Rather than rehashing my methods in every post, here is a breakdown of my methods for brewing coffee. This is what I’m using in a coffee review unless I specify otherwise!

POUROVER METHOD

Most of the time I use a notNeutral Gino, which is a variant of the Kalita Wave (flat bottom, three-hole design). I always use a 1:16 ratio, which is 28g of coffee and 450g of water. Most coffees finish in around 3:30 give or take a handful of seconds. I bloom for about 30 seconds. I use white Kalita 185 filters in the Gino and I always brew with Third Wave Water (one capsule in a gallon of distilled water) for the most consistent water possible, too. I use a Handground grinder set to 3 for my Gino brews.

ESPRESSO

Pretty simple setup… I have a trusty old Gaggia Espresso that I’ve been using for over ten years now. Grinder is a Rancilio Rocky doserless model that only gets used for espresso and works great. I use a 20g Decent Espresso precision basket and Decent Espresso’s 58.5mm precision tamper that is also calibrated to 25lbs of tamp pressure. In reviews I’ll give exact specs, but I usually start with 20.0g of coffee and aim for around a 35-ish gram espresso shot in about 27-30 seconds, then I tweak it from there depending on how it tastes.


OTHER METHODS

Like any good coffee geek, my kitchen is loaded with stuff including a Clever dripper (hate it, can’t taste anything but paper), Chemex, Aeropress, Moka pot, French press, a Cold Bruer, a phin, etc. For me, reviewing coffee is all about consistency, so as much fun as it is to play and experiment, I have a very full time job that pays a salary and so my time is super-limited during the day. As such, I use my go-to pourover and epsresso methods above and occasionally I’ll reach for another device. When I do, I’ll include the methodology in the review.