• High quality fresh coffee beans from a roaster with a great reputation (check out our staff picks)
• Brewer - and filters, if necessary
• Burr Grinder set to the correct grind
• Pouring vessel (ideally a pouring kettle but the thing you have with the thinnest spout to control the water flow and direction)
• Scales (scoops are not accurate or consistent) - ideally to 0.1g accuracy with a minimum 2kg tolerance
• Timer - a smartphone will do the job nicely
• Kettle - temperature selectable fancy ones are cool, but a regular kettle will be fine
• Mug or Decanter - your coffee has to go somewhere

• A stirrer for agitation
• A thermometer - this can be used to check the temperature of water

• Turn on the kettle - make sure that you have enough water
• Weigh out the required amount of wholebean coffee - add a gram, as you will lose a little in the grind
• Pre-wet the filter using hot or off the boil water - this will wash any residual paper flavours from the filter and pre-heat your mug/decanter & brewer.  If you are pouring from a pouring kettle then use this, as it will also be pre-heated as a result.
• Make sure that the water used to wash the filter is emptied out of the mug/decanter/brewer.  I’ve had to re-make a coffee on many an occasion when I haven’t paid attention!
• Grind your coffee to the required grind
• Place the brewing setup on to the scale and zero (tare) the scale, checking it is set to grams
• Put the ground coffee into the brewer to the desired weight and level the coffee. Zero the scale again
• Start the timer and pour the off-the-boil water (about 2x the weight of coffee) over the coffee ensuring that all the coffee is saturated
• Agitate (stir) the coffee making sure that all of the coffee is fully saturated - you can also swirl the brewer if you prefer
• Allow the coffee to ‘bloom’ for 30-45 seconds - this allows the coffee to de-gas and a more even extraction can be achieved
• Pour the remaining water (using the scale to control the amount) over the coffee.  Pour in circles.  If you’re using a pour over method, avoid pouring to the edge of the filter.
• If using an immersion brewer - e.g. french press, Clever - decant all of the coffee so that extraction doesn’t continue
• Drink it!

• Weight of coffee used
• Pre-brew time
• Amount of water used for pre-brew, and in total
• Overall extraction time
• What you liked and didn’t like about it

This will allow you to repeat your success.

Want to refine your coffee deliciousness further?  Try making a change to your recipe, but only change one variable at a time so you can see the impact it has.  As you change various elements, you will no doubt find coffee that you love even more!

*Have an electric brewer?  You can still make it better by washing through the filter and weighing out your coffee and water to a recipe - somewhere between 65g & 75g of ground coffee per litre depending on your taste.

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