Timemore’s Chestnut Slim Hand Grinder
The Chestnut Slim grinder from Timemore is a really high spec, but accessibly priced, hand grinder which we’ve been thoroughly impressed with in our testing. The following relays our experiences with the Timemore Chestnut Slim, but if you’d rather experience it in video form, head straight to the bottom of this piece or click here.
An Overview
Equipped with 38mm hardened stainless steel conical burrs, these are designed primarily for filter brewing, but there is also an option to upgrade the burr set to Timemore’s ‘Spiked to Cut’ stainless steel burrs, or their 6 point titanium coated burrs if you want to prepare your coffee as espresso. The solid metal chamber of the Chestnut Slim means that the drive shaft is held securely in place and offers that bit more durability and an improved grind profile versus the Timemore Chestnut C2’s moulded plastic chamber.
Weighing just 430 grams, the Slim can be conveniently disassembled and broken down into component parts for travel – and that’s all made even easier using the included travel case. At just 45mm in diameter, it also fits perfectly inside an Aeropress, and the wooden handle is removable, saving even more space. It then magnetically clicking back into place when you’re ready to grind.
The outer casing of the grinder has a diamond patterned knurled finish, providing a textured grip, which makes the grinding experience that little bit smoother and ergonomic. The design of the handle and bearings inside the driveshaft all contribute to a very smooth grinding action, and we’re really impressed with the speed of the grinder – when grinding for a single cup V60, we’ve consistently been able to grind 15g of coffee in around 20 to 25 seconds without breaking a sweat.
Grind Adjustment & Recommended Settings
The grinder can be adjusted by fully closing the adjustment dial to the ‘zero position’, winding it all the way around clockwise until the crank handle ceases to move and then counting the clicks back to your desired grind setting
When it comes to dialling in for specific brew methods, there are some really useful jumping off points mentioned in the instruction manual that comes with the hand grinder. These are useful in guiding you before you settle on your own preferred grind settings for whatever brewer you’re using to make your coffee, but we have also trialled the grinder to establish our own suggestions:
Aeropress (1 minute steep): 16 clicks
Aeropress (2 minute steep): 19 clicks
V60 (single cup 15g): 18 clicks
V60 (two cup 30g): 22 clicks
Clever Dripper: 20 clicks
Steepshot: 15 clicks
French Press (500g): 24 clicks
French Press (1 litre): 27 clicks
Chemex (1 litre): 32 clicks
The maximum capacity of the Chestnut Slim is around 28g of whole bean coffee at a time if you’re using lightly roasted, dense beans. Any more than that and you’re really starting to push what the chamber and the grounds bin are capable of holding.
Additional Features
With narrow hand grinders, it can be tricky to get your beans into the grinding chamber tidily. Timemore have made this a little easier by mounting the stabilising arms deep within the chamber, making this process considerably easier. We’ve found that weighing into the grounds bin of the grinder also makes it easier to load your beans more efficiently.
Another particularly thoughtful element of the Chestnut Slim’s design is the fact that the burrs are recessed into the body. This means you’re able to balance the grinder on your counter whilst weighing out your beans – a really nice feature that isn’t present in every hand grinder.
Cleaning & Maintenance
After grinding, you can use the included cleaning brush to sweep out any chaff or bits of ground coffee that might cling to the burrs because of static build up. The amount of ground coffee retained is fairly negligible and we haven’t found the need to updose to account for grinds retention in this particular grinder.
Following a fair bit of usage, you’ll want to deep clean the grinder, which is also fairly easy to do. Screw the grind adjustment dial to the coarsest setting and as you keep spinning it will come off completely, allowing you to access the burrs inside. Keep track of the order of each component you pull out so that can assemble it again properly in the correct order. The instruction manual will help you out here if you get a bit lost, so we’d recommend holding onto it.
Nicely finished, the Chestnut Slim enlists durable, quality materials that make for a high spec hand grinder. Nice to hold, smooth to grind with and super adjustable, it’s priced appropriately and accessibly compared to other hand grinder options of a similar spec, and very capable of making delicious coffee on the go or with very little effort at home, regardless of your chosen filter brewing method.
You can find the Timemore Chestnut Slim Hand Grinder in our Online Shop.
Timemore’s Chestnut C2 Hand Grinder
The Chestnut C2 is Timemore’s entry level hand grinder, but the small price tag gets you a grinder with a number of excellent features. We've also created a video that offers a detailed outline, which you can view at the bottom of this piece.
An Overview
Coming equipped with 38mm hardened stainless steel conical burrs, these are designed primarily for filter brewing, but there is also an option to upgrade the burr set to Timemore’s ‘Spiked to Cut’ stainless steel burrs, or their 6 point titanium coated burrs if you want to prepare your coffee as espresso.
Like its burrs, the C2’s crank arm is also made from stainless steel, whilst the inner chamber, grind adjustment dial and handle are moulded from plastic and the grinder’s casing is made of aluminium. Overall the grinder is fairly lightweight, weighing less than half a kilo, and can be conveniently disassembled and broken down into component parts for travel – made even easier using the included travel case.
The outer casing of the grinder has a knurled finish, providing a textured grip, which makes the grinding experience that little bit smoother. The design of the handle and bearings inside the driveshaft all contribute to a very smooth grinding action, and we’re really impressed with the speed of the grinder – when grinding for a single cup V60, we’ve consistently been able to grind 15g of coffee in around 25 to 30 seconds, without breaking a sweat.
The grinder can be adjusted by fully closing the adjustment dial to the ‘zero position’, by winding it all the way around clockwise until the crank handle ceases to move, before counting the clicks back to your desired grind setting.
Recommended Grind Settings
There are some really useful jumping off points mentioned in the Chestnut C2’s instruction manual, but we’ve also trialled the grinder to establish our own suggestions on where to start for some of our favourite filter brewing methods:
AeroPress (1 minute steep): 16 clicks
AeroPress (2 minute steep): 19 clicks
V60 (1-cup 15g): 18 clicks
V60 (2-cup 30g): 22 clicks
Clever Dripper: 20 clicks
Steepshot: 15 clicks
French Press (500g): 24 clicks
French Press (1 litre): 27 clicks
Chemex (1 litre): 32 clicks
Additional Features
The maximum capacity of the C2 is 30g of coffee at a time if you’re using lightly roasted, dense beans. Any more than that and you’re really starting to push what the chamber and the grounds bin are capable of holding.
One thing that’s particularly considered with this grinder is that the burrs are recessed into the body. This means you’re able to balance the grinder on your counter whilst weighing out your beans – a really nice feature that isn’t present in every hand grinder.
After grinding, you can use the included cleaning brush to sweep out any chaff or bits of ground coffee that might cling to the burrs because of static build up. The amount of ground coffee retained is fairly negligible and we haven’t found the need to updose to account for grinds retention in this particular grinder.
Cleaning & Maintenance
After a fair bit of usage, you’ll want to deep clean the grinder, which is also fairly easy to do. Screw the grind adjustment dial to the coarsest setting and as you keep spinning it will come off completely, allowing you to access the burrs inside. Keep track of the order of each component you pull out so that can assemble it again properly in the correct order. The instruction manual will help you out here if you get a bit lost.
Overall, we feel that for the price of the C2 you get a really sturdy, nicely put together and reliable hand grinder. Nice to hold, smooth to grind with and super adjustable, you’ll be able to make delicious coffee on the go or with very little effort at home, regardless of your chosen filter brewing method.
You can find the Timemore Chestnut C2 Hand Grinder in our Online Shop.
Introducing the SteepShot Immersion Coffee Brewer
Allow us to introduce the SteepShot, a new breed of coffee brewer.
Designed by Ari Halonen in Norway, this intelligent and considered 1-cup coffee maker utilises pressure to create delicious coffee simply and speedily.
Having spent the last few weeks brewing almost exclusively with the SteepShot, and having enjoyed the process immensely, we wanted to share our experiences with you. If you'd rather watch our overview than read it, you can access the video here or at the bottom of this piece.
Why is the SteepShot different?
We first became interested in preparing filter coffee inside a pressurised brewer since Gordon Howell won the UK Brewers Cup championship in 2015. Jeremy Challender then won the next year brewing inside a regular Thermos before decanting and filtering.
This approach can produce a really fantastic cup, but as well as being a little slow and messy, the techniques – both of which involve repurposing numerous pieces of drinkware and kitchen equipment – highlight the potential of the SteepShot to produce unique, delicious cups of coffee.
It truly is unlike anything else we've brewed with. Developed by Ari Hanolen in Norway, the unique, patented brewing technology permits the brewer to utilise the benefits of brewing in a pressurised environment, whilst keeping the process fairly simple, with clean down being much easier to handle.
It isn’t like espresso or stovetop brewing, which are essentially pressurised percolation brew methods, and it isn’t like a regular immersion method such as French Press, Clever Dripper or Aeropress, as it utilises the pressure built up within the chamber to speed up the brewing process.
Ostensibly a single-cup filter brewer, it requires quite a bit of headspace to allow pressure to build up inside the chamber to accelerate the extraction process, SteepShot's main benefit is that this allows you to brew faster and still achieve nice high, even extractions without some of the more common obstacles faced in filter brewing, like channelling – where the water effectively ‘misses’ pockets of your ground coffee.
Components & Assembly
At first glance, the brewer might look a touch complicated when compared to a regular pourover, which is just one piece of brewing kit. However, with only one more component than the AeroPress, it all fits together easily and is incredibly intuitive to use.
Like any coffee brewer, there will be a certain part responsible for actually filtering the grounds out of the brewed coffee, and in the case of the SteepShot, this is a perforated metal disc. The disc that comes with the brewer has holes that measure 100 microns, which is relatively small and will catch most if not all of your coffee grounds even if you’re grinding quite fine. If you like the fuller body and mouthfeel of coffee from a French Press, but don’t like waiting for so long to let it settle to deal with the sediment that tends to come with it, then this provides a nice solution. This filter isn’t going to create anything viscous and heavy like coffee from a Mokapot or espresso machine, but the brewed coffee tastes a little creamier and rounder than that prepared with an AeroPress of Clever Dripper.
If you favour clarity of flavour and a slimmer bodied cup then there are a couple of alternatives available. You can buy a second disc with 60-micron holes, which will help further reduce the sediment in the cup. Otherwise, there’s also the option of using AeroPress filter papers for an even cleaner cup, but they obviously aren’t reusable in the same way that these metal filters are.
The metal filter disc sits into a filter holder cap and is then locked in using a ring that sits above the metal or paper filter.
The last part of the SteepShot is called the Deflector, which is a lever that screws onto the lid to create an airtight seal. It contains a small rubber O-ring, which is integral to the brewing process as it's what creates a seal and helps create the pressure.
Once assembled, everything is placed onto the brewing chamber, which is double-walled stainless steel, so you can add boiling water to it whilst still being able to comfortably pick it up and hold it.
Our Recommended SteepShot Recipe
We'd highly recommend experimenting with the SteepShot and the main ways you can do that are by altering your grind size and steep time. The rule of thumb to follow is that a finer grind will require less brewing time, whilst grinding coarser will require a longer steep.
However, we've been getting excellent results with the following recipe:
- Add 16g of coffee to your brew chamber, followed by of 250g boiling water (opt for clean, soft water to improve cup clarity and enhance flavour notes – we recommend using a water filter jug).
- Start your timer and seal the brewer.
- Swill to ensure the slurry is properly mixed.
- At 50 seconds, swill again and then upend the brewer.
- At 1 minute, point the deflector into your cup and release the SteepShot.
- Allow the brewer to fully drain, which will take between 15 seconds and 1 minute depending on your preferred filter (100 micron, 60 micron or paper).
- Disassemble and rinse off all the components before brewing again.
- Clean in the dishwasher or with hot soapy water.
Where to Set Your Grinder for Your SteepShot
As each grinder will be subtly different as a result of manufacturing discrepancies and the degree of wear experienced by their burr sets over time, the following setting recommendations should be treated as jumping-off points. However, the following grind settings are where we'd suggest starting from to create a predominantly sweet cup, with integrated acidity and minimal bitterness. To learn more about how to approach grinding your coffee you can watch our video here.
- Baratza Encore – 12
- Wilfa Svart – Set the hopper so you can see the "SS" of AEROPRESS
- Wilfa Uniform+ – 21
- Fellow Products' Ode – 1.5
Cleaning & Other Considerations
Dispensing the grounds isn’t quite as simple as with the Aeropress or a pourover, but you easily knock your spent coffee out into your compost bin or rinse the brewing chamber and catch the grounds in a little sieve as you discard the water into a sink. If you’ve got any extra boiling water you can also brew an empty chamber and use that to clean out the brewer and your sink quite nicely. However, we do recommend either placing the brewer in the dishwasher or cleaning it with hot, soapy water to remove all of the coffee oils and avoid tainting subsequent brews.
No brewer is without its own set of hazards, to it's also worth considering how to use the brewer safely. Once you’ve added your coffee and hot water and sealed the lid, the inside is pressurised and so you should never open the deflector when the brewer is upright, as coffee can spray out upwards.
The other point is that when you’re ready to release the coffee into your cup it will come out quickly accompanied by some steam, so keep your fingers nice and clear and on the deflector lever, with the opening lowered down into your cup to reduce the risk of spilling coffee everywhere.
Experimentation
Ultimately, the best SteepShot recipe and technique is the one you most enjoy making and drinking and so we encourage getting familiar with the brewer by experimenting.
The main ways you can tweak your SteepShot technique are by altering your grind size and steep times, as well as by playing around with different filtering mediums. You can definitely trial super quick brewing styles with a nice fine grind, and SteepShot themselves claim you’re able to get a nice extraction in just 30 seconds.
Whilst initially dubious about this claim, we've found that if we move through the steps involved in preparing a cup very quickly, then a fast but impressive and full extraction is indeed possible. Unlike a quickly-brewed AeroPress, we've consistently found that rapid SteepShot brews taste sweet, complete and balanced with a long finish.
You’ll find that if you opt for the finer mesh filter, and even more so with a paper filter, that your draw-down will slow down a touch, but the pay off is a slightly cleaner cup. Through clarifying the brew liquor more effectively you may find the mouthfeel gets lighter, but flavour clarity can jump up, and so depending on what you want from your coffee, as well as what particular beans you’re using, you can make the decision for yourself.
The SteepShot is available to buy from our Online Shop here. For UK wholesale enquiries, please contact coffee@workshopcoffee.com.
The Pourigami: The World's Smallest Travel Brewer?
Having introduced the full range of MiiR products to the UK, there are some we feel warrant closer inspection and a more in-depth introduction.
The Pourigami is one such item. MiiR's only coffee brewer, this durable, portable travel dripper is also arguably the world's most compact. Packing down into three constituent parts made from powder coated stainless steel, the pourover is housed in a case that neatly fits into your backpack or your back pocket.
If you'd rather watch a video demonstration of the video, you can do so here.
When it comes time to brew, the brewer is quick and simple to construct, with the three panels interlocking to form a cone. Once it's together, the brewer is ready to place on top our your designated vessel.
Brew Recipe
The Pourigami is capable of brewing up to 2 cups (30g of coffee to 500g of water), but we've enjoyed our best results with one Camp Cup-sized brew.
Using 18g of coffee, we grind a little coarser than we normally would for a single-cup pourover to allow for a slightly slower draining time. Taking your kettle off the boil, pour around 60g of coffee over your grounds for your bloom and wait for 30 to 40 seconds, allowing an opportunity for the grounds to become fully soaked and ready to extract.
Begin pouring your water over your grounds in a thin and steady stream, aiming for dark or dry patches and stopping as you near the top of the Pourigami. Continue topping up until you've added 300g of water, allow your brewer to drain and then remove it from your vessel.
Discard your filter paper, clean down your brewer and enjoy.
Features
When we talk about MiiR’s products, we talk a lot about their thoughtful design, which you can see in how this brewer comes together. But it’s the little extra elements that really help elevate their products, which in the case of the Pourigami are the notches on the bottom of the brewer, which help hold it in place on your mug or decanter.
And as with all of MiiR’s products, the Pourigami has a unique Give Code printed on it. Every MiiR product sold helps to fun trackable giving projects around the world and entering this alphanumeric code over on MiiR.com allows you to follow along with the project your purchase has helped to fun, as well as gain access to updates on them.
If you'd like to find out more about the Pourigami, visit the dedicated MiiR section of our online shop here.
Workshop Coffee x MiiR: Generosity Driven Drinkware
We’re delighted to officially introduce MiiR and their range of products to the UK for the first time.
Several years ago, we brought you Fresh Pots, a limited run of vacuum-insulated filter coffee flasks that we produced in partnership with MiiR, a drinkware company based in Seattle. That project led to an ongoing conversation that took place over emails, video conferences and – when we were lucky to be in the same country – coffee, and which lasted the best part of three years.
During that time we got to know the brand, the business and the people behind it in more detail, and were continually inspired by their social and environmental mission. Aiming to empower people for a better future, MiiR’s focus is on creating beautiful, considered, design forward drinkware that has generosity at its core. Operating a product to project model, every product sold helps to fund trackable giving projects around the world and, to date, they’ve donated over £1,000,000 to 70 projects in 26 countries.
Driven by the belief that business and philanthropy can and should be intrinsically linked, MiiR’s sustainable giving projects centre around the provision of clean water, a healthy environment and strong communities. As well as funding trackable giving projects, MiiR are also a member of 1% for the Planet, which means they contribute at least 1% of their annual sales to environmental causes. This is supported by their Climate Neutral certification – a result of their comprehensive action to measure, offset and reduce carbon emissions – and their position as a Certified B Corporation.
As official UK distributor, MiiR’s extensive list of products are now available via our Online Shop and on a wholesale basis. From tumblers and water bottles to refillable growlers and camp cups for the road, MiiR's diverse product range of premium stainless steel drinkware brings together over 10 collections, comprising up to 12 colourways. Enlisting medical grade stainless steel and Thermo 3D™ Double Wall Vacuum Insulation Technology, they’re not only built to make a difference, but to last.
We’re also delighted to offer access to their bespoke customisation service, CustoMiiR. Every product in the MiiR range has the ability to act as a canvas, providing the backdrop for a diverse range of custom screen printed designs in up to five Pantone colours.
To find out more about MiiR, and browse their range of products, visit our Online Shop. For wholesale and wholesale enquiries, please contact us via miir@workshopcoffee.com.
Introducing the Baratza Encore
As our range of equipment and hardware continues to expand, our focus remains on showcasing products we’ve extensively tried and tested to ensure they don’t just complement, but elevate, your home brewing experience.
Sometimes that means introducing a new category of products, like water filters or storage canisters, whilst at others it means extending our existing range to offer greater choice.
With that in mind, we’re pleased to welcome the Baratza Encore to our fleet of coffee grinders. If you’d rather skip straight to a video version of this piece, it’s available to view here.
Dubbed an entry-level grinder, the Baratza Encore is perhaps underselling itself. Whilst it is the brand’s most accessibly priced grinder – and comparably priced to the much-loved Wilfa Svart – it’s a reliable and impressive countertop grinder for the home brewer. The 64mm hardened steel burr is hard wearing and produces a precise grind quality. Two colour options – black and white – allow you to choose a look that blends in on your countertop.
Setting-up and dialling in
Boasting a small footprint (33.8cm x 14.0cm x 16cm (H x W x D)), the Encore is incredibly easy to set-up straight out of the box. Simply pop the rubber ring into the top of the burr set and affix the switch and you can begin grinding your coffee. However, as with any grinder, the first thing you’ll want to do is dial it in.
Your grind size can be easily adjusted with a simple twist of the hopper. Following the 40 numbered settings labelled on the hopper, rotating towards the lower numbers will provide a finer grind, whilst twisting toward the higher numbers will coarsen the consistency of your grounds
The instruction manual in the Encore’s box offers some useful jumping off points for where they recommend setting your grinder for different brew methods. However, what these don’t factor in is your recipe (i.e. how much coffee you might be making with that specific brewer). We’ve therefore built on their guidelines to offer some more specific starting points:
AeroPress
1 minute brew time, 15g coffee to 230g water, inverted – Setting 12
3 minute brew time, 16g coffee to 250g water, regular – Setting 15
V60
1-Cup, 15g coffee to 250g water – Setting 14
2-Cup, 30g coffee to 500g water – Setting 20
Clever Dripper
25g coffee to 400g water – Setting 18
Chemex
60g coffee to 1000g water – Setting 32
French Press
45g coffee to 750g water – Setting 26
MoccaMaster
36g coffee to 600g water – Setting 25
75g coffee to 1250g water –Setting 30
Whilst more specific than the manual’s instructions, we still view these as starting points. Each grinder will be calibrated slightly differently, so be sure to find the grind size that works best for you in the cup. You can find more detail on how to approach your grind size in this video.
Cleaning & Maintenance
Keeping your Encore clean is incredibly straightforward. Remove the hopper by rotating it to the coarsest setting and lifting it out. This will reveal the rubber seal and burr set below. Removing both, the stiff-bristled brush included with the grinder allows you to remove any built-up fines from the seal and the burrs.
To maintain consistently clean cups of filter coffee we recommend carrying this out at least once a week if you’re using the grinder on a daily basis, and monthly if you’re just using it at the weekends.
Perhaps one of Baratza's most commendable and appealing qualities is their commitment to creating products that stand the test of time. As well as allowing for easy removal of parts for cleaning, the Encore has also been designed so that every part of it can be replaced with relative ease. This avoids the challenge of built-in obsolescence that many electronic devices face and helps ensure the product will be part of your home brewing routine for years to come.
To find out more about the Baratza Encore, you can watch our video below, and find more technical information and shop the product here.
Some thoughts on brew water
As more of us brew coffee at home than ever before, we've collated various thoughts and conversations we’ve had amongst ourselves over the years on the subject of brew water. We hope the following will provide a guide to and through what is a dense and, at times, distracting topic in specialty coffee.
Our shared goal is to enjoy delicious coffee, so let’s look at getting the very best cups possible.
An unfinished product
Coffee is a unique product in many ways. Often compared to wine or chocolate, in that it can be cheap, simple and commoditised or a vastly complex, high quality ingredient, capable of delivering amazing flavours, coffee stands apart in that the actual drink only materialises right before it is consumed (with the exception of pre-canned cold brew options, but let’s leave discussion of those for another time).
The onus on the home brewer, making a cup for themselves or a pot for the family, to do right by their beans is greater than that felt when popping a cork from a nice bottle of wine or snapping a square off of a high quality chocolate bar. As a roaster that sells whole beans we’re asking the end consumer to carry the potential quality of their chosen coffee through into their cup. Armed with a good burr grinder, a robust recipe and some basic brewing advice this can be achieved quite easily, but there’s one more wrinkle that needs ironing out: water.
Don’t lose sight
Ultimately, there are certain properties that the water coming out of your tap might possess that will dampen some of the attributes that make specialty coffee so special.
By entering your postcode into your water supplier’s website, you should be able to read a report that breaks down what you’ll typically find in what’s coming out of your kitchen tap. Of particular interest will be the alkalinity, which you should think of as your water’s potential capacity to buffer your coffee’s perceivable acidity. Certain compounds will essentially work against you, making your coffee flatter and duller than it could taste brewed with different water.
So, if a bright, sparkly acidity is something you prize highly in your cup (we certainly do) this is something to be aware of.
Caveat Emptor: focussing too much on water can be a distraction.
The Music Analogy
Think of water as your hi-fi set up. Yes, you can spend thousands of pounds on the right turntable, needles, amplifier, cables, tweeters and woofers, and there are plenty who get a lot of joy from doing so.
Similar-minded groups of fervent brewers wishing to bring the same vigour and enthusiasm to their coffee brewing would be buying a home water distiller or the Zero Filter jug, and keep a stock of a couple of different mineral additives like Epsom salts - link and bicarbonate of soda - link). They can then create their own finely tuned brew water to recipe, to accentuate those attributes they find most appealing in their cup of coffee.
However, it is only those with a particular constitution and finely tuned ear who could lay down Curtis’s Roots on a more lo-fi sound system and find the music unlistenable and unenjoyable. Indeed, a lot of music producers and engineers often ‘car test’ their mixes as a way of ensuring a wider audience is able to listen and enjoy their music on more basic music systems. They may well concede that it won’t be at apex quality through such a system, but they wouldn’t eschew ever listening in the car. Similarly, well roasted, clean, fresh tasting coffee will give the drinker a huge amount of pleasure across a range of waters. There’s enough richness and depth when drinking coffee to allow some slide when it comes to your water quality.
To stray from one multimedia analogy and into another, you are allowed to watch The Irishmen on your phone, despite what Scorsese says.
What are my options?
The music analogy can only take us so far. There are definitely times when untreated water used to brew quality coffee may be like listening to music with severe fuzz and distortion over everything, whereby the music underneath cannot be heard and enjoyed, in comparison all the positive flavours in the coffee are no longer perceivable.
At what point does poor water quality result in a flavour defect in the cup rather than something sub-optimal? If all of the positive aspects of a cup are getting knocked around by the minerals in your water, creating something indiscernible from a poorly roasted, commodity coffee brewed with the same water, then steps do need to be taken to reclaim the characteristics that make specialty coffee special, and worth the extra time, effort and cost.
[1] Bring Your Own Bottle
I’ve jumped straight over bottled water. It’s undoubtedly a solution, but not a sustainable one, so I recommend purchasing one or two reusable bottles and visiting your local specialty coffee shop. They’ll be treating their water to reduce scale buildup in their machinery and make their coffee taste better.
On the off-chance you get funny looks or are uncomfortable asking for this you could always offer them some money each time you fill up, as it will cost them to treat their water. But if you’re buying your beans from there too, they’ll no doubt be open to helping you get the best out of them. We’re always open to sending you home with great brewing water when you visit a Workshop Coffee bar.
Obviously this isn’t an option during the current state of lockdown, but if you plan to keep brewing coffee with gusto and enthusiasm when we’re open again, keep this option in mind.
[2] Take the edge off
Filter jugs are mainly designed for taste and odour. They clean up the overall character of your water, but you don’t have ultimate control over your water’s buffering potential or overall hardness. Most regular household filter jugs like the Brita are very effective when the cartridges are fresh. Over time they do less work to improve your water quality before ultimately needing replacing.
Another option from BWT will improve taste and odouor, but also replace some of the mineral content in your water with magnesium, which is a very buzzy topic in the specialty coffee world due to its potential to highlight more sweet, fruity characteristics in your brew. We have found that magnesium rich profile waters can make distinct coffees taste a little monotonous, ultimately resulting in sweet and round cups but that can taste quite similar to each other. They also take a lot longer to “break in” than Brita jugs, whereby the first few litres of brewed coffee can taste a little weird before things start to get tasty. Once broken in however we’ve had undoubtedly sweet and complex cups of coffee that are leagues ahead of cups of the same coffee brewed with untreated tap water.
Despite the limitations of both Brita and BWT filter jugs, in that the water quality will fluctuate throughout their usage, they are a fantastic addition to your brewing repertoire for a very reasonable amount of money. Comparing cups of coffee brewed with untreated tap water and cups brewed with both Brita and BWT filtered water it is very easy to see their benefit. You can even return spent filter cartridges to certain shops for recycling.
[3] Fully customised
Making your own water is an extreme option, but you wouldn’t be alone in doing so.
As mentioned above, a home distiller or the Zero filter jug will create water completely devoid of minerals. By adding your own minerals, which requires a very accurate scale to 0.00g fidelity, you can experiment with different water profiles to get the very best out of your coffee. Different coffee roasters may even share their water specs so that you can recreate the very same water they use to assess and tweak their roast profiles. This option is maybe not quite as decadent as buying bottled mineral water to brew with, but does allow you to fall fairly deep down the rabbit hole and explore the complexities and intricacies of water.
[4] Adapt
Heresy? Not quite.
The obstacle of imperfect water coming out of your tap for coffee brewing is not insurmountable. Just like how a slightly dull set of grinder burrs or a slightly darker roast can be managed through adjusting your recipe and technique, you can work with your tap water rather than against it to create a sweet cup of coffee.
If your water is muting acidity and creating more bitter, flat and stewed characteristics, then limit the potential for this by using a stronger dose and aiming for a slightly lower extraction overall. This will ultimately accentuate acidity and brightness, which may express as sour in soft, clean, neutral water, but that unbalanced acidity will be rounded out and bridled in the harder water. You’ll also reduce bitterness by curbing extraction, which is achieved by using a fractionally coarser grind, slightly cooler water, coupled with your slightly higher ratio of coffee to water.
What does that mean in practice? Here’s what would usually be a one-cup V60 recipe made with clean, soft water, made using the Wilfa Svart, adapted for tap water:
Recommend Brew Guide (Clean, Soft Water)
1. 18g of coffee ground at the first 'R' in 'AEROPRESS' on the Wilfa Grinder.
2. Clean, soft water brought to the boil.
3. Start your timer.
4. Bloom for 30s with 50g of your water and stir fully.
5. Add all of your 300g of water by the 2 minute 30 second mark.
6. Drink, savour and enjoy.
Tap Water-Adapted Brew Guide
1. 20 of coffee, ground 2 clicks before 'AEROPRESS' on the Wilfa Grinder.
2. Tap water, brought to the boil.
3. Start your timer.
4. Bloom for 30s with 50g of water, but don't stir.
5. Add all of your 300g of water by the 2 minute mark,
6. Drink, savour and enjoy.
The changes are relatively small, but the impact they’ll have on the attributes in your cup will be more than noticeable, allowing you to regain some clarity and definition in the flavours you’re looking to find.
There are other implications of using tap water, primarily its effect on your equipment in terms of scale build-up. That’s nothing some quick and basic maintenance tips can’t address, and we’ll be covering those in another Journal piece.
In the meantime, if you want to get in touch please email betterbrewing@workshopcoffee.com for advice on how to get the very best out of your coffee.
Easter Weekend: Delivery Schedule Changes
Easter weekend is approaching quietly, but quickly, which means our roastery in Bethnal Green will be taking a couple of well-deserved days of rest.
As such, we will not be roasting or dispatching coffee on Friday 10th or Monday 13th April. All orders received between these dates will be dispatched on Tuesday 14th April, at which point we'll return to normal, dispatching coffee, hardware and subscription orders every day of the working week.
Until then, we continue to turn orders around quickly and offer a range of shipping choices that include next working day options. However, please note that all of our carriers are currently experiencing extraordinarily high volumes, which may impact the speed in which your package arrives.
Brewing for Brewers | Friends & Family & Beer
On Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd February, Cloudwater Brew Co. hosted their second Friends & Family & Beer Festival. Coinciding with the Manchester-based brewery's fifth birthday, the two-day event was initially hosted in 2019 as a celebration of the independent values, collaborative spirit and community that defines the craft beer industry and, for the two days it existed, it embodied that convivial spirit.
This year we were delighted to be invited to the festival as a brewer of a different sort and the Workshop Coffee team showcased three coffees from our seasonal range throughout. Filling the hopper of our espresso grinder was our floral Ethiopian, Hunkute, and this was supported by two incredibly popular filter coffees options – our first ever Peruvian offering, Yolanda Cabrera, and Mahembe from Rwanda, which has firmly established itself as a staple in our range.
Our coffees fuelled a day of talks on the Friday, which spanned an impressive breadth of subjects, from the objectives of modern IPAs and the future of bioengineered brewing yeast, through to an insightful and inspiring panel discussion on the practicalities of independence and a keynote speech on building an inclusive and equitable work place from PhD Beer Scholar Dr. J. Jackson-Beckham.
As a damp and windy Manchester afternoon gave way to the evening, the doors to the main event space opened and the lights lowered in anticipation of what was one of the most impressive range of breweries and beers we’ve witnessed under one (rather beautiful, wrought-iron) roof. 72 brewers poured more than 500 beers of varying styles and strengths and amongst that impressive number were a host of one-off beers brewed especially for the festival or simply not available in the country at any other point of the year. The full list can be viewed here and has to be seen to be believed (and even then, it might take a few reads).
An enormous thank you once again to Cloudwater Brew Co. for the invitation and to everyone that took the time to join us for coffee and a conversation. The medicinal benefit of a caffeinated kick was no doubt beneficial as the number of beers mounted, but we were thrilled to see our coffee being tasted, savoured and enjoyed with the same excitement and sense of exploration as the beers in the room.
We’re already looking forward to next year.
Notes from Origin: Ecuador, September 2019
With only a hint of tongue-in-cheek, Jorge stands and declares "I'm ready to be famous".
A cattle farmer from Pichincha, Ecuador, he has provided some of the most memorably mouthwatering cups in our recent history. Made all the more astounding when you realise there are only three harvests under his belt, Workshop has purchased the last two. Deserving to be as world-renowned as some of the 'rockstar' producers from neighbouring Colombia, Jorge Tapia's coffee screams delicious, delicate, nuanced, complex. Superlatives have yet to be written; it really is that good.
Jorge is not in coffee just for the fame, despite what he says. Ultimately, he wants to better his family's lives. Knowing full well the premiums attached to the coffees of Elias Roa, Arnulfo Leguizamo and Astrid Medina, some of Colombia's most famous producers, have changed their lives, Jorge wants this for wife Hilda, their children Jessica and Cristobal, Jessica's daughter Alison.
Continuous improvement. Easy to say, not as easy to implement, but that won't hold Jorge back. A loan from Caravela funds the purchase of a hand-cranked depulper, dropped in the middle of his trees, saving the effort of hauling coffee cherry up through the steep, overgrown forest. The slimy depulped coffee, their weight reduced by 70% now out of the skins, is transported to the farmhouse, location of Jorge's washing and drying facilities twenty minutes drive away.
Walking us through his steps of processing, Jorge knows where he needs to invest. Better washing facilities to process more volume. A cooler place than the current location, the eaves of his house, to do the initial drying. More prominent raised beds with greater adjustability in temperature and shade control. All of these plans achievable, all of these plans already being worked upon.
Expect big things from Jorge Tapia. This is a name to remember.