupy way ... plus you just threw off the results for the rest of the pot. Tip: Never let co-workers steal a cup from the office brewer before the brewing is through! SO brewing is always a blend of the initial brewed coffee and the later brewed coffee.

I wonder if I can embed my latest youtube video on the Clever Coffee Dripper here? Hmmm... no. Here is the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_-wyjaCPj8

[ira]

That is typical for any drip brewer: take a sip of the first cup that comes from a technivorm and it is way strong and cloying in a syrupy way. ... SO brewing is always a blend of the initial brewed coffee and the later brewed coffee.

Shouldn't this be considerably less relevant on the Clever, especially if you stir right before draining as suggested?

Ira

And completely off topic, did something happen to Josh, he's been scarce for quite a while?

[Sweet Maria's]

It's less true, but it still holds. Next time you brew with a clever, drain into 3 separate cups sequentially and taste them. You will see a difference between the first and last, but not like drinking the first cup to drip from a Technivorm ... true.

Josh is here, we are just overworking him as usual!

By the way, I am trying upload a slew of videos to youtube about pour-over drip, but they aren't going up too quickly. maybe we need a new isp!

tom

[kaboodle]

Good process! I followed it this evening just to see how it would turn out and it was noticeably better than the method I had been using. The coffee was much smoother (no bite whatsoever) and it was notably sweeter than my old method. It reminded me of that old saying about "coffee tasting as good as it smelled". It was that kind of a cup. I was a little worried about coming up with a cup that was too strong with the finer grind, but that was not a problem.

Here's what I was doing before trying Tom's new method.
- 18gms coffee
- normal/regular grind that I would use for drip (= a setting of 40 on my Rocky DL)
- 330gms of water (approx)
- Steep 3 mins with a stir at the 2min mark.
- Drain coffee at the 3min mark.

I set the grinder setting on my Rocky DL for Tom's new method to 20 which was half what I had been using. Increasing the water 20gms, the extra stirring intervals, the extra minute of extraction, the extra 2gms of coffee, finer grind and whala...much better!

Good stuff and a keeper process for me,

Rick

PS: All of the above was done with the Clever Coffee Dripper and Melitta white #4 filters. The CCD is absolutely the best dripper I've owned (and there have been many). I have a little Sweet Marias museum of them in my kitchen cabinet.

I also watched all of the new videos that Tom did on the various drippers and they were quite informative. Glad to see that Tom has decided to drop the Filtropa Aroma Brown filters. Even with rinsing, I could never get rid of that strong paper flavor either.

Here's the link to the Sweet Marias channel on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sweetmarias#p/

[Mango]

Just did your “recipe” and it was perfect! But I can tell I need to work on my roasting… just got a thermometer for the poppery today. I really like the video you put together for the Clever. It is great to know that when I buy any products from you it also comes with FREE professional directions that explain everything. You are the most excellent!!!

[martin]

But we had some issues with the CCD and grind. We were under-extracting with a coarse grind. We hit the correct extraction and best cup results with the following recipe:

-fine grind, on the fine end of filter-drip grind, but not espresso grind for sure.
-20 grams coffee
-350 grams hot water
-4 minute steep until drain, 5:30 until last water drains out of coffee
-cover immediately with a plate
-lift plate and stir at 1:00, around 3:00 and 4:00.
-as mentioned, start draining at 4:00

This is perhaps more about the grind settings on the Zassenhaus... I've used settings from 1/2 to 1 full turn to the coarse, following your original CCD recipie of 3 minutes steep with one stir. 0.8 oz to 12.5 or 13 weight oz of hot water (brewing on the scale, I love it), and I can't complain about the results. But.

Since early tests I've been using the 1 turn grind setting because even at that it takes two minutes of draining to get to about 10 oz in the cup. The CCD slows 'way down after the first half minute, and IIRC the grounds (if not stirred up) will still be submerged after three minutes' drain... gets to be a dripper in the end after all. So I'm a bit unexcited at the thought of a finer grind here...

OTOH, I did try a longer steep at least once - probably 3 1/2 minutes - and there was no trouble with bitterness, so I guess I might give it a try tomorrow morning.

[martin]

Ground at 1/2 turn, steeped for 4 minutes. Not bitter, excatly, though more dark tones. Definitely took longer to grind, so I forgot to tare the scale and had to eyeball the water level. Misremembered the new stirring schedule, so it was 1:30 and 3, and then a bit later in the draining, as I've been doing. End of drain seemed to almost-stall a little earlier, but not much.

Had another cup after lunch, 1/4 turn coarser, 12.5 oz water, not very much different results, not quite as much dark/bittersweet. Same stirring schedule.

As much as I hate spending the coffee or my caffeine "allowance" on it, I really should pull the old Mellita drip cone (only one hole) just to see how this grind compares wrt filter clogging. I'm guessing it would be pretty bad, trying to run this in the #2 filter. Are you sure about those guidelines for the Zassenhaus grind settings, Tom?

(BTW, the printed tip sheet has an obvious oops - it says to make it coarser if the water drains to fast, and finer if it bogs down! Hmmm, that's not the only difference from the online tip sheet... at 1/2 turn the burrs still rub a little, not sure just where they entirely clear. http://www.sweetmarias.com/zas.instructions.html seems more sensible to me than the printed instruction sheet. More experimentation? Not just now, another cup and I'd be flying!)