An array of coffee brewers and grinders designed by working coffee professionals. Photo courtesy of Howard Bryman.

For all the many beautiful and clever pieces of equipment that exist for brewing coffee, it’s remarkable just how few of them are designed by “coffee people” — people whose primary occupation is within the coffee industry.

Houseware companies and other manufacturers will sometimes consult with specialty coffee pros when developing products for the quality-oriented audience. And of course, electrical and mechanical engineers are perhaps best suited to the task of designing machines with moving parts and complex electronics. It’s also true that running a coffee business leaves little time and energy for additional projects beyond the sourcing, roasting and selling of coffee.

So, while it may not be surprising, it’s still a little ironic that the catalog of coffee gear made by roasters or baristas is remarkably small. But it does exist, and for the Coffee Review Gift Guide this holiday shopping season, we’re shining a light on this admirable niche.

Every entry on this year’s list of items to consider as a gift (or as a treat for oneself) this holiday shopping season is a unique piece of equipment designed entirely by professional coffee people — passionate industry pros whose primary occupation is coffee, and whose primary objective in creating these products is to help specialty coffee consumers get the best experience possible from their coffees.

For each item, we share the stories and/or bona fides of its designer, the coffee-related problem it was designed to solve, and what it is about each one that brings us joy.

There are no affiliate links here. Coffee Review takes no commission on any sales that may result from this list. We aim purely to enlighten and appeal to seekers of high-quality coffee equipment, as well as to show support for the industry professionals whose passion keeps the coffee world moving forward.

Happy shopping and happy holidays to all!

The April Brewer ($29 – $39)

A flat-bottom pour-over brewer that rewards a practiced technique.

Comandante C40 Manual Grinder ($325 – $360)

One of the highest-quality and most attractive manual coffee grinders on the market.

Etkin 2-Cup Coffee Dripper ($45)

Just like the lovely Etkin 8-Cup, but for when you only want a cup or two.

Native Design Expedition Brewer ($49)

The slimmest, lightest-imaginable brewer for refueling in the backcountry.

The Cupping Brewer ($40)

Scales up the traditional cupping brew for something more savorable and shareable.

Simplify the Brewer ($21)

A manual pour-over brewer optimized for a single central pour; no fuss, no muss.

NextLevel Pulsar ($65)

A zero-bypass brewer with a flow control valve that’s as easy or as geeky as you want it to be.

VacOne Air Brewer ($149.95)

With a fine mesh screen and strong vacuum pump to strain brews quickly, this immersion brewer opens a world of possibilities.

Varia VS3 Grinder ($299.90)

Statuesque, compact and meticulously thought-out electric coffee grinder for which a variety of different burr sets are available.

The Full Reviews

The April Brewer

($29 – $39)

www.aprilcoffeeroasters.com/collections/april-brewers

WHO MADE IT:

Patrik Rolf literally wrote the book on transforming from a private coffee nerd into a renowned coffee professional. (His memoir, From Nerd To Pro – A Coffee Journey, is printed on paper made from recycled coffee cups.)

Rolf founded a roasting company called April Coffee in Copenhagen in 2016, although he had competed in professional-level coffee competitions before he’d ever worked in coffee.

WHY THEY MADE IT:

As a competitor and as a roaster, Rolf found that achieving consistency from one manual brew to the next was more challenging than it needed to be. With the right tool, great cups could be easy to repeat, whether for competition judges, for customers or for oneself.

In 2019, Rolf won the silver medal in the World Brewers Cup competition using the brewer of his own original design — the April Brewer.

WHY WE LOVE IT:

The key features Rolf baked into the April Brewer are its large single drain hole, its exterior peripheral vents, and its pronounced interior bottom ridges that prevent the paper of a Kalita-style basket filter from adhering to the base and sealing it off while brewing.

All three of these features encourage a fast downward flow, which shifts more impact onto the other choices made by the barista such as the grind size and coffee-to-water ratio. As a baseline, Rolf suggests a straightforward two-pour technique that he thinks strikes an ideal baseline balance between ease and precision to consistently coax the best from the coffees he roasts. Easy and intuitive to replicate brew after brew, we find ourselves gravitating back to that technique with most coffees, and loving the articulate, well-defined cups that result.

Available in plastic, glass or ceramic, the April Brewer rewards a precise technique, making it a fun and consistent tool in the hands of anyone with a scale, a gooseneck kettle, a quality grinder and a discerning palate.

Comandante C40 Manual Grinder

($325 – $360)

www.comandantegrinder.com

WHO MADE IT:

Father-and-son roasters Bernd and Raphael Braune of the German coffee company Supremo Coffee. From their home base outside of Munich, the Braunes have continued to source and roast top-tier coffees at Supremo while expanding into the grinder business, which at this point has eclipsed Supremo both in terms of revenue and global reach. The C40 has recently been joined by the larger-capacity C60 and the ultraportable C25 Trailmaster.

WHY THEY MADE IT:

It was only a few years after the 2004 founding of their quality-obsessed company Supremo Coffee that Bernd and Raphael Braune started to feel their quest to source, roast and deliver the finest imaginable coffees was being scuttled at both ends of the supply chain by lackluster grinders. Poorly performing grinders were too often a disservice to the proper evaluation of the stellar quality green coffees they cupped on the farms of creative and hardworking producers. The Braunes were also concerned that low-quality grinders in their customers’ homes were pulling the rug out from under all their efforts to source and roast par excellence.

They needed an excellent grinder they could pack with them on sourcing trips, and they needed that same professional-level piece of equipment to be accessible to their customers. By 2013, production of the first generation of Comandante manual grinders had begun, and in the decade since then their designs have continued to evolve and improve. Now in its fourth (product) generation, the Comandante C40 MK4 Nitro Blade features the same house-engineered conical burr set made from martensitic steel introduced with the Mk3 model in 2016, yet in the lightest package so far.

WHY WE LOVE IT:

Many throughout the industry consider the Comandante C40 to have set the gold standard for performance and build quality in a manual coffee grinder, and we can see why. It looks great, it’s a pleasure to use, and it puts out an exceptionally uniform grind that is ideal for pour-over and AeroPress. It performs admirably in the espresso range as well.

Its light weight is indeed a boon to its use on the road, but we also simply love the ergonomics and warmth of its handmade wooden knob and the textured, durably powder-coated body. The beans crunch with a pleasant tenor and its winsome amber glass catch jar is worth the extra weight and potential (but unlikely) breakability.

One also can’t help but feel like a member of the Comandante family when considering not only the heartwarming father-son backstory, but the courteous degree of attention to detail. The wide range of available colors and hand-turned wooden options welcome all personalities. Worried about the glass? The C40 also ships with a lighter and more durable plastic alternative. Is the body not grippy enough? For those willing to accept the impact on aesthetics, it includes a rubber ring that slides onto the body for better grip.

Etkin 2-Cup Coffee Dripper

($45)

www.etkincoffee.com

WHO MADE IT:

The Etkin Brewer was invented by Michael Butterworth, an Authorized SCA Trainer and consultant based in Istanbul, Turkey, who is also co-founder of specialty coffee blog The Coffee Compass.

WHY THEY MADE IT:

With the original 8-cup Etkin Brewer, Butterworth sought to offer an alternative to the conical filter format upon which most multi-serving manual brewers are based by designing a flat-bottom brewer big enough to serve everyone at the table. Recently, Etkin rolled out a smaller two-cup version that allows Etkin lovers to enjoy the same user experience and exquisite cups even when home alone.

WHY WE LOVE IT:

We sang the praises of the original 8-cup Etkin Brewer in a previous gift guide on Coffee Review. While the eight-cup capacity remains a marquee feature of the original, other creature comforts such as its hefty and beautiful white porcelain build, smooth interior walls and heat-hoarding dual-wall construction also contribute greatly to its pleasure and efficacy. All of these features transfer perfectly to the smaller version.

Plus, the Sibarist paper filters we recommended for the eight-cup model are even better suited to the 2-Cup, with no “creative folding” required; the prefold lines on the Sibarist Fast Flat are compatible with the Etkin 2-Cup, resulting in an elegant, fast-flowing zero-bypass platform.

The Expedition Brewer

($49)

https://native.design

WHO MADE IT:

Brian Franklin was an athlete and personal trainer prior to his first experimentation with roasting coffee at home in the late 1990s. He founded the professional roasting company DoubleShot Coffee in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2004, and has had an adventurous career in specialty coffee ever since (adventures he has documented in an upcoming book called The Coffee Purist, slated to start shipping this December.)

Currently, DoubleShot’s operations include not only a roastery and cafe, but also a recently planted coffee farm in Nicaragua called Dos Manzanas. The enterprise expanded again earlier this year when Franklin and other DoubleShot team members rolled out a line of brewing equipment and tools under the brand name Native Design.

WHY THEY MADE IT:

The Expedition Brewer is a very flat, very light brewing kit for backpackers and travelers. Franklin tinkered with the design for over 12 years, aiming for simplicity and portability as well as a product that’s easy to manufacture, durable over time and beautiful to behold.

WHY WE LOVE IT:

The kit involves a handsome duck canvas pouch that stores a wooden support ring and a thin sliver of laminated copper that, when spread out and balanced on a mug or travel tumbler, supports a conical paper filter. The pouch can also store a few extra paper filters as well as an American Weigh Pocket Scale, all of which are also for sale at the Native Design website.

In our experience, this kit does everything it needs to do. It holds a filter while brewing. It packs flatter and weighs less than a pair of socks. It has the rugged good looks of a brewer Indiana Jones might’ve used. And it’s made in Oklahoma by a passionate crew of deeply entrenched coffee people with many a story to tell.

The Cupping Brewer

($40)

https://cuppingbrewer.com

WHO MADE IT:

Josh Taves, a specialty coffee pro since 2006, is the former director of the Rocky Mountain Craft Coffee Alliance and former head of business development at Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Stovetop Roasters. Taves initially launched the Cupping Brewer in 2015 and today runs his own professional equipment distribution service and consulting business called Dialed Coffee Services.

WHY THEY MADE IT:

Cupping is the process used by coffee professionals to evaluate the flavor and quality of coffee. Green coffee buyers cup coffees in order to make purchasing decisions; roasters cup while developing roast profiles and for quality control purposes. The procedure involves mixing ground coffee with hot water in a little bowl for a precise immersion brew in accordance with strict protocols for consistency. The cupper then coats their palate with vigorous slurps from a spoon repeatedly over time as the bowl cools.

Taves, in the course of his duties as a specialty coffee professional, often finds his sips at the cupping table to be the tastiest he gets from a particular coffee — better than any other brewing method. He wishes he could have more of that brew to savor and share with others. The Cupping Brewer is his solution.

Larger than a standard cupping bowl, the Cupping Brewer is a handsome glass piece made specifically to scale up a cupping-style brew and pour it into one or two regular mugs for a more familiar and longer-lasting enjoyment.

WHY WE LOVE IT:

While pleasure is the main goal, the Cupping Brewer can also be used for analytical purposes. It’s particularly handy for home roasters who are interested in a more standardized tasting process but are reluctant to engage with traditional cupping due to the limited quantities they can roast at one time. The Cupping Brewer offers a pro-style tasting platform as well as a satisfying brew — one that does well at highlighting sweetness while clarifying the distinct notes a great coffee can yield.

Simplify the Brewer

($21)

https://simplify.coffee/

WHO MADE IT:

Ryo John Ito, founder and head roaster of Japanese roasting company Bathtub Coffee.

WHY THEY MADE IT:

Ito wanted more people to feel comfortable with manual coffee brewing. He wanted to simplify the brewing process, and figured a single pour straight down the middle would be about as simple as it gets. Yet this tends not to work very well on most brewers, as so many are designed with staggered pours, spiral patterns and other techniques in mind. To support his simplified method, he needed to simplify a brewer.

The result is the clear Tritan plastic device called Simplify the Brewer. Boosted by funds raised with a Kickstarter campaign in 2019, Simplify the Brewer is a single transparent piece into which Ito actually put a deceptively large amount of thought. Structurally, the Simplify takes some of the principles of the April Brewer to their logical conclusion: An even bigger 40-millimeter bottom hole, even less contact between the paper and the device, and even greater airflow between the cup and the brewer to allow pressure and vapor to freely escape.

WHY WE LOVE IT:

The Simplify flow is fast enough that Ito suggests pouring 230 milliliters of hot water right down the middle of 15 grams of finely ground coffee all at once over the course of about 30 seconds. A grind dialed in for the brew to drain within a total of 60 to 90 seconds will supposedly result in a quick and tasty cup.

In our experience, this is true, and dead simple. When time is tight and we need a no-brainer brew, the Simplify is the gadget we grab. Its featherweight durability makes it great for travel, and particularly when paired with a Melodrip accessory, any old kettle will do — no gooseneck required.

The NextLevel Pulsar

($65)

https://nextlevelbrewer.com

WHO MADE IT:

In a tale of true internet coffee geekery come to life, the NextLevel brewer is the invention of two geographically distant roasters who met in an online forum and bonded through discussion of a blog post by a coffee-loving astrophysicist.

It was 2019 when Richard Unruh, the founder of roasting company Free Space Coffee in Galva, Kansas, met Darren Schmidt, who at the time was roasting and selling coffee in Kentucky under the company name Back Porch Coffee. The article they’d both read was a deep dive by scientist and author Jonathan Gagné that zeroed in on the coffee brewing phenomenon known as “bypass,” which refers to water that circumvents the bed of ground coffee instead of flowing through it.

WHY THEY MADE IT:

Water that doesn’t flow through coffee doesn’t contribute to the extraction; if it winds up in the cup, it’s just watering down the cup. The unaccounted absence of that water in the brew bed slightly throws off the intended coffee-to-water ratio and may result in a net under-extraction, while a channel of over-extracted grounds could be left behind in the path water takes as it flees. Either way, the heart of the problem with bypass is that it is generally uncontrolled. When precision is a goal, anything that happens by accident is bad.

Schmidt and Unruh put their minds together to design a brewer that makes it simply impossible for bypass to occur. This is the NextLevel LVL-10 Brewer, a “zero-bypass” brewer whose flat, circular filter lines the bottom of an otherwise impermeable Tritan cylinder. Unlike conventional brewers with paper filters that rise up along the walls, liquid in the LVL-10 has nowhere to flow but straight down through the coffee. At the top is a showerhead lid that disperses any untrained pour of hot water from any type of kettle into an even array of precise droplets for a consistent and thorough saturation of the coffee bed.

The rate at which water flows through the coffee bed in an LVL-10 is dictated entirely by the grind, the dose and the pour. Yet as a percolation brewer, the one thing beyond the LVL-10’s control is the ability to stop the water completely. Schmidt and Unruh, geeks to the end, wanted to be able to play with phases of full immersion, as well as the ability to extract more from coarser grinds that drain fast. This time, in direct collaboration with Gagné himself, the team created the NextLevel Pulsar: an LVL-10 brewer with a flow control valve at the bottom for the user to open and shut as they please.

WHY WE LOVE IT:

In our opinion, the Pulsar is easily one of the most versatile manual brewers on the market. It’s as handy for a slapdash steep-and-release brew as it is for a studied recipe executed with lab-grade surgical precision, just for kicks. It’s also big enough for multi-cup brews, sturdy and easy enough to use while traveling, and works well for an overnight cold brew.

The VacOne Air Brewer

($149.95)

https://vaccoffee.com

WHO MADE IT:

The VacOne is the result of a collaboration between Colombian engineer and product designer Eduardo Umaña and Luis Fernando Vélez, head of the Colombian coffee roasting company Amor Perfecto. Recently, Umaña sold the rights to his design to a Minnesota-based kitchen appliance manufacturer, allowing him to focus entirely on Origin Roasted, a company that ships roasted coffees to U.S. customers from roasteries operating at or near the Central and South American farms where coffees are grown.

WHY THEY MADE IT:

Finely ground coffee can yield a full and complex extraction very quickly. But in Umaña’s opinion, the existing methods of brewing with finely ground coffee extract too much and are just too inconvenient. Crema generated via espresso, moka and Turkish methods generally imparts bitterness, despite its beauty. All these methods can also be finicky to perform if not costly to equip.

In collaboration with Vélez, Umaña created the VacOne to provide a flexible platform for fast brews using finely ground coffee that also mitigates the bitterness of crema. The user adds hot (or cold) water to ground coffee in the top part for what is essentially an immersion brew, then presses one button to activate a strong vacuum force that rapidly draws the liquid down from below. Crema that may form on the surface of the slurry remains on the surface of the grounds after draining, and a fine mesh screen at the base of the brewer filters out the grounds.

WHY WE LOVE IT:

While its genesis focused on a fine grind, grounds of virtually any size can be brewed in any number of cycles in the VacOne, resulting in a wide range of possible cup styles. This makes it a simple and flexible daily driver shareable by people of differing preferences and skill levels. We’ve had great results with straightforward full-cup immersion brews as well as with concentrated cold brew.

Its flexibility also widely opens a door to creative experimentation. For example, the VacOne can be used to perform a series of quick immersions/agitations/filtrations that mimic the method of a cutting-edge new professional coffee system called the Ground Control that is currently making waves on the commercial specialty coffee scene.

Varia Brewing VS3 Grinder

($299.90)

https://www.variabrewing.com/collections/varia-vs3

WHO MADE IT:

Prior to launching Varia Brewing, founder Ramsey Gyde roasted coffee professionally in Wellington, New Zealand, and was at one point a sales associate for 25-year-old Australian specialty coffee company Toby’s Estate. Toby’s Estate founder Toby Smith is also a co-founder of Varia Brewing. Robin Lin, who founded the company Ultimate Coffee Roaster in Shanghai in 2013 and currently roasts and sells coffee under the brand AOKKA, is a partner in Varia Brewing.

WHY THEY MADE IT:

Gyde and company are passionate about taking classic methods and upgrading them with better materials, enhanced features and meaningful design tweaks. In the field of electric home coffee grinders, they saw many flimsy poor performers taking up too much counter space with their less-than-sexy fits and finishes. The VS3 addresses all of these concerns with powerful performance, head-turning good looks, a surprisingly small size and robust construction.

Varia also makes four different burr sets users can swap into the VS3 for different brew methods and other benefits. Having recently introduced the model’s second generation, the VS3 is now built to tighter tolerances, with higher precision alignment and an upgraded motor and stainless steel gearbox, among other subtle improvements.

WHY WE LOVE IT:

The gestalt of the VS3’s features punches well above this tiny grinder’s weight in terms of the quality of its grind and the sheer joy of using it. The deliberately slow RPM at which its 38-millimeter conical burrs spin encourages a more evenly sized output, generates less mess- and retention-inducing static electricity, and keeps the grounds cool and flavorful. While downright petite compared to other countertop electric coffee grinders for home use, the VS3’s all-metal construction still gives it a heft and a presence while minimizing vibration and instilling confidence in its longevity.

Its appreciably stiff adjustment collar has yet to let us down while making tiny tweaks in the dialing-in process for pour-over or espresso, and we also simply can’t get over what an attractive little monolith it is, saving precious inches in our crowded coffee corner with a minimalistic profile that seduces like functional sculpture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – HOWARD BRYMAN

Howard Bryman is a Portland, Oregon-based freelance journalist and photographer who focuses on the specialty coffee industry, which he has either worked in or written about for the past 10+ years. He is the associate editor of Roast Magazine’s Daily Coffee News website, and an occasional contributor to the print magazine as well. With experience as a barista, manager, roaster’s apprentice, origin tourist and equipment tinkerer, Bryman’s fascination with specialty coffee’s tools, trends and challenges is matched only by his enthusiasm for the beverage itself.

The post 2023 Holiday Gift Guide: Coffee Makers Made by Coffee Makers appeared first on Coffee Review.

The Fellow Ode Brew Grinder, center, flanked by four burr grinders reviewed in Coffee Review’s June 2020 report “Four Mid-Range Burr Coffee Grinders Tested & Reviewed.” Photo by Howard Bryman.

Note: A Version 2 of the Ode grinder is now available.

Home kitchen appliances don’t usually enter the market wafting on hype. Yet, when it comes to an ambitious new product from the young and media-savvy California-based coffee equipment manufacturer Fellow, we’ve come to expect nothing less. The hype has been especially intense in the run-up to the debut of the Ode Brew Grinder, the company’s most complex product so far, and one for which the brand has made some lofty claims regarding features and performance.

Through its various media channels, Fellow has been promising a user-friendly machine of compact footprint, exceptional quietness, near-zero grounds retention, stylish appearance and trailblazing particle size consistency, designed specifically for single-dose, non-espresso brewing (which in itself puts the Ode in a category all its own). Yet as clever and good-humored as it is when ginning up the crowd, Fellow also has legitimately earned a reputation for making good on its promises.

To stoke excitement in the run-up to its latest reveal, Fellow undertook a sci-fi/conspiracy theory-themed P.R. campaign, enticing fans, bloggers and journalists to speculate about what sort of Sasquatch- or UFO-caliber mystery the hip brand was concocting in the shadows of its top-secret underground laboratories. This paid off when it pulled the curtain at last on the Ode Brew Grinder Kickstarter campaign, which sailed past its $200,000 funding goal in about 90 minutes and ultimately roped in over $1.2 million in pledges from roughly 5,000 backers. We put a pre-production review unit of the Ode Brew Grinder through its paces over the summer, and found that while it may not pull the sword entirely from the stone — alas, Bigfoot may still be out there somewhere — we were nevertheless very impressed with all that it does bring to the table.  For the review, read on. For a little context, see our June 2020 report for reviews of four burr grinders currently competing with the new Fellow Ode.

The Fellow Ode Brew Grinder. Photo by Howard Bryman.

EQUIPMENT REVIEW: FELLOW ODE BREW GRINDER

OVERALL RATING: 9.5

Pros: The Ode’s outstanding grind consistency alone is reason enough to get on board, while this compact, stylish grinder’s groundbreaking additional features add welcome convenience to the creative challenge of precision single-dose brewing.

Cons: We’d prefer a bit more room at the finest end of the dial, and the Ode’s sensitive electronics are issue-prone, pending solutions Fellow says will appear in future production runs. For consumers considering buying their first burr grinder, the Ode may appear expensive. For more experienced users who are committed to optimizing their small-batch or single-cup brewing technique, it may seem, if not a bargain, certainly a very good value.

MSRP: $299.00

Reviewer’s Take:

The Ode Brew Grinder’s array of inventive features is impressive, although pulling off these innovations did not apparently distract its engineers from what really matters — the grind.

Particle Size Consistency: As with our previous grinder reviews we sent samples of coffee ground by the Ode to our friends at the Horiba Instruments particle science lab in Irvine, California, for particle size distribution analysis by laser diffraction.

When comparing the Ode’s best (most particle-size-consistent) grind to that of the peak performer in our previous round of grinder reviews (the Breville Smart Grinder Pro), the Ode sample demonstrated 6% better grind consistency. (For an explanation of how we evaluate grind consistency, click here.

A comparison of grind consistency test results for the four best-performing grinders recently reviewed by Coffee Review, based on laser particle size distribution analysis conducted by Horiba Instruments. Shown here are best performance results for each machine. For each, the blue column represents the percentage of the sample within a particle size range we identified as optimal; the red column the percentage coarser than optimal, and the green finer than optimal.

That excellence gap grows wider, however, when we abandon the “best vs. best” idea for a closer look at each machine’s performance in specific use scenarios. Keep in mind that the Ode is designed for precision non-espresso brewing, whereas the grind-consistency runner-up Breville Smart Grinder is designed for all brewing methods, with a particular focus on espresso. If we accept the Ode’s more limited focus, and disregard the Breville’s versatility, our laser diffraction results indicate that when grinding specifically for a single-cup pourover, the Ode actually grinds almost 20% more consistently than the Breville.

A comparison of results from laser particle size distribution analysis conducted by Horiba Instruments of coffee samples ground at settings we found appropriate for a single-cup Kalita Wave pourover brew. For each machine, the blue column represents the percentage of the sample within the particle size range we identified as optimal; the red column the percentage coarser than optimal, and the green finer than optimal.

High-Tech Motor: While its sturdy alignment and large, commercial-grade 64-millimeter flat burrs contribute to this success, part also has to do with what Fellow calls its Smart Speed PID motor that directly drives the burrs at a consistent speed despite variations in resistance as beans feed between them. Sensors in the motor perceive fluctuations in RPM due to the resistance as a load of beans enters and diminishes during grinding, triggering automatic adjustments in the power sent to the motor. The result is a consistent 1,400 RPM, without slowdown at first or acceleration at the end － variations in burr speed that, according to Fellow, promote inconsistency in particle size in other grinders.

The large, stationary 64mm flat burr inside the grind chamber of the Ode Brew Grinder. Photo by Howard Bryman.

While this innovation does apparently contribute to outstanding grind consistency, it is also the mechanism at play in another clever, though less foolproof, feature: auto-stop.

The Auto-Stop Feature: When all the beans have been ground, the motor automatically shuts off, so if you weigh or measure your beans before you grind, you are freed from fooling around with a timer in order to attain hands-free operation. It’s an excellent feature when it works, but there are occasions when this brainy motor can be caught off guard.

The more common of such occasions is when a few beans straggle behind in the hopper after the motor has automatically stopped. When reactivating the grinder just for those final few beans, the tiny amount left often won’t provide enough initial resistance to trigger the auto-stop mechanism, in which case you will have to stop the grinder manually.

A more serious glitch can occur if the Ode shares an outlet with another power-hungry appliance such as a toaster oven, blender or, in our case, a standing mixer. After plugging in, using and then unplugging a standing mixer next to the Ode, its auto-stop feature started failing consistently and the grinder would make an odd stuttering knocking sound until manually stopped.

Fellow engineers informed us that this failure was due to “intermittent noise in the electrical control system, often caused by other high voltage electronics or appliances on the same circuit.” The issue corrected itself after simply unplugging the grinder, letting it “reset” for a few seconds and then plugging it back in again. Fellow promised that a solution will be worked into future production runs, though it will also include a recommendation that users plug their Odes into dedicated circuits that are not shared with other high-voltage products.

A couple of flicks of this lever on the side of the Ode helps knock loose grounds left behind in the grinder due to static cling. Photo by Howard Bryman.

Retention and Usability: These are truly minor and preliminary glitches, though, in a package that otherwise makes good on virtually all its other promises. With its low profile and compact footprint, the Ode is tiny compared to other machines in its class. With an average noise output of 85 dB while grinding, this pygmy powerhouse is also substantially quieter than average.

Another convenience: The catch cup for the ground coffee centers easily and is securely held in place under the chute by magnets. This magnetic alignment is particularly handy considering the narrow clearance for the cup between base and chute. Grounds-funneling fins inside the catch cup also make pouring the grounds into even the narrowest of filters easy.

The huge grind adjustment knob is a pleasure to use, although we found ourselves wishing the Ode would go just a tad finer to provide even more flexibility in slowing down flow through the coffee bed when brewing a pour-over with very light-roasted beans.

Dose accuracy in our tests was dependable enough, as what came out of the Ode was generally within +/-0.2 grams of what we put in. When we emptied the machine for cleaning, we were only able to mine roughly 0.3 grams of retained ground coffee from its grind chamber and chute, which is practically nothing compared to other machines in its price range we have tested.

The Bottom Line: These ancillary but important perks are welcome icing on the cake of Ode’s grind consistency. The Ode may not be the most versatile grinder on the market given its dedication to single-dose, non-espresso brewing, and there may still be a wrinkle or two to iron out as the design matures, but for its grind quality, its striking good looks and other features, the Ode Brew Grinder has already set an impressive new standard.

Key Specifications:

Hopper Capacity: 80 grams (2.8 oz)
Dimensions: 9.4″x 4.2″x 9.5″
Weight: 4.5kg (10 pounds)
Burrs: 64mm stainless steel flat
Burr Speed: 1400 RPM
Grind Settings: 31
MSRP: $299.00

Manufacturer’s Website: www.fellowproducts.com

The post A High-Quality Grind, One Brew at a Time: The Fellow Ode Brew Grinder appeared first on Coffee Review.

Four burr coffee grinders, from left to right: Oxo Conical Burr Grinder With Integrated Scale, Baratza Virtuoso+, Breville Smart Grinder Pro, and KitchenAid Burr Grinder. Photo by Howard Bryman.

Grinding whole beans immediately before brewing is one of the single most powerful upgrades you can make to the quality of the cup you brew at home. No matter what grinder you own, it’s better than owning no grinder at all. Yet when examining the differences from one coffee grinder to the next, and contemplating the sheer variety of products available on the market, it quickly becomes clear that what we ask grinders to do, and evaluating how well they do it, is neither simple nor easy.

For this report, Coffee Review thoroughly tested four popular burr coffee grinders: the Baratza Virtuoso+, the Breville Smart Grinder Pro, the KitchenAid Burr Grinder, and the Oxo Conical Burr Grinder With Integrated Scale.  The MSRP for these grinders currently ranges from around $200 to $270. From our point of view and our general experience, grinders in this price range and class have the potential to represent a reasonable balance between quality and affordability for a lover of fine coffee. They tend to perform best for brewed coffee – drip, French press, AeroPress, and various immersion methods. Some also can be used for espresso brewing (see the individual reviews), although a specialized espresso grinder is generally best for that demanding method.

Reviews of each machine can be found by clicking on the grinder names in the preceding paragraph, but to understand what we were looking for and what sets machines apart, in general, it helps to first understand what happens when beans are passing through any grinder, and then what it is we want from the grounds that come out.

The Journey from Beans to Grounds

Coffee beans are dense, brittle little packages. When a bean comes in contact with a grinder’s burrs or blades, it doesn’t get sliced like a melon or even chopped like a nut. Coffee beans tend to explode upon impact, resulting in an array of what we call boulders and fines, meaning big chunks of bean and tiny powder-like particles.

All this friction and speed inevitably generate both heat and static electricity. Too much heat is bad for your brew because it cooks away the volatile aromatic and flavor compounds in your coffee, promoting a subtly drab and underwhelming cup. Static is also a nuisance because it sends grounds fluttering messily out onto your countertop and clinging to surfaces both on and inside the grinder, including inside the grounds-catching bin or container, making it harder to pour or spoon grounds out into your filter.

Grounds stuck inside a burr grinder can also lead to maintenance issues eventually, while more immediately they can foil the freshness of subsequent brews by coming unstuck and getting swept out along with fresher grounds, thereby imparting off-flavors and changing the character of your cup. Different designs of grinder typically include different strategies to mitigate both heat and static, with varying success, as described in our reviews.

After the bean’s initial explosion, as heat and static are potentially mounting, the particles that are bigger than your ideal grind size are hopefully further broken down to something close to an optimal average size for the brewing method you choose.

The Importance of Particle-Size Consistency

When you dunk something porous under water, the time it takes for water to soak all the way through it has a lot to do with its size. If it’s bigger, water takes longer to get to its center, and vice versa if it’s smaller. This is true of each individual particle of ground coffee.

Coffee releases different substances into the water at different points in time, and the best way to control that reaction — to get the stuff you want out of coffee and avoid the stuff you don’t — is to brew with coffee particles that are as close as possible to a uniform size and shape.

We know that after a fresh-roasted bean’s interstitial CO2 is nudged out upon initial contact with water (i.e. the bloom phase), the first chemical compounds drawn out of coffee are its acids, oils and more pleasant aromatics such as fruity and flowery notes. Next come the sugars, which are major players in the overall yum factor of your cup, and after that come some bitter and astringent qualities contributed by the actual cellulose stuff of the roasted seed.

An “under-extracted” brew is the result of water passing through too quickly, or perhaps at too low a temperature; it may taste peanutty, shallow or sharp. Similarly, an “over-extracted” brew will be regrettably bitter and astringent due to water mixing with coffee for too long, or at too high a temperature. To craft an ideally delicious balance of acids, fats and sugars, full of complexity and character and relatively free from bitterness, you need to keep the mix of water and grounds within the ideal temperature range (around 200 ºF), and you need to be able to separate the brew from the ground coffee at the right moment.

Better Grinder = More Control

Managing water’s ability to flow through coffee in order to time that separation successfully comes down to a matter of dose and grind. A subtle change to the ratio of water to coffee in your recipe is one way to alter the brew; another way is to grind the coffee either more coarsely or finely in order to adjust its resistance to the water, bearing in mind that these variables are especially closely linked in non-immersion methods such as drip, pourover and espresso.

“Dialing in” these variables takes a bit of trial and error. What’s always true, though, is that better grinders give you more control over your adjustments to the grind, and however it is you like your coffee, the closer the particles in your filter are to the same size, the easier it is to control the flow of water.

Summary grind consistency test results based on laser particle size distribution analysis by Horiba Instruments for the four grinders reviewed for this report. Six samples were tested from each grinder representing various grind settings (coarse, medium, fine) and two degrees of roast (light and medium-dark). Shown here are results for the best-performing sample among the six produced by each grinder. The blue column represents the percentage of the sample reduced to a range of particle sizes we identified as optimal; the red column the percentages produced coarser than optimal, and the green finer than optimal.

For an explanation of how we determined our optimal range of particle sizes click here.

Blades vs. Burrs

A deep and irrevocable line in the sand exists between grinders built around a spinning blade that whacks beans into wild smithereens, and grinders with one spinning and one stationary serrated burr that, by feeding beans through the space between the burrs, are far more likely to reduce whole beans into a tidy pile of more uniform grounds.

Top view of the conical burr mechanism on the Breville Smart Grinder Pro. Photo by Howard Bryman.

Even the worst-performing burr grinder is built with some consideration of the alignment and calibration of the burrs, which are themselves engineered with some consideration of the sharpness and geometry of their teeth. The fast-spinning blade of a blade coffee grinder meanwhile acts more like a hammer than a scalpel. There’s no accounting for how many times a chunk of bean will come into contact with a spinning blade, and every time it does, it only gets clobbered into another unpredictable spray of different-sized particles.

Horiba Help

In the course of evaluating grinders for this report, we reached out to our friends at Horiba Instruments, a Japanese manufacturer of precision instruments for measurement and analysis with offices and labs in various locations internationally. We sent samples of ground coffee to their lab in Irvine, California, for particle size analysis by laser diffraction. Our samples included grounds generated by the four burr grinders we review for this report, as well as two samples ground by blade grinder.

The popular, top-selling spinning blade grinder that we bought brand new for this test predictably produced the wildest variety of particles by far; the furthest from what anyone could call a consistent grind. While not every blade grinder is exactly alike, we find them apparently similar enough to be comfortable in issuing a blanket recommendation against their use for grinding fine coffee. They’re better than buying pre-ground, but if you can manage it, get a burr grinder.

Conical vs. Flat Burrs

The two main shapes of coffee grinder burrs are conical and flat, and the speed at which they spin is determined by the manufacturer based on their size and geometry, the torque of the motor, and other factors. The shape, size and RPM of burrs in a grinder do make a difference in the consistency of the grind, although raw specs alone don’t always tell the whole story.

Conical burrs consist of a central cone-shaped inner burr with teeth on its outer surface that spins within a stationary ring-shaped burr with teeth on the inside. Flat burrs are two discs serrated on facing sides, one spinning and one stationary. While most burr grinders built for home use employ conical burrs, there are also many that go with flat, and while there are potential advantages to each, there are also drawbacks. The average coffee drinker probably won’t notice any difference in the cup, but as manufacturers almost always specify which type they’ve built into their machines, it may help clear up some confusion to know the arguments pro and con for each shape.

Conical burrs, which are cheaper to manufacture, can also more efficiently pull beans into their teeth and process them down to size. Therefore they can produce an effectively consistent grind at lower RPMs, which in turn means the grinder can potentially operate more quietly and produce less heat. Yet the geometry of conical burrs is such that they also tend to produce a bimodal or varying size distribution of grounds.

Flat burrs, on the other hand, have a greater potential to produce a more consistent particle size. Therefore the more obsessive home or cafe baristas seeking the highest level of precision and control might gravitate towards flat burrs. But in reality, only the very best grinders on earth come anywhere close to uniformity. So in machines designed for affordability and casual home use, the difference comes down to something more theoretical than actual, with neither flat nor conical burrs staking claim to superiority by default.

Further Issues and Features

Grind consistency trumps all, but in cases where differences in that category are relatively small, as is the case with three of the grinders we review for this report, there remain other important features that impact a machine’s usefulness and the user’s experience. The smoothness and precision of the grind setting adjustment system is very important, as is the machine’s overall build quality and style. The design of the cup that catches the grounds is important, as is the noise level of the machine when it’s in action.

Most grinders offer a timer that automatically stops the grind after a user-designated period of time has elapsed, while others, including one grinder we review here, the Oxo Conical Burr Grinder With Integrated Scale, weigh the grounds to determine when to stop the process. In either case, we test these functions for their convenience and accuracy. We also take note of a grinder’s hopper capacity, how much coffee builds up on the inside of the machine in normal use (grounds retention), and whether the machine makes it convenient to load and grind just one dose at a time to accommodate those who prefer to store all their beans in air-tight containers and only expose enough for one brew or batch at the moment they make it. And finally, of course, there is the question of whether a grinder’s overall performance and features ultimately merit its price.

All too often, coffee-gear shoppers relegate the grinder to an afterthought. Yet beans have to pass through a grinder before they come anywhere near a brewer. While the way you brew your coffee is largely up to you, it’s your grinder’s job to lay the groundwork, so to speak, for success.

Read Reviews

Baratza Virtuoso+

Breville Smart Grinder Pro

KitchenAid Burr Grinder

Oxo Conical Burr Grinder With Integrated Scale

The post Equipment Report: Four Mid-Range Burr Coffee Grinders Tested & Reviewed appeared first on Coffee Review.

Closeup of coffee grinder burrs. Photo by Howard Bryman.

There were a number of ways we could have approached the evaluation of the four grinders reviewed this month with regard to producing consistent particle size. We could have judged the machines based on the results of brewing with the grounds they put out, or simply through visual inspection of the grounds, or by manually sieving each sample to separate particles by size.

Instead, we decided to send samples of coffee ground by each machine to our friends at the Horiba Instruments particle science lab in Irvine, California, for particle size distribution analysis using laser diffraction equipment, because that appeared to represent the clearest, most objective route to evaluating the grind consistency of the four machines reviewed in this report.

Yet even with that decision made, there remained a number of ways we could have gone about selecting the samples, as well as various ways to approach the resulting data. Here’s what we did, and why.

Settings vs. Brew Methods

First, we decided not to get too bogged down in the particular requirements of specific brew methods, as these can be quite subjective as well as influenced by complex, interacting variables — brew water temperature, darkness of roast, green coffee character, filter material and construction, etc.

We did consult the settings for various brewing methods recommended by the instruction manuals provided by each grinder-maker. We also consulted material on grind size produced by the KRUVE company, which produces a set of sieves for isolating a specific micron range of coffee particles for more refined brewing. (KRUVE recommends you toss out the particles that are too large or too fine for optimal brewing.)

The instructions provided by grinder manufacturers could suggest a starting point for an optimal range of particle size, but they are simply too vague and are often specific to the performance of one machine. If anything, they lean toward recommendations coarser than used by many professionals and aficionados for most brewing methods. This may be because manufacturers predict a coarser setting on their machines will result in fewer fines that clog up a filter or flat-out stop a brewing act; the trade-off being that while a coarser setting may produce a weaker, more listless cup, at least the consumer will get a cup.

The KRUVE recommendations for specific brewing methods, meanwhile, present an impossible ideal for a grinder, veering substantially finer than the norm because the KRUVE system eliminates the very fine particles that other brew guides assume you’re brewing with.

What’s universally true, though, is that a more consistent particle size makes for better brewing, no matter how you brew. So we decided to evaluate grinders based simply on the consistency of the particle size they produce, regardless of the brewing method to which that particle size is best suited.

Choosing the Sample Settings

So without focusing on brewing method, and without straining the grinders to their extremes of either coarseness or fineness, we simply twisted the dials and knobs on each grinder to produce: 1) a sample at one or two notches finer than the coarsest setting on the grinder; 2) a sample one or two notches coarser than the finest setting, and 3) a sample at the center setting. We did this with a light (but not aggressively light) roasted coffee, and a darker roasted coffee (just nudging into second crack but not too far into it). This netted us a total of six grind samples from each machine, ranging from what the grinder setting proposed as fine through medium to coarse, in each case tested at two different roast levels.

Note that we are not proposing that any of these particle size ranges is any more appropriate to any given brewing method than any other range. All we wanted to know was to what degree each grinder generated a consistent grind size at various settings, and to what degree it did not.

“Generally Optimal Range”

This is where our friends at Horiba really helped us out. Horiba provided mountains of data, packaged into a wide variety of stats and calculations. They provided wavy-lined graphs that gave form to the vast range of particle sizes. They identified and charted for each sample the mean, median and mode particle sizes, the standard deviations, coefficients of variation and so on. Particle size distribution analysis has application in a huge variety of fields, from pharmaceuticals to ceramics, construction to food & beverage, and yet no one had ever collaborated with them on a comparative analysis of particles generated by coffee grinding machines amid the quest for a better cup of coffee.

In the end, we had to ask ourselves: At what point does variation in particle size become detrimental to brew quality? Given that absolute uniformity is impossible, just how tight a range do we really need? Even the Specialty Coffee Association’s official Cupping Protocol is stunningly generous in this regard: It only requires that the grind for cupping be of a particle size of which 70-75% passes through the standard #20 mesh sieve (with holes of 841-micron diameter). That’s an acceptance of 25-30% oversized particles with no limit at all for undersized.

The 400-Micron Window

Extraction scientists could perhaps provide an answer to our question, but have not, at least so far as we can tell. We do know that the need for consistent particle size is different for different brew methods; for example, the window for acceptable consistency is much slimmer for espresso than for drip.

We also know that KRUVE established its grind size recommendations based on their own research of coffee extraction times in relation to the water-to-coffee contact time, pressure and temperature. For most methods, the ranges they recommend are in windows 400 microns wide. So, somewhat arbitrarily, we decided to adopt a 400-micron window as the basis for our evaluations.

With Horiba’s help, for each sample we zeroed in on the mode particle size, meaning the particle size that occurs most prevalently within a given sample. We then set boundaries 200 microns larger and 200 microns finer, creating a 400-micron range with the mode size at its center. We then calculated what percentage of each sample landed within that range, and used that key metric to compare grind consistency among samples and grinders.

Particles that measured larger than the 400-micron window we called “coarser.” Finer than that window “finer.” Particles that fell inside the 400-micron window we called “optimal.”

See the graph below for a look at how the four reviewed machines compared when tested using the metric of the 400-micron window.  You can find similar graphs with more detailed results for each grinder in the separate reviews of those grinders: the Baratza Virtuoso+, the Breville Smart Grinder Pro, the KitchenAid Burr Grinder, and the Oxo Conical Burr Grinder With Integrated Scale.

Summary grind consistency test results based on laser particle size distribution analysis by Horiba Instruments for the four grinders reviewed for this report. Six samples were tested from each grinder representing various grind settings (coarse, medium, fine) and two degrees of roast (light and medium-dark). Shown here are results for the best-performing sample among the six produced by each grinder. The blue column represents the percentage of the sample reduced to a range of particle sizes we identified as optimal; the red column the percentages produced coarser than optimal, and the green finer than optimal. For an explanation of how we determined our optimal range of particle sizes see earlier in this article.

A Note of Thanks

We would like to extend a  special thanks to the extraordinarily helpful team we worked with at the Horiba particle size analysis lab in Irvine, California, including Horiba Vice President Mike Pohl, Applications Lab Supervisor Amy Hou, and Particle Science Liaison Julie Chen Nguyen.  Over the course of several weeks, multiple conversations and long email chains, they made some pretty complex concepts much easier to understand and shed light on possible approaches to data they gathered using their Horiba Partica LA-960V2 Laser Scattering Particle Size Distribution Analyzer. Those readers interested in the application of particle science to coffee can learn more about it here. The Horiba team’s flexibility and assistance has been invaluable to our goal to help consumers make better and more informed buying decisions, and we hope to continue this partnership long into the future.

And, special thanks as well to the generous Portland roasters who contributed beans for use in our grinder tests: Coava Coffee Roasters, Nossa Familia Coffee and Torch Coffee Roasters.

The post Minding the Grinds: Our Approach to Sampling and Judging Grind Consistency appeared first on Coffee Review.

Digital Electric Gooseneck Pourover Kettles. Photo by Howard Bryman.

Of all manual brewing methods, the pourover drip method may appear the most straightforward. But as direct as the procedure may seem, a steady arm and resolute focus will only go so far. To gracefully land, time and time again, upon all the enticing aromas and flavors about which roasters (and coffee reviewers) wax poetic, you need the right equipment. In particular, you need a good gooseneck kettle. A proper gooseneck goes a long way in helping navigate the slippery variables of temperature, flow, technique and more that separate an ok cup from a cup that really sings, while also elevating your pleasure in the practice.

For this report, Coffee Review thoroughly tested four popular variable-temperature electric gooseneck kettles: the top-rated Fellow Stagg EKG Kettle (rated 9.5 out of 10.0), the Oxo Adjustable Temperature Pour-Over Kettle (8.0), the new Bonavita Interurban Kettle (7.5), and the bargain-priced Yabano Electric Kettle (6.5).  We share our findings in the reviews linked to this report.

But first, a little about the gooseneck’s purpose, functionality and features.

Electric Gooseneck Kettles. Photo by Howard Bryman.

Why the Long Neck?

The narrow gooseneck spout connects to the bottom of the kettle specifically to help steady and pace the stream of water directed to the grounds. The upward slant and serpentine shape of the spout, while lovely, has more to do with managing gravity than with beauty. If it were any straighter, shorter or differently positioned, water might simply gush out. The stream has to be delicate to avoid barging in and roughing up the coffee bed, which promotes an uneven extraction, and also must be easily controlled so you can speed or slow the pour in response to other variables, such as puffing caused by the gas-releasing freshness of the coffee, the fineness of the grind, or plain personal preference.

Kettle Categories

There are basically four categories of gooseneck kettle: 1) Those that simply look good and facilitate the pour, 2) those that look good, facilitate the pour, and also allow you to heat the water on a stovetop, 3) those with a plug-in base that heats the water to boiling before automatically turning off, and 4) the subject of this month’s report, designs that digitally control and hold water temperature at a user-defined, brew-ready set point.

Behind better-equipped professional pourover stations, you may spot some very handsome unplugged goosenecks in flight, such as the Kinto Pour Over Kettle or the insulated copper kettles made by Monarch Methods. These artfully wrought, straightforward tools needn’t contain any electronics or even be stovetop-friendly because commercial coffee settings include massive, stable water heaters that dispense water at precise temperatures on demand. Baristas fill their kettles from them and then swiftly execute their brew ballet before a gallery of presumably enthralled and under-caffeinated onlookers.

Stovetop goosenecks are a more common species where kettles for consumers are sold, as these are built both to withstand heat and to deliver heated water to the coffee bed with precision and pacing. Among others, Hario, Kalita and Fellow all offer stovetop kettles to pair with matching pourover brewers in a variety of styles.

Bottom view of the Fellow Stagg EKG Kettle. Photo by Howard Bryman.

The next step up in complexity are kettles with internal heaters that dock onto a plugged-in base and take water straight to a boil at the flick of one button or switch. Some are fitted with an analog thermometer protruding from the top of kettle that can alert a patient (very patient) user to when the temperature either reaches an approximate target brew temperature or drifts back down to it from a boil. However, our tests suggest that the temperatures displayed by these little analog thermometers are not particularly accurate, the dials are hard to read, and the entire process cumbersome. But for those with a modest budget and plenty of patience here are two of several options: the Yabano Gooseneck Pour Over Kettle with Integrated Thermometer and the COMFEE’ MK-12S07A Gooseneck Electric Kettle with Thermometer Gauge.

The Best Option: Digital, Variable-Temperature-Controlled Kettles

At this point, both for the value of your time and the sake of precision, it’s worth taking that final stride into a variable-temperature electric gooseneck kettle with a base that offers the ability to digitally set and maintain almost exactly the brew temperature you are aiming for, among other useful features.

We say “almost exactly” here because the accuracy of the temperature reading will differ from kettle to kettle. The temperature displayed on the base’s screen is a function of a small probe embedded in the interior base of the kettle itself. These probes apparently differ in sensitivity given their thickness, height and other factors. And the water temperature in any kettle will vary at least a little in different areas inside the kettle, particularly during heat-up. That’s why, in our tests, we took measurements at different spots inside the kettle both when it first reported hitting a target temperature and continuously for about five more minutes as it attempted to hold the brew water at the target.

Some clemency is deserved here because all kettles contain only one sensor in one spot. No kettle on the market today will know exactly the temperature of all the water all the time. However, the quality of parts, connections and technology in the kettle appears to make a noticeable difference in the overall accuracy of the temperature readings shown on the digital displays, as well as relative success in maintaining these temperatures over time as the kettle and its thermostat try to hold them at a target value.

Heat-Up Time

We also measured the time it took each kettle to heat cold tap water (about 60°F) to a self-reported temperature of 205°F. Note that we tested both heat-up time and temperature accuracy/stability at two different water volumes: 600ml, as well as the volume required to reach the maximum fill-line for each kettle.

We did this overlapping testing because we wanted to measure the performance of each unit both on its own terms and in terms relative to the performance of competing kettles. Tests at maximum capacity are the basic measure of how true each device is to its own promotional claims, whereas 600ml is the level playing field we chose for them to compete against one another. Since 600ml is enough water to rinse a filter and brew a couple of standard American mugs of coffee, we settled on that volume as a typical-use case scenario.

And the Other Features

Of course, digital goosenecks are also accountable for their non-electric features, such as how a kettle’s handle and spout design can make pouring easier, more precise or more comfortable. And like anything else on display in your home, appearances also count for a lot.

We also considered the usefulness of additional features such as a built-in timer or pre-set temperature options, the overall build quality, and the price tag. We took all of this into account, and more, when determining if and how effectively each of these geese may help you lay that golden cup.

Read Reviews

Fellow Stagg EKG Kettle (rated 9.5 out of 10.0)

Oxo Adjustable Temperature Pour-Over Kettle (8.0)

Bonavita Interurban Kettle (7.5)

Yabano Electric Kettle (6.5)

The post Equipment Report: Digital Electric Gooseneck Pourover Kettles appeared first on Coffee Review.

The cold or iced coffee we enjoy in cafés and stores is not necessarily cold brewed. It is often brewed using conventional hot-extraction methods and chilled immediately after brewing. When sold in cafés decanted over ice, it is often brewed extra-strong to compensate for dilution by the ice.

However, the current popularity of various cold or iced coffee drinks has bolstered the popularity of genuine cold-brewed coffee, coffee that has been brewed slowly through hours-long contact with cold water. Cold-water brewing generally produces a smooth-bodied cup with low acidity and delicate aromatics. Those who prefer hot-brewed coffees complain that cold-water extraction does not pull enough from the coffee; those who enjoy cold brew argue that hot brewing extracts too much. Cold-brew lovers prefer that some of a coffee’s acidity and intensity is left behind, and find that cold brewing gives them a more delicate, understated, and above all, low-acid beverage.

The low acidity associated with cold brew has made it a particular favorite of those coffee drinkers who find that the organic acids in coffee cause them digestive distress. Manufacturers and vendors of cold-brew devices have made “low acidity” a key element in their marketing. The manufacturer Toddy, for example, prominently boasts of a cup containing 67% less acid than a typical hot brew, although no study that we could find apart from a single piece of lab work commissioned by Toddy itself) is cited. Our own relatively acid-tolerant constitutions and limited labs were not ideally suited to test this claim either, but we trust by way of our palates and the existing science on cold brew that the method does indeed produce a lower-acid cup than hot brew methods. It tastes that way, at any rate. Those who enjoy the complexity and distinction of high-grown, medium-roasted coffees, yet continue to struggle with their bright acidity, may want to experiment with cold brewing.

Immersion vs. Slow-Drip

There are two styles of cold brewers: immersion brewers (coffee is simply soaked in cold water for an extended time, usually around 12 to 24 hours, before filtering) and slow-drip, Kyoto- or Dutch-style brewers that dribble iced water very (very) slowly through a bed of ground coffee. Immersion brewers are typically used to brew a coffee concentrate that is served diluted with two to three parts water or milk, whereas slow-drip brewers produce a beverage meant to be enjoyed straight from the brewer, without dilution or diluted only with ice. While immersion brewers are certainly more common in the market, new slow-drip devices have appeared in recent years, demonstrating their increasing popularity as an alternative to immersion.

Within each of these categories we tested two products: one a standard, traditional version of the basic style and one a newer, more updated version. On the immersion side, we tested the classic Toddy Cold Brew System together with the new KitchenAid Cold Brew Coffee Maker, just released this year. In the slow-drip category, we reviewed the thoroughly updated Cold Bruer , a four-year-old product launched via Kickstarter that makes clever use of silicone in a variety of applications, and the Nispira Ice Drip Coffee Maker, a device that mimics, on a smaller scale, the form and function of the tall, almost otherworldly-looking traditional slow-drip towers common for decades in Japan and sometimes seen in quality-focused cafés in North America.

General Test Criteria

As we engaged with each device, we found confirmation for our view that low-temperature, slow-extraction coffee brewing is, in general, a very forgiving method, regardless of the specific mechanics of the process. True, the characteristic cup produced by the slow-drip method will be inherently lighter-bodied and more nuanced than the typical cup generated by the immersion method, doubtless owing to the subtle, constant movement of fluid through the coffee in slow-drip as opposed to the long, standing steep inherent to immersion brewing. And again, the water-to-coffee ratio in slow-drip methods is designed to produce a ready-to-drink cup, whereas immersion methods aim to produce a heavy concentrate intended to be drunk diluted by as much as two-to-three parts water or milk. The immersion-brew concentrate is typically a rich, almost syrupy brew that nets a final cup particularly emphasizing sweetness and smoothness over flavor articulation and brightness.

Yet, one way or the other, what quickly became evident is that when you take brevity and heat out of the equation, cold brewing is not a particularly technically demanding procedure. None of these devices is expected to maintain a consistent temperature, for example. None involve electronics. Given this simplicity, the key areas we focused on in our evaluations included convenience, quality of build and materials, and filter performance in regard to the clarity and drinkability of the finished beverage. We also stressed aesthetics, a particularly important consideration given how long these slow-brewing devices need to remain in action and in view to perform their task.

As each brewer is designed to shine at a different brewing volume and incorporates its own method of filtration, we did our best to approach each product on its own terms and follow each manufacturer’s instructions and recommendations for brewing ratios and procedures, rather than attempting to establish our own baseline recipe and force each device to conform to it. That said, manufacturer recommendations for brewing ratios and procedures were for the most part in keeping with generally accepted best practices for each method, and we found that, while each device has its quirks and might appeal to different kinds of user, all performed well at the essential task of generating satisfactory cold-brew coffee.

Overview of Findings

True, the slow-dripping Nispira took a bit of dialing in, as it did not come with instructions, and given the amount of time and coffee involved per experimental batch, it was frustrating to miss the mark at first. But once we got our bearings, the Nispira proved to be as easy to use as any of the other devices we tested.

In regard to effective filtration, the cup with the least clarity was produced by the KitchenAid, although we expected much worse from its perforated steel steeper basket. Perforated metal filters often tend to let pass a disappointing quantity of fine, silt-producing particles. But the KitchenAid filter performed better than average for this filter style, and the final cup benefited from an added measure of clarification provided by an innovative design that encourages settling and separation of sediment at the bottom of its hearty glass brew jar.

The KitchenAid was also by far the sturdiest of the four tested units in terms of material construction, although there’s not much that can go wrong with the Toddy Cold Brew System either—a lightweight plastic bucket one could probably bounce down a flight of stairs and dust off for the next brew session. The only tested device we questioned in regard to long-term durability is the Nispira. Its thin-walled glass components seem destined to fracture eventually.

For ingenuity, we tip our hat to both the Bruer and the KitchenAid, each of which contributes clever twists in functionality to their respective formats. The Toddy deserves continued respect for having popularized cold brewing with a design that, after fifty years, continues to produce cold-brewed concentrate coffee as good as any. And the Nispira takes a good shot at bringing the picturesque drama of the big slow-drip café towers into the intimacy of a coffee-lover’s kitchen.

Equipment Ratings

Our scale to indicate overall ratings of equipment runs from 5.0 to 10.0, and reflects an assessment of a device’s look and feel, quality of material and construction, ease of use, performance, and general ratio of cost to performance. Overall ratings can be interpreted as follows:

9.5 – 10.0     Highly recommended
8.5 – 9.4        Recommended
7.5 – 8.4        Recommended with reservations
6.5 – 7.4        Not recommended
< 6.5               Does not fulfill basic expectations for the category

Review: KitchenAid Cold Brew Coffee Maker

Strong construction and clever features enhance this new take on the classic immersion method of cold brewing

KitchenAid Cold Brew Coffee Maker. Photo by Howard Bryman.

MSRP: $129.99

Pros:

• Very strong and sturdy
• Clever and effective filtration
• Cleanable drain and spout system
  

Cons:

• Imposing, possibly awkward presence in the refrigerator
• Pours slowly from the dispenser

Overall Rating: 9.0

Reviewer’s Take:

The KitchenAid Cold Brew Coffee Maker is an immersion-style cold brewer that produces a coffee concentrate using a perforated pullout metal filter inside a squat, cube-shaped brew jar with a spigot for dispensing the finished concentrate.

With each coffee-related release by the long-established KitchenAid company, we are reminded that the goals to which the brand apparently aspires are, above all, sturdiness and convenience. KitchenAid products, on average, usually cost a few bucks more than competing products, though one usually can safely assume that the added expense will be an investment in product longevity.

Case in point: The new KitchenAid Cold Brew Coffee Maker is built like a tank. Its heavy glass and hearty steel components are formidable, all the way down to its lid, handle and a spout that by itself weighs over half a pound. The glass walls of its brew jar are roughly a quarter-inch thick, and its stainless steel “steeper” basket is finely perforated, smooth to the touch and rigid enough for confident cleaning by hand in the sink. (Though given how crucial a role the steeper basket plays, its thinness warrants a bit of extra care.)

The Filtration Issue. At first glance, the KitchenAid Cold Brew Coffee Maker appears to be just another steep-and-strain system, similar to any number of other brewers in which a filter basket of some kind holds coffee during extraction and is then pulled out, leaving a typically murky concentrate brew behind. These devices range in quality, and their filters can be either metal or nylon mesh, though none are known for doing a particularly excellent job of yielding a clean, distinctly articulated cup. As with a conventional French press, fines remain in the beverage, adding a heaviness to the body and a cloudiness both in appearance and flavor profile.

Nevertheless, the very finely perforated metal screen of the KitchenAid Cold Brew Coffee Maker does an excellent job of keeping most particles at bay, plus a subtle surprise in the design of the brew jar provides additional brew clarification. After the metal filter basket is withdrawn, the finished coffee concentrate is served by draining it down and out through a spout at the bottom of the brew jar. Since this sturdy brewer stays put on a refrigerator shelf or countertop, the fluid’s exit through the bottom provides one more opportunity for filtration, a subtle but important feature that manages to go unmentioned in KitchenAid product descriptions.

The floor of the glass brew jar is textured with an array of little protrusions, resembling a nutmeg grater without holes. As the finished brew rests in the jar, fines settle to the bottom and accumulate between these protrusions, which presumably attract still more fines from the fluid that flows over them during decanting. The drain itself has a lip just barely taller than these bumps, further preventing the heaviest, murkiest brew from exiting.

The result is a much cleaner cup than one would expect from a metal-filtered immersion brewer. The efficiency of this strategy becomes even more evident when one rinses the coating of sludge off the bottom of the brew jar after use. (It looks like the bottom of a cup of hot chocolate made from a packet of powdered cocoa mix). It is reassuring that none of that sludge winds up in the cup, although it does remain in contact with the brewed concentrate for however long it takes to finish consuming the coffee in the brew jar.

This can’t help but have a potentially muddying effect on flavor, even if the same could be said for any basket-type immersion cold brewer. This one at least goes the extra mile in cleaning up the brew at the point of dispensation, and its metal steeper is also a cut above average.

As for the small amount of residue that is likely to get trapped on its way down the spout, no problem. The entire drain and spout assembly comes apart for soaking and cleaning.

Praise and an Imposing Footprint. Even when presented with the competing option of using a slow-drip cold brew coffee maker like the Bruer that yields a lighter and, in some ways, preferable cup of coffee, we found ourselves returning to the KitchenAid device for its simplicity and convenience. The only drawbacks in using it are that it dispenses concentrate rather slowly (which is forgivable considering the clarification facilitated by that slow rate of dispensation), and the arguably awkward footprint it imposes in the refrigerator.

The KitchenAid Cold Brew Coffee Maker’s sturdy, well-designed components. Photo by Howard Bryman.

It is a rather heavy object, and its rubber feet are grippy enough to make it a nuisance to slide forward to the edge of the shelf for every dispensation. To do so also would disturb the fines that are best left settled and ensnared by the protrusions at the bottom of the jar. So the brewer must live at the very edge of a shelf, potentially blocking one’s access to whatever is behind it. This imposing presence may be a minor drawback for some of us, but one worth noting for folks with crowded or smaller refrigerators. At the same time, an argument could be made that its squat stature also allows it to fit on shelves with less clearance, which may be advantageous in small refrigerators like those found in offices or dorm rooms. And of course one could use this strong, handy and attractive dispenser for any number of other beverages as well, such as iced tea or lemonade.

The Bottom Line:

Although this brewer doesn’t come cheap, it earns a good rating for its impeccable build quality, better-than-average filtration and ease of use.

Key Specs:

Model/Product # reviewed: KCM4212SX
Materials: Glass, steel, plastic
Capacity: 28 oz (14 servings)/828 ml
Weight: 6 lbs/2.7 kg
Depth: 8 in/20.3 cm
Height: 6.9 in/17.5 cm
Width: 7 in/17.8 cm
Company website: http://www.kitchenaid.com/cold-brew-coffee-maker/

Review: Cold Bruer Coffee Maker 

Antiquated slow-drip method of cold brewing gets an impressive modern material upgrade

Cold Bruer Coffee Maker. Photo by Howard Bryman.

MSRP: $80

Pros:

• Sturdy in materials and build
• Compact design
• Clever and effective system of lids
• Takes standard-size filter papers

Cons:

• Valve that modulates the drip rate is difficult to adjust
• Drip rate may be difficult to observe owing to poor visibility in the ground coffee chamber

Overall Rating: 9.0

Reviewer’s Take:

The Cold Bruer began as a humble Kickstarter project back in 2013, striving to crowdfund a modest $30,000 to support the manufacture of what was, at that point, even more of a niche product than it is today: a slow, antiquated method of brewing coffee with cold water, updated with modern materials and design. The campaign attracted over 640% of its goal, and the Bruer dripped triumphantly into the thirsty cold-brew marketplace.

Four years later, the product remains in high regard, often topping online lists of smart choices for a modern slow-drip experience. It’s also still the only product made by Bruer aside from some matching mugs sold on the company’s website. The website also sells replacement parts for the brewer. For a device so dependent on glass components, it’s comforting to know that spare parts are easy to come by, although the Cold Bruer’s respectably thick borosilicate glass and indestructible silicone construction is a comfort to begin with.

Bruer Cleverness. As with all slow-drip devices, a valve that requires careful adjustment allows cold iced water to drip very slowly into a brew chamber holding the ground coffee. The finished beverage exits with similar slow deliberation through what is, in this case, a dual-layered metal mesh filter. It collects in a carafe in which the finished coffee is refrigerated. Unlike cold-brew immersion devices, cold drippers like this one typically produce a finished beverage, not a concentrate.

Cleverness is apparent at every point in the Cold Bruer system. Its lid is actually a lid within a lid; a smaller lid within the larger ice-water reservoir cover separates for insertion into the mouth of the finished brew carafe, providing an effective seal for multi-week storage in the refrigerator. The brewing chamber is sealed to prevent air from reaching the brewing coffee and potentially oxidizing or dulling it. The valve houses a CO2 vent tube through which the gas escaping from freshly roasted coffee can exit the sealed chamber, preventing the formation of a vacuum that would stop the chamber from draining. In most other slow-drip systems the brewing chamber is open to the air, risking character-flattening oxidation.

Another silicone band hugs the shoulder where the combined reservoir and grinds chamber nests onto the carafe, providing a bit of a seal and preventing slippage of the stacked components. The silicone ring that holds the steel filter on performs well, as does the silicone plug between the reservoir and grinds chamber with the valve embedded in its center.

Its dual-layered steel mesh filter works well. It’s also a significant plus that the paper filter placed at the top of the bed of ground coffee to better distribute water over the grounds is an easily sourced AeroPress-type filter.

The Cold Bruer, disassembled. Photo by Howard Bryman.

The instructions included in the attractive cylindrical packaging are thorough and clear, and when supplemented by the FAQ page on the company’s website, one can learn plenty about the basics as well as finer points in using this device and others like it. For example, we learned that mixing ice with the water in the reservoir isn’t only for the sake of brewing with colder water or making a drink that’s refreshing as soon as it’s ready. Keeping the brewing system consistently cold prevents the air bubbles that may form as water descends to room temperature—bubbles that could potentially block the tiny valve opening that allows single droplets to pass.

Challenges in Monitoring the Drip Rate. Unobtrusive demarcations on both the grinds chamber and the reservoir make using the Cold Bruer intuitive, although monitoring the drip rate can be challenging owing to a very close clearance between ground coffee and drip source. While we appreciate such compactness from an efficiency standpoint, it’s important to be able to see the drip clearly, because in the Bruer (as in all slow-drip systems), the drip-rate will naturally decrease as does the water level in the reservoir, necessitating an occasional adjustment to the valve.

When it comes time for that adjustment, the silicone construction of the valve does leave a bit to be desired in terms of responsiveness. And viewed through the sweating glass, the demarcations on the rod at the point it fits into the valve are hard to see, so adjustments are generally made by feel and by watching the drip—which also can be hard to see. Ice-cold water tends to make the grinds chamber fog up and develop beads of water along its walls, obscuring the view, while a dose of freshly roasted coffee even slightly over the recommended maximum of 60 grams may bloom up high enough to come in contact with the little droplet ramp that descends from the valve.

Final Praise. Despite issues with valve adjustment, the cup that results from the Bruer is full-bodied, sweet and mellow, although a bit lighter and perhaps more distinctly fragrant than produced by an immersion method cold brew.

Removing the steel filter from the bottom of the brewer, shoving the grinds out into a compost bin and rinsing all components by hand is simple. It’s nice to know that every part of it is also dishwasher safe, although we didn’t find that to be necessary, as the opening of the carafe is wide enough to fit one’s hand in for a good scrub and the brawny glass alleviates any fear of handling it in the sink basin and stacking it among other items on a drying rack.

The Bottom Line:

The brewing principle is exactly the same as the tall, fragile and ornate Kyoto-style slow-drippers that cost cafés hundreds if not thousands of dollars, yet the Cold Bruer’s compact form, durable materials and intuitive procedure impress with kitchen-counter practicality and certainly justify its moderate price. Anyone interested in slow-drip cold brewing at home would be well served to consider a Cold Bruer.

Key Specs:

Model/Product # reviewed: B01BCM631Y
Materials: Glass, Silicone, Steel
Capacity: 20 oz/591 ml
Weight: 1.7 lbs/790 g
Height: 9.5 in/25 cm
Width: 4.75 in/12 cm
Company website: https://www.bruer.co/

Review: Toddy Cold Brew System Coffee Maker 

This classic cold-brewing device still satisfies today’s trendy thirsts

Toddy Cold Brew System. Photo by Howard Bryman.

MSRP: $39.50

Pros:

• Foolproof plastic construction
• Effective filtration
• Simple procedure
• Large volume
• Quality storage carafe with snug-fitting lid
  

Cons:

• Batch volume is a bit generous for one person
• No lid for brewer
• Lackluster aesthetics
• Stopper removal can be messy

Overall Rating: 8.5

Reviewer’s Take:

When it comes to cold-brewed coffee in the modern era, the Toddy Cold Brew System is the device that arguably started it all. In 2014, the company celebrated its marque product’s 50^th birthday, just at the point the current cold-brew craze took off. It’s likely that, given Japan’s longer tradition of cold brewing, there have been Kyoto-style slow-drip cold-brew devices in production longer, and the Filtron immersion cold brewer pre-dates the Toddy brewer by 17 years. Nevertheless, the Toddy, more than any other device, appears to have popularized cold-water brewing in North America.

Toddy has expanded to offer some commercial and wholesale solutions, along with a house-branded variety of coffees, teas, and accessories, although from the consumer perspective it continues to hang its hat primarily on this one, unchanging product. This longstanding single-mindedness is reflected in the consummate straightforwardness of the design: The brewer consists of a food-safe plastic bucket with a hole at the bottom and a stopper, plus a filter wedged above the hole to block the grounds when the stopper is removed and the brewed coffee exits into the included carafe. That’s about it, and though the ensemble is not much to look at, it does its job well.

Toddy Limitations. Nevertheless, there are opportunities for improvement. The plain, albeit utilitarian white plastic, for example, is thoroughly void of the slightest pretense to elegance. And when the time comes to remove the stopper and drain the brew container, a sudden spurt of rich, dark cold brew may be released, constituting one of only a few areas where the Toddy user-experience could be improved. A valve or sliding door of some kind would make for a cleaner procedure, although the stopper is simple, cost-effective, and with practice one can release the brew into the carafe without getting more than a drop or two on one’s fingertips.

The system also includes a rather flimsy ring with a handle that slides up to fit around the top of the brewing container. Unfortunately, when the container is filled with water and coffee, the handle ring flexes and the whole assembly is precarious and difficult to manage with one hand. Improved rigidity in this awkward add-on would be a welcome revision.

Filter Issues. The proprietary Toddy filter is a felt puck of woven food-safe polyester material that nestles into its designated indentation at the bottom of the container. These filters perform admirably and are reusable up to a point: Toddy recommends a new filter per ten uses or three months, whichever comes first. The brewer comes with two; a replacement two-pack costs $4.50. Or you can bring the price down by buying packs of six or 12 online.

If the coffee is ground too finely or if the brewing coffee is overly agitated, these filters are prone to clogging, in which case the company’s online FAQ recommends gently scraping the surface of the filter with the blunt, rounded tip of a dinner knife. Out of a half-dozen test batches with our Toddy brewer, we only experienced one that slowed down while draining to the point that a filter-scrape seemed necessary. In general, with a coarse grind of coffee roasted in the medium or lighter range, we didn’t have any issues with the filter. Cleaning it is also surprisingly easy; just a simple rinse with warm water seems to free up enough sediment and residue to render the filter clear, almost totally aroma-free and ready to reuse.

Recently, Toddy added disposable paper filters to its consumer product line, 20-packs of which are currently available for separate purchase. These function as a sort of liner inside the brewing container to be used in conjunction with (not as a replacement for) the felt filter, and would certainly seem to solve any potential clogging issue. And, while avid gardeners might appreciate a bucket of freshly spent, filter-free grounds to sprinkle around their azaleas or tomatoes, the paper filter does streamline the clean-up procedure to a convenience-level on a par with automatic drip machines and manual pourovers that use paper filters.

Usage instructions for the paper filter also include a stirring step—stirring is not recommended when using the felt filter alone, as it causes clogging—as well as a step involving gathering the top edges of the paper filter together and twisting it closed like a bag prior to the brewing phase.

Lidless at the Top. Which suggests another limitation of the current Toddy design: there is no lid to cover the brew bucket. Especially for a brewer of its size, the wide opening at the top of the brewing container seems, at best, an opportunity for flavor-flattening oxidation of the brewing coffee; at worst, an invitation for dust or a passing fly to settle in.

On its website, Toddy states that while covering the brewer is not necessary, “you can cover the brewing container with plastic wrap, aluminum foil or a plate, if desired.” A tighter-fitting lid would probably be needed to prevent any potential oxidation or staling of the coffee during the extended brew time, so it was more in deference to our mild germophobia that we found peace of mind by placing a silicone bowl cover over ours. As potential oxidation during brewing is an issue inherent in the long-steep immersion method generally and is not isolated to this particular product, we don’t consider it to be a fault of the Toddy specifically. And again, keep in mind that oxidation or staling proceeds much more slowly at cooler rather than hot temperatures.

Good Marks for the Carafe. We have no such complaint about the included glass carafe, however. The glass is clear and sturdy, and its white plastic lid emits a satisfying whisper of air being displaced as it plugs snugly in. The wide mouth of the carafe allows a whole hand to fit inside for easy washing, and its ribbed neck and flared top make for confident holding and pouring. It also serves as a handy measuring cup in preparing the brew. Instructions call for 12 ounces of coffee and a total of seven cups of water, the latter of which fills the carafe to exactly the top of the lowest rib of the neck.

Well—exactly enough, that is. Cold brewing, especially immersion-style cold brewing, is not necessarily a high-precision game, which is a welcome change of pace from the kind of stringent exactitude demanded by other methods. This is particularly true of a higher-volume cold brewer like the Toddy, which eats up a whole 12-ounce bag of beans per batch.

The Toddy Cold Brew System is the simplest cold-brew product on the market for home use. Photo by Howard Bryman.

Large Volume Pros and Cons. Certainly it’s quite convenient to grab a standard 12-ounce bag of freshly roasted beans from a grocery shelf or café counter, grind it all, then, using the carafe, eyeball the recommended seven cups of water. And given the lengthy time it takes to make cold brew at any volume, it’s also nice to have more concentrate to show for the effort. The concentrate is said to remain fresh in the refrigerator for two to three weeks, presenting no problem for multi-drinker households.

On the other hand, for individuals who turn to cold brew on hot afternoons while maintaining their default drip, pourover or espresso in the morning, brewing such a large volume is a bit of a commitment. But it is possible to brew smaller volumes, and the brewing bucket does balance nicely on wide-mouth canning jars with a smaller volume than the Toddy carafe.

Ultimately, the cold brew concentrate made via the Toddy system is every bit as good as the stuff found in most cafés. After all, Toddy also uses the same simple technology in its widely used commercial-scale cold brewing equipment. The Toddy Cold Brew System overall remains as effective and utilitarian a home cold-brewing tool as one can find.

The Bottom Line:

It may not win beauty contests, and certain steps in the process may be a bit clumsy, but none of the Toddy Cold Brew System’s drawbacks are problematic in terms of fundamental performance. For café-quality cold brew, and lots of it, the Toddy Cold Brew System is a dependable, cost-effective resource.

Key Specs

Model/Product # reviewed: CECOMINOD079522
Materials: Glass, Silicone, Steel
Capacity: 56 oz (yields 48 oz of concentrate)
Weight: 1.5 lbs/680 g
Height: 14.75 in/37 cm
Width: 7 in/ 18 cm
Company website: http://toddycafe.com/

Review: Nispira Ice Drip Coffee Maker 

Delicate slow dripper for the self-directed cold-brew sipper

The Nispira Ice Drip Coffee Maker. Photo by Howard Bryman.

MSRP: $75.99

Pros:

• Dramatic, elegant appearance
• High-quality valve
• Easy clean-up
• Reasonable price

Cons:

• Extremely fragile
• No lid for carafe
• Proprietary size filter
• No user manual

Overall Rating: 7.5

Reviewer’s Take:

The first images likely to come to mind for anyone familiar with the slow-drip method of cold brewing coffee are the tall, complex glass towers sometimes seen in trendy modern coffee shops. These impressive and seemingly impractical devices are both visually striking and hard on the budget, as they range in price from hundreds up to thousands of dollars depending on size, materials and intricacy. For professional cafés seeking not only to serve larger volumes of smooth, aromatic cold brew, but also to start conversations with patrons about different coffees and brewing methods, all while nuancing their décor, these devices may be a worthwhile investment. Yet for cold brewing at home on a more constrained budget, the Nispira Ice Drip Coffee Maker is a reasonable approximation of both the function and romance of these exotic apparatus.

As with all slow-drip devices, a valve that requires careful adjustment allows iced water to drip very slowly into a brew chamber holding the ground coffee. The finished beverage exits with similar slow deliberation through a paper filter into a carafe. Unlike cold-brew immersion devices, cold drippers like this one produce a finished beverage, not a concentrate.

Size and Fragility. The elegant, vertically arranged glass components of the Nispira dripper are reminiscent of its towering café counterparts, both visually and in terms of functionality, while its gleaming steel support structure (as opposed to the more traditional wood or brass) suggests laboratory research equipment. Its height, at about 17.5 inches from its base up to the tip of its round glass-knobbed lid, is a tight squeeze in an average modern home kitchen with a typical 18-inch clearance between countertops and cabinets. It could be operated without the lid, bringing its height down to about 16 inches, although older homes may have even less clearance between counters and cabinets—15 inches is not uncommon. So it’s best to take a measurement before purchasing a Nispira dripper.

Nispira’s many attractive but fragile components. Photo by Howard Bryman.

The Nispira also requires a safe and secluded place to stand, as the drawback of its inconvenient height is further exacerbated by its apparent fragility. The glass of its upper reservoir and the cup that holds the ground coffee is quite thin.

A safe and protected spot for it to stand fully assembled is also important because, when not in use, the Nispira Ice Dripper isn’t easy to stow either. The steel of its base and support structure is thin enough that packing it away while still assembled could cause the steel parts to bend and subsequently wobble, while the glass components also probably shouldn’t be kept anywhere where they might be bumped or nudged. The safest storage solution would be to fully disassemble the device and return it to the individual cardboard boxes in which each piece comes individually packed—which may be fine on a seasonal basis, but is certainly not practical between individual uses.

The carafe for collecting finished brew is, thankfully, constructed of a thicker glass, apparently in acknowledgment that it will be more frequently handled to store and pour the finished beverage. However, though it does have lines indicating volumes from 200ml up to 600ml, it does not come with a lid for air-tight storage of finished coffee in the refrigerator (the lid for the upper water reservoir doesn’t fit the carafe). So it’s not clear whether Nispira intends the bottom carafe to be used to store coffee after it’s been brewed, or if the company expects the coffee to be immediately served or transferred to another container.

Unanswered Questions. Unfortunately, this is just one among a number of questions left unanswered by the packaging and the website associated with this product, as there is neither an instruction booklet inside the package nor any information posted by the company online. There are no recommendations for grind size or water-to-coffee ratio, and no instructions on operating the valve, cleaning the device, or even assembling the unit in the first place.

It’s easy enough to figure out the assembly by looking at the photos on the box and by using one’s intuition, despite the fact that in one of the three available photos of the support structure on the box, the vertical steel rods appear to have been assembled upside down. Twisting the knob to open or close the valve and carefully hand-washing the glass with warm water and soap may seem intuitive enough, although a little hand-holding from the manufacturer of such a delicate item would be welcome.

A resource for replacing broken parts also would be useful. The Nispira website does not, apparently, sell replacement parts, though there are third-party sellers that do. Moreover, a resource for replenishing the uniquely sized paper filters is an inevitable need, should the device remain intact for long enough to exhaust the stack of roughly 100 included with the brewer. Nispira Ice Drip Coffee Maker filters are simple, white filter-paper discs roughly 2.25 inches in diameter. This is smaller than the commonly available AeroPress filters and larger than Yama slow-drip tower filters.

While the Nispira website sells replacement charcoal filters for a variety of consumer drip coffeemakers and an array of other water and air purification filters, it’s a confounding oversight that the company does not also sell additional supplies of its own proprietary paper filters. True, absolute precision in the size of the filter at the bottom of the grounds-holding cup isn’t necessary; a user could cut any paper filter down to a size that lays flat and covers all four drainage holes. One shouldn’t have to, though.

Further Mysteries. One exterior panel of the box offers info on “how to cold brew a smooth coffee,” with photos of a nearly full water vessel and a full ground-coffee cup. The instructions tell the user to put one of its included paper filters down first to cover the holes at the bottom of the cup holding the ground coffee, then add coffee, and then to “gently press the powder” to make the surface even and flat. We preferred to carefully shake the cup and tap the side by hand rather than insert any implement that could potentially damage the glass.

The box then suggests that users set the valve for “2-3 second for 1-2 drops,” which should reportedly yield ready-to-serve cold brew in “30-40 minutes.” In our experience, at that drip rate, with the ground coffee holder filled to the top (about 55 grams) with freshly roasted, coarsely ground coffee, passing a volume of water comparable to the volume suggested by the photo on the box took several hours to complete.

While a bit more guidance in getting started with a new device is certainly preferred, it is true that most new brewers take a bit of trial and error when it comes to dialing in a ratio and procedure that yields a cup that suits the fancy of the drinker. Procedure may vary from bean to bean; some users may prefer ready-to-drink brew while others may go for a concentrate; some may tweak variables simply to make the whole process faster. All users, however, will certainly prefer a product that works well right out of the box.

But Praise for the Drip-Rate Valve. Without a specific recommendation for the brewing ratio, grind coarseness, or even a reminder to check on the drip that inevitably slows as the weight of water at the top decreases, newcomers to slow-drip cold brewing will be rolling the dice in their first attempt with this Ice Dripper. When it did come time for periodic drip-rate adjustments, we found that the strongest component in the system is the tight, sturdy steel valve that controls the drip. Its adjustment knob is easy to grip, and the valve is just resistant enough to prevent over-adjustment. Adjustments can be made quickly and precisely.

Nispira’s drip-rate valve, the product’s most sturdy component. Photo by Howard Bryman.

While some slow-drip devices recommend placing a paper filter on the surface of the ground coffee to better disperse the water as it drips, the Nispira makes no such recommendation. A surface filter (as distinct from the usual filter at the bottom of the brew chamber) helps prevent a divot forming from the impact of the droplets and subsequent channeling through the ground coffee bed. However, with the Nispira we didn’t find there to be a noticeable difference in the cup with or without use of such a filter. Cold brewing is ultimately a very forgiving method, after all. We found with the Nispira that as long as one starts with a coarse grind and experiments with a finer grind later, water will pass through the system at a reasonable rate and the procedure will yield a drinkable brew that will likely improve with practice.

Our Final Recipe. We eventually settled on an easy-to-remember recipe of 40 grams of coffee and 500 grams of water mixed with ice. With a coarse grind, the carafe fills to just north of the 400ml line with clean, translucent cold brew coffee in a little over 90 minutes. This produces a drink that’s smooth but with some character; a body reminiscent of, but heartier than, tea, yet still far shy of an immersion-style concentrate. With a slightly finer grind and longer brew duration, the intensity of the coffee is ratcheted up, but we enjoyed the color and nuance of the lighter brew.

The Bottom Line:

The Nispira Ice Drip Coffee Maker is an attractive but fragile piece of equipment. The maker doesn’t offer much handholding through the learning curve, and you’re on your own when the included filters run out, but once a dependable set of parameters is established, the Nispira makes a fine Kyoto-style cold brew, and looks good doing it.

Key Specs:

Model/Product # reviewed: OMINHKR040546
Materials: Glass, Steel
Capacity: 20 oz/600 ml
Weight: 1.3kg / 2lb 14oz
Height: 17.5 in/44 cm
Width: 4.5 in/11 cm
Company website: http://www.nispira.com/

The post Cold-Brew Coffee Makers for Home Use, Four Tested and Rated appeared first on Coffee Review.

For each brewer, we took into consideration its quality of material and build and its look and feel. We paid particularly close attention to the propensity of the filter to allow potentially flavor-dampening silt to pass into the cup. We concentrated on how easy or difficult the unit was to clean, including the disassembly and reassembly of its filter system.

And, given the critical importance of maintaining proper water temperature for brewing coffee, we conducted a series of tests on each brewer to measure heat-retention capabilities. These tests focused on measuring the rate at which hot water cooled over time inside the carafe, both with and without pre-heating, and at various volumes. We put particular weight on one test that we thought best exemplified a real-life situation, which involved pre-heating the pitcher by filling it to its maximum fill line with freshly boiled water and letting it stand for one minute, then dumping and refilling with 600 grams of water at a typical starting brewing temperature of 205 degrees Fahrenheit.

We settled on 600 grams of water because that not only represented a weight/volume that all our test products could contain, but also because it represents just a bit more than one would need to brew two 10-ounce mugs of coffee, which is among the more common serving volumes needed in a household brewer. We wanted to test the same weight/volume in each device, given that different presses have varying maximum capacities and their rate of heat loss when filled to the maximum will differ.

It is worth noting also that a longer pre-heat period and hotter brewing start-point all tend to improve heat-retention performance. However, we kept our pre-het brief, assuming that consumers will not want to waste too much time on the way to a cup of coffee, and that pouring water hotter than 205 degrees onto fresh-ground coffee risks over-extraction and a bitter cup.

It’s also worth noting that all five French presses we reviewed are capable of producing perfectly drinkable cups of coffee. None is unusable or completely fails at its intended task. That said, there are very clear differences among the five devices, and our research was not without a couple of subtle surprises.

A Quick Overview of Results

We knew going into these reviews that the two designs with insulated steel carafes would perform better at maintaining an optimal temperature throughout the brewing cycle and would therefore likely be superior brewers all around.

This proved to be true. Yet, while the Espro and the KitchenAid carafes are both constructed of insulated steel, it was surprising that the Espro performed better than the KitchenAid in our heat-retention test, probably owing to the Espro’s taller, narrower carafe design. Nevertheless, we were impressed not only by the KitchenAid’s digital add-ons that facilitate precise, weight-based brewing, but also by its robust and meticulous construction. However, the Espro’s double-filter design and optional paper filter, coupled with its elegant profile and similarly robust construction, pushed it to the highest rating among the five French press models we tested.

Meanwhile, we had high hopes for Le Creuset, given the impressive quality of other products from that brand. We were especially curious how well its attractive stoneware carafe would perform. We were disappointed to discover, however, that the robust-looking stoneware does not retain heat well during brewing. Add to poor heat retention a wobbly lid and middling-quality filter, and we were left with a fine looking but technically limited brewing device.

True, the $70 Le Creuset was a bit more pleasurable to use than the Mr. Coffee press pot we bought at a local outlet for $10 — the bargain underdog of our chosen five that sadly did not rise above our admittedly low expectations.

The Bodum Chambord is the classic among the five reviewed brewers: a design unchanged after generations on the market, with nary a bell nor a whistle added over the decades. Yet it proved itself a trusty brewing tool, worthy of admiration for its time-honored design, accessible price and traditional, hearty cup.

Equipment Ratings

Our scale to indicate overall ratings of equipment runs from 5.0 to 10.0, and reflects an assessment of a device’s look and feel, quality of material and construction, ease of use, performance, and general ratio of cost to performance. Overall ratings can be interpreted as follows:

9.5 – 10.0   Highly recommended
8.5 – 9.4     Recommended
7.5 – 8.4     Recommended with reservations
6.5 – 7.4 Not recommended
< 6.5      Does not fulfill basic expectations for the category

Equipment Review: The Espro Press P7

A gleamingly handsome, technically impeccable device, offering peak French-press performance

Espro Press P7

MSRP: $99.95

Pros:

• Very effective fine-mesh double filter offers the additional option of brewing with a paper filter
• Insulated carafe retains heat exceptionally well
• The all-polished-steel exterior is striking in appearance

Cons:

• Certain spots in the filter assembly are tricky to clean
• The filter traps a bit of brewed coffee at the bottom of the carafe
• Relatively expensive

Overall Rating: 9.5 (Highly recommended)

Reviewer’s Take:

The Espro Press entered the market about five years ago with the distinction of having been the focus of one of the earliest successful coffee-related Kickstarter campaigns. When the crowd-funding platform itself was less than three years old, the Espro project raised over 550 percent of its $15,000 goal, then actually shipped its promised product to backers only three months later. So, not only did the company pitch, design and manufacture a superlative product, but its fundraising efforts and follow-through were also exemplary.

Indeed, this press pot is in a league of its own. The carafe of the Espro Press is faultless in build and performance and impressive in appearance. Fabricated entirely in polished steel, its commanding, elongated form is further emphasized by a long handle that gracefully curves almost from the top of the carafe to the bottom. The weight of the carafe in hand imparts a reassuring sense of sturdiness and potential longevity.

And that steel isn’t just for looks. The combination of double walls and a relatively tall, narrow carafe adds up to the best heat-retention of five French presses we tested, keeping the contents safely within the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) recommended range of 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit for the duration of a typical French press brew cycle. When 600 grams of 205-degree water was added to the carafe following a one-minute preheat with freshly boiled water, the temperature dropped to 199 degrees within 30 seconds, losing only another six degrees over the course of five minutes. No other press performed as well in our tests.

Espro’s marque innovation, the patent-pending micromesh double filter, works exceptionally well on its own, reducing the amount of silt in the cup to a wisp, unlikely to provoke a complaint even from a pour-over paper-filter devotee. Additionally, the Espro offers the option of sandwiching a custom paper filter between its dual layers of micro-mesh, thus combining the appeal of both pour-over and French press, and potentially netting a cup with the richly blended flavor and sweetness associated with full-immersion brewing, yet with the lighter mouthfeel and more delicate, articulated aromatics associated with filter-drip brewing.

A thoroughly high-quality cup is further ensured by the very effective double filter-gaskets on the outer edge of the filters that segregate not only the grinds but also an ounce or two of brewed coffee at the bottom of the carafe. If you really love your coffee, you may feel you want it all, but this little pool of withheld brew is the byproduct of an intentional design focused on producing a consistently bitterness-free cup, unmixed with any coffee that has tended to over-extract by remaining in contact with coffee grounds at the bottom of the carafe after the plunge.

This retained bit of liquid does make for a slightly gloppier clean-up, though, unless further effort is applied to strain the grounds before scooping them out into a kitchen compost bin.  Another very slight hitch comes upon rinsing the cup-shaped interlocking components comprising the double filter system. There are a lot of tiny corners in the eight rectangular windows of mesh that make up each of the two filters, and because the micromesh is so effective, a residue of fines may cling stubbornly to the corners of the inner filter. It takes a bit of focus with a sponge to get every nook fully clean, and the plastic-and-mesh filter components feel fragile enough to suggest that extra care should be taken in this process. Espro sells replacement filters for $18.95, should a corner spring a leak.

At the end of the day, however, all French presses are a bit finicky come clean-up time. The Espro filter at least rewards any added effort with outstanding performance.

The Bottom Line: Quality comes at a price, and we would argue that a mild splurge on an Espro Press is well worth it. A niggling issue or two around cleaning the brewer keeps it from scoring even higher, though its heat-retention, its subtly elegant design and its nearly silt-free cup bring the Espro Press closer to perfection than any other press pot we tested.

Key Specs:

Model/Product # reviewed: 1018C2
Carafe: dual-wall stainless steel
Capacity: 18 oz/ 532 ml
Weight: 1.9 lbs/862 g
Height: 9 in/23 cm
Width: 3.75 in/9.5 cm
Company website: www.espro.ca

Equipment Review: KitchenAid Precision Press Coffee Maker 

A premium French Press with built-in tools for precision brewing

KitchenAid Precision Press

MSRP: $149.99

Pros:

• Very solidly constructed and precisely engineered
• Dual-wall insulated carafe retains heat very well
• Built-in digital scale and timer reduces clutter and helps achieve and repeat a high standard of brew

Cons:

• Even given its unique features and exceptionally solid construction, a bit pricey
• The lack of a countdown or alarm feature opens the potential for forgetting to end the brew on time

Overall Rating: 9.0 (Recommended)

Reviewer’s Take:

With its built-in scale and timer, the KitchenAid Precision Press takes a major stride forward in French-press brewing by encouraging weight-based precision and a close monitoring of brew time, making a better cup easier to achieve and, above all, easier to repeat once you’ve struck upon a recipe that best suits your particular taste and coffee.

The Precision Press not only provides functional built-in extras, but also aims at improving the basic mechanics of the format. The lid, rod, and filter assembly, for example — key features not just in the brewing process but also during cleanup, when lackluster construction can make the experience more of chore than it needs to be — are all of exceptional quality and perform very well. Compared to similar components of competing French presses, the KitchenAid parts are a pleasure to handle for their solid materials and accurate construction. Each component fits securely in its place and disassembles swiftly, including the rubber gasket, which comes off and on with ease, yet still provides a tight seal around the edges of the filter, keeping larger grind particles below, where they belong.

The insulated carafe retains heat very well, certainly well enough to maintain an optimum brewing temperature through the most important phases of brewing. In our tests, we pre-heated the carafe by filling it to the maximum fill line with water fresh off the boil and let it stand for one minute, then immediately refilled it with 600 grams of water at 205 degrees Fahrenheit. Within 30 seconds the brew-temperature refill of water dropped to about 197 degrees. But by the end of five minutes, it tended to drop only another 5 degrees, which indicates an admirable level of insulation — the second-best heat-retention performance among the French presses we’ve tested.

The electronics are a bit less impressive, though they do get the job done, and it’s a job no other French press can do on its own. The timer counts upwards in seconds and minutes, and the scale measures weight by the gram and includes a tare feature. Displaying weight down to the tenth of a gram would be better, and better still would be a timer capable of counting down and sounding an alarm when the optimum brew-time has been reached.

Stopping the brew at the right moment by pressing down the plunger is essential in French-press brewing. It’s all too easy to get distracted with breakfast or almost anything else over the course of four long minutes. Standalone timers typically have a countdown feature, which is useful precisely for a purpose such as this.

The three buttons at the top of the handle, which control power on/off, timer start/stop/clear, and taring the scale to zero, are also somewhat sensitive and positioned close together. It requires care to avoid accidentally turning something on while handling the press, particularly during cleaning. This is about as minor as nuisances come, though it can cause undue battery drain.

Those issues aside, the all-in-one nature of the Precision Press remains a simple and effective means of introducing precision-brewing concepts to anyone who wants to up their hand-brewing game without an additional surge in countertop clutter. Furthermore, the handling of the electronics in regard to design is impressive: There is no visible suggestion of a scale either on the inside or outside of the carafe (it’s built into the base).

Yet, all this tidiness comes at a rather high price. Shoppers could easily find another insulated steel press pot complete with a rubber filter gasket, then buy a decent (if not higher-precision) scale and a timer separately, and still come away with enough leftover cash for a couple of bags of fresh, locally roasted beans. Furthermore, users predisposed to this level of precision will probably already have a scale and timer on hand. But as an icebreaker for the clutter-averse newcomer to coffee geekery who’s more inclined to make the most of onboard features than to fiddle with multiple different devices in concert, the Precision Press is an excellent way to go.

The Bottom Line: The KitchenAid Precision Press is a bit pricy, but its build quality, performance and clever feature set may justify its cost. It’s an excellent choice, particularly if you can find it on sale.

Key Specs:

Model/Product # reviewed: KCM0512SS
Carafe: dual-wall stainless steel
Capacity: 25 oz/.74 L
Weight: 2.5 lbs/1.13 kg
Height: 8.86 in/22.5 cm
Width: 4.5 in/11.43 cm
Company website: www.kitchenaid.com

Equipment Review: Bodum Chambord 

The classic French Press design still impresses

Bodum Chambord French Press

MSRP: $39.99

Pros:

• Solid construction
• Classic look
• Accessible price

Cons:

• Temperature drops relatively quickly
• The mesh filter could be finer

Overall Rating: 8.0 (Recommended with reservations)

Reviewer’s Take:

The Bodum Chambord is the predecessor of all French presses — the quintessential design patented over half a century ago that, to this day, not only gets the job done, but also does so with an admirable economy of grace and style.

The Chambord is enjoyable not only for its visually impressive juxtaposition of transparent glass and gleaming chromed steel, but also for its combination of performance and affordability. In nearly all respects, it represents a happy medium: Its sturdy glass carafe, while not as durable, insulated or expensive as dual-walled stainless steel, retains heat reasonably well and provides a lovely view of the brewing process. The components of its filter assembly are manufactured solidly enough to allow easy disassembly and reassembly while cleaning.

Its mesh filter is not the finest on the market, and its coiled metal gasket is an outdated design compared to the tighter-fitting silicon or rubber gaskets in more costly press pots. Nevertheless, the silt the Chambord filter lets pass into the cup is no more pervasive than average, and can be mitigated, to some extent, with careful technique and a quality grinder.

But now to heat retention. In our tests, when 600 grams of water at 205 degrees Fahrenheit were poured into the carafe following a one-minute preheat with freshly boiled water, the temperature dropped to 197 degrees within 30 seconds, which is comparable to the initial drop of an insulated steel carafe and keeps the contents within the SCA-recommended brewing range of 195-205 degrees. However, the contents then tended to lose another 17 degrees over the following five minutes of brew-time, which is a rather steep decline. Therein resides the inherent tradeoff with glass. Glass is beautiful and inexpensive, but it’s simply not as effective as double-walled steel when it comes to maintaining a hot, steady brewing temperature, a critical concern when seeking excellence in French-press brewing.

On the other hand, an argument could be made that, because the French press method is classic, and because glass is the classic material for the carafe, then a traditional cup prepared by this method ought to be brewed with a steeply declining temperature profile. Staunch traditionalists may therefore prefer the Chambord cup as it is, while contemporary perfectionists can always choose to spend more on a brewer with a better-insulated carafe to meet today’s more exacting standards for brewing consistency and control.

The Bottom Line:

The Bodum Chambord’s straightforward elegance has withstood the test of time. It is a café-quality brewer capable of producing a café-quality cup, although an aficionado may find its glass carafe less effective at retaining heat and less sturdy than metal designs. Nevertheless, for the budget-minded yet discerning manual-brewing devotee, the Chambord is a golden oldie that still deserves our respect.

Key Specs:

Model/Product # reviewed: 1928-16US4
Carafe: glass with steel frame
Capacity: 34 oz /1 L
Weight: 21 oz/595 g
Height: 9.5 in/24 cm
Width: 4.5 in/11.5 cm
Company website: www.bodum.com

Equipment Review: Le Creuset French Press 

Do good looks and a famous brand add up to great coffee?

Le Creuset French Press

MSRP: $68.00

Pros:

• The stoneware carafe looks beautiful and feels solid
• All components are dishwasher-safe

Cons:

• Lower-quality filter assembly
• Wobbly lid
• Relatively poor heat retention

Overall Rating: 7.5 (Recommended with reservations)

Reviewer’s Take:

Le Creuset has made a name for itself over decades of producing high-quality kitchenware for cooking, baking and serving. This reputation for quality stems particularly from Le Creuset’s long lasting, brightly colored, enameled cast-iron and ceramic pots and pans. Le Creuset product lines are extensive, providing brand loyalists the opportunity to outfit entire kitchens with matching Le Creuset wares, down to mugs, trivets, food thermometers and over a dozen different Le Creuset-branded wine-openers. Le Creuset’s Stoneware French Press fits right into this line-up.

But has the brand jumped the shark?

Deciding whether or not this French press truly earns its place in a kitchen equipped with the company’s skillets or Dutch ovens depends, to some extent, on what one’s goals are in owning such a piece. If beauty is the most important thing, either independently or to reinforce a look, then there may be no substitute for a genuine Le Creuset French press. Yet if a dedicated home chef invests in quality Le Creuset cookware less for the look and more for the pleasure of using well-made tools, then this French press may not live up to expectation.

While the brewer is beautiful and hefty, the filter assembly on the inside of the press — a key component in the performance of the brewer — is of no greater quality than offered by substantially cheaper products. The metals are thin and the design is standard; the mesh of its filter is no finer than average and allows a typical amount of silt to pass through it and remain in the cup. Though it’s not remarkably worse than many of its competitors, it’s also not better, betraying the stature of the brand.

What takes Le Creuset’s press down another quality notch is the lid design. Most French presses have a sort of sleeve extending from the bottom of the lid that nests snugly inside the top of the carafe, helping to hold the lid reliably in­ place, so that pouring the coffee can be a one-handed operation. Le Creuset has no such sleeve or nesting device. Its ceramic lid simply rests on top of the carafe with nothing to hold it steady apart from the rod that connects to the filter.

This certainly helps creates a simpler, more elegant look, but at a pouring angle, with the filter resting on the layer of grounds at the bottom of the carafe, the lid wobbles loosely and may even tip out of the carafe unless a user holds it in place with a free hand. A two-handed pour is not ideal when leaning over a table to serve guests.

All of this would be more forgivable if the unique stoneware carafe exhibited better-than-average heat retention. Alas, it does not. In fact, it was the poorest performer of the five French-press brewers in our heat-retention tests. The contents of the carafe dropped well below the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) recommended brewing temperature range within 30 seconds of receiving 600 grams of water at 205 degrees Fahrenheit, then dropped another 14 or 15 degrees over the following five minutes.

Our standard test included a one-minute preheat with freshly boiled water, and, to be charitable to the stoneware, we also tested it with a three-minute preheat to see if perhaps the stoneware simply needed longer to soak up the heat. The results were virtually the same, however, thus confirming that, as the stoneware does not contribute to improved brewing performance, its employment here is purely for aesthetic and branding reasons.

For those who prefer darker roasts or who are switching to a French press directly from a low-performance automatic drip coffee machine, a low brewing temperature may not produce noticeably disappointing results. However, sub-optimum brew temperatures definitely will not bring out the best in dense-bean, high-grown, freshly light- or medium-roasted coffees. And some lower-priced French presses offer better insulation and heat retention, as well as a better-performing filter and a less wobbly lid.

The Bottom Line:

It livens up a countertop with its contour and its color, and it certainly looks serious alongside saucepans and casseroles whose excellent performance depends on few moving parts. Yet coffee-lovers expecting Le Creuset’s Stoneware French Press to brew coffee as effectively as its signature pans sauté meats and vegetables may be disappointed.

Key Specs

Model/Product # reviewed: B008JCGEI8
Carafe: stoneware ceramic
Capacity: 27oz/798 ml
Weight: 2.5 lbs/1.1 kg
Height: 8.5 in/ 21.6 cm
Width: 4.5 in/11.4 cm
Company website: www.lecreuset.com 

Equipment Review: Mr. Coffee Coffee Press

Mr. Coffee Coffee Press

A budget French press that does the job, but just barely

MSRP: Not indicated. The unit reviewed here (BVMC-AC2-RB) is currently available retail at prices ranging as low as $14.00

Pros:

• Retains heat relatively well
• Low price

Cons:

• Coarse filter-mesh lets a fair amount silt pass into the cup
• Poorly made filter components are hard to reassemble after cleaning
• Glass looks hazy, even when it’s clean

Overall Rating: 6.5 (Not recommended)

Reviewer’s Take:

Mr. Coffee, of course, is better known for its automatic drip coffee machines than for its manual brewing devices. Were it not for the fact that a branded French press is practically a compulsory addition to the catalog of any housewares brand that dabbles in gear for warm drinks, it would be a surprise that Mr. Coffee, the company that revolutionized the coffee industry with the original auto-drip home coffee machine in 1972, would issue a French press at all. It’s less surprising to note that Mr. Coffee also, for a time, sold an electric French press. What’s not surprising is that, as the company today seems to hang its hat on inexpensive appliances for the budget-minded shopper, the construction of its low-cost press pot is not the best.

Which raises the question: For a method as straightforward as French-press brewing, how fancy does the equipment really need to be? A French press only needs to accomplish two things, after all: hold hot water and filter out the grounds. The Mr. Coffee Coffee Press proves that, to some degree, a workable French press can be had for a very modest investment.

In our tests, the Mr. Coffee carafe’s heat retention proved to be on par with that of the glass carafe of the well-respected and higher-priced Bodum Chambord. In fact, it performed slightly better in some respects. After the carafe was preheated for a minute with freshly boiled water, 600 grams of 205-degree-Fahrenheit fresh water added to the Mr. Coffee dropped, on average, to 199 degrees within the first 30 seconds, a better performance than the Chambord by about two degrees. By the end of five total minutes, the temperature descended another 16 degrees, a rate of decline that positions the Mr. Coffee squarely in the middle of the pack among the five presses we tested.

While this performance is commendable, trouble sets in with the filter. The mesh of the Mr. Coffee filter system is visibly wider than the mesh in other press pots, allowing more than the average amount of silt to pass into the cup. An abundance of particulate mixed into the finished brew can produce bitterness at worst, simple muddling of flavors at best. True, cup clarity and flavor articulation were never virtues of a characteristic French-press brew. Nevertheless, coffee drinkers who love a full-bodied brew but are wary of too muddy a cup might consider seeking a press pot with a more effective filter.

The base-plate of the filter system is also of noticeably low quality, constructed of thin, slightly warped metal with channels pressed into it. The threading at the bottom of the rod is imprecise, causing an occasional challenge in getting it started back into the filter base. And the cylindrical nut at the bottom of the rod that keeps the three plates of the filter assembly sandwiched tightly together and attached to the rod is especially poorly designed and constructed. Higher-quality press pots have this nut either permanently installed at end of the rod or otherwise prevented from sliding upward on the rod, yet on the Mr. Coffee assembly, the nut winds freely up or down. A user must thread the rod into the filter base, and then thread the loose nut down just so, finding exactly the right combination of tightening to secure the filter, a fussy, annoying procedure. In the course of one busy morning cleanup, I had to abandon a partially assembled filter system in frustration in order to get on with my day.

This kind of experience can lead a user to avoid thoroughly cleaning the filter on a regular basis, which is particularly bad news given the mysterious grooves in the base plate. Furthermore, the glass is slightly hazy even at its cleanest, is not dishwasher safe, and there are so many warnings about its breakability (on the box, on the glass itself and in the instruction pamphlet) that one has to wonder just how many uses or cleanings it can withstand, even with the gentlest of handling.

Well, yes, one gets what one pays for. I paid only 10 dollars for my unit. Does anyone really need to drop more than a sawbuck on a French press to make a basically drinkable cup? For patient cleaners and those who don’t mind a murky cup, perhaps not. But for anyone else, given there are so many other options available at an only slightly higher price, it will pay to shop around.

The Bottom Line: Fundamentally, the Mr. Coffee Coffee Press is capable of brewing a decent, albeit muddy cup, fulfilling its purpose at the most basic level. Yet, although its low price is its most compelling feature, we’d recommend spending a few bucks more for press pot that offers a better filter, easier cleanup and brighter-looking glass.

Key Specs:

Model/Product # reviewed: BVMC-AC2-RB
Carafe: glass with steel frame
Capacity: 37 oz/1.09 L
Weight: 1.2 lbs/544 g
Height: 9 in/23 cm
Width: 4 in/10 cm
Company website: www.mrcoffee.com

The post Equipment Report: Five French Presses, Tested and Rated appeared first on Coffee Review.

For this month’s article, we tested all three of these new systems, plus reviewed a range of espresso coffee produced by their little proprietary-design capsules. We benchmarked their achievement against the well-established diva of the category, the Nespresso system. See the end of this article for a tabular comparison of these four systems.

Bottom-Line Verdict

Generally, how did these four convenience-first systems match up? Experienced aficionado baristas working their own higher-end grinders and conventional espresso machines using quality coffees can do far, far better than any of these devices. However, the learning curve for producing good espresso on a conventional home machine is rather steep, so the appeal of a no-fuss capsule system for espresso is obvious.

Nevertheless, it appeared to us that these three new brewing systems and, above all, their matching coffees, could do considerably better for the consumer. Perhaps they will in the future. But at the moment, none of them, to put it sadly and bluntly, quite equaled the quality of coffee and range of coffee choice embodied in the long-established Nespresso system. Unfortunately for these new systems, Nespresso has had years to refine and perfect its system, and this experience shows, above all in the quality of the coffee in the capsules.

When You Buy the Machine, You Commit to the Coffee

Consumers interested in these capsule systems should keep in mind that when they buy the brewing device, they are committing to only using coffees supplied in compatible capsules by the company that sells the brewing device. This is an important point.

If we consider these three new espresso brewing devices separately from the coffees offered for them, they appear quite satisfactory. All produced a technically sound espresso shot on a consistent basis. The Singolo affords a particularly wide range of control of the length of the shot and the brewing temperature, but the shots produced by the other two devices appeared to fulfill both technical and sensory criteria for a solidly normative espresso shot.

But all three of the new brewing systems come with a truly paltry range of coffees: four choices for the Keurig Rivo, three for the Singolo, and three espressos (seven coffees overall) for the Starbucks Verismo.

On the other hand, does a limited coffee menu matter much to most American espresso drinkers? Perhaps not. The fact is, most North- American espresso drinkers take their espresso mixed with other stuff: above all with heated and frothed dairy, as well as with chocolate and other flavored syrups. Both the Verismo and the Rivo are clearly focused on satisfying those consumers who simply want a café in a box that is versatile yet easy to use, and who are not interested in exploring the world of straight-shot fine espresso, at least not at this point in their coffee lives.

The Starbucks Verismo

The Starbucks system is the most comprehensive of the three contenders in its café-in-a-box approach. It attempts to offer in automated capsule form versions of some of the most popular Starbucks café beverages: straight espresso, caffè latte, caffè Americano, and brewed coffee. The coffees selected for presentation in capsule form appear to offer a limited yet thoughtful range of characteristic Starbucks flavor profiles: a gently bright single-origin espresso (Guatemala Antigua) for straight-shot espresso drinkers; a version of the flagship Starbucks Espresso Roast for more robust straight shots and, in combination with a milk capsule, for a short caffè latte; a decaf espresso; and brewed coffees ranging from the medium-roasted Veranda Blend to the darker-roasted Pike Place Roast, House Blend and Caffè Verona.

The main issue we found with the Verismo was the uneven quality of the product in the capsules.

The capsule milk, a 2% butterfat milk powder that is reconstituted with pressurized hot water during brewing, was unequivocally wretched tasting: simultaneously chalky and watery. True, Starbucks got away with some serious flimflamming when it succeeded with Via, an instant coffee clearly inferior to much cheaper freeze-dried competitors, but it is hard to believe they will get away with the more obvious failing in these milk capsules.

Fortunately for those interested in the Verismo system, it is possible to buy a stand-alone milk frothing jug (Starbucks sells a good one for $59.95; the outstanding Aeroccino Plus frother from Nespresso lists at $99.00). We would definitely recommend the stand-alone frothing jug option for buyers of the Verismo system.

Returning to what’s inside the Verismo capsules, the Espresso Roast pods we received with our review unit were at best disappointing (we review them here at 80). They did not produce espresso nearly as rough, roasty and bittersweet as the espresso produced in a Starbucks caffè. The output of these capsules was faded and woody, either staled and/or produced from the same clean but tired green coffees that go into Starbucks supermarket offerings. So if the goal of the Verismo is to provide a Starbucks café-in-a-box, then the fundamental building block of Starbucks milk-based beverages, the Espresso Roast, needs some attention.

On the other hand, the Guatemala Antigua Espresso (reviewed here at 86) was delicate but pleasing, and the three brewed coffee capsules we tried (Pike Place Roast, Veranda Blend and Caffè Verona) produced seven ounces of solid Starbucks-style brewed coffee. These drip-style coffees are not reviewed here, but we did rate them at respectable capsule scores of 84 to 85.

A last caveat: We evaluated the two Verismo espresso blends using whole milk conventionally frothed on the steam wand of our La Marzocco machine; had we evaluated them using the Verismo milk pods our scores would have been two to three points lower than the ratings we publish here.

The Keurig Rivo

Although it aims at clarity and simplicity of function, the Keurig Rivo does not attempt to automate everything for the user as the Starbucks Verismo does. No milk pods and no built-in brewed coffee or Americano features. The coffee brewing function produces a solid 40ml/1.35-ounce espresso shot and a predictably thinnish 80ml/2.7-ounce lungo or long shot. (If you buy the Rivo and want more volume of espresso for a frothed milk beverage than a single shot can provide, we recommend that you run two regular shots rather than use the lungo option.)

For milk the Rivo offers an excellent, full-featured milk-frothing-and-heating jug that produces both cold and hot froth, and customizes the froth style for either a caffè latte or cappuccino. The froth for the cappuccino is outstanding: fine-textured and velvety. A very well-written-and-illustrated recipe booklet coaches users through production of a range of the most popular American café beverages using the Rivo system.

But, as with the Starbucks Verismo, the coffee quality could and should be much better. The Italian roaster Lavazza provides the four capsule blends; again, you can’t use any other coffee aside from this limited array of coffees. Lavazza produces what are, in my opinion, outstanding espresso Italian-style blends, including its flagship Qualità Rossa blend. But either the podding process and accompanying staling compromised the quality here, or Lavazza flops when it comes to producing all-Arabica blends for a presumed American taste. (The classic Lavazza espresso blends incorporate Robusta, very skillfully in my view). At any rate, we were not greatly impressed by the coffees in the Rivo pods; our ratings ranged from a high of 86 for the Espresso Delicato to 84 for the Espresso Intenso (both reviewed here) and 83 for the Espresso Classico.

A Dark Horse: the Singolo System

Finally, the Singolo system. Both machine and the three available coffee capsules are produced in Italy. The distributer is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with distribution in the United States.

Perhaps the main distinguishing feature of the Singolo system is its completely biodegradable capsules. In waste management districts like mine that accepts food scraps as well as yard trimmings, the entire Singolo capsule, shell, seal and all, can be tossed into the appropriate bin. Backyard composters may be frustrated, however, since according to Singolo the capsule requires up to a year to completely decompose in a home compost.

Turning back from composting to coffee, the Singolo system does not attempt to offer a café-in-a-box American style as do the Starbucks and Keurig systems. It is potentially an outstanding aficionado single-shot capsule brewer, however, because it gives the sophisticated user full control within a very wide range over brewing temperature and length of shot, two key parameters in espresso brewing.

But, regrettably, the coffee in the capsules may be even more limited and unsatisfactory for the Singolo than for the Verismo and Rivo. What American (or Canadian, or, I presume, Italian) aficionado would put up with the coffee in the three available Singolo capsules? Either because the coffee in the capsules was badly staled or there was too much faded green coffee in them, two of these blends (the Vigoré reviewed here at 79; the Toscano rated at 76 but not reviewed) were woody, salty, and generally empty of nuance. One of the three, the Verità (reviewed here at 85) showed depth and complexity, but we found the capsules we tested quite uneven, some dead and woody, others smooth and quietly lively. We could only conclude that the blending had not been performed thoroughly (the blend contains five origins) and we were responding to variations in the coffee from capsule to capsule.

In respect to frothed milk and the Singolo system, those who take their espresso with milk can, of course, buy one of the many excellent stand-alone milk frothing jugs available, including the Singolo version ($89.00), but at this writing there appears to be no way out of the disappointing coffee quality and the limited coffee selection.

Queen Nespresso Sails On

Which leaves the Nespresso system. Nespresso is doubtlessly cordially despised by many aficionados for its slick, spare-no-expense marketing and over-the-top visual presentation, but it remains without a doubt the class of its category. Put a bag over George Clooney’s head, scribble on the pretty little capsules and close down the snotty boutique caffès, but the quality and sound technical thinking that support this system still would be apparent. The blends all taste different, they taste better than their current competition, and there are more of them (sixteen, not counting three flavored selections). We review two of the sixteen non-flavored Nespresso blends here, the Ristretto at 89 and the Cosi at 87. The Nespresso U D50 brewer we tested offered both simple default shot length as well as flexible programmed shot length. The stand-alone milk frothing jug worked as well as any of the competing devices we have tried, including the excellent snap-in jug on the Rivo.

Capsules and Cost

A final note on cost. The capsule brewing devices reviewed this month range in price from around $200 up to $300. A milk-frothing jug adds $50 to $100 to that total (except for the $230 Rivo, which comes with a snap-in jug). That may sound like a lot of money for a coffee maker, but it is considerably less than the price of a really solid, dependable conventional home espresso machine and matching grinder, which taken together begin at, say, around $700 for a decent, well-made starter set up to astronomical for the best.

Of course, the coffee itself costs considerably more if you buy it in capsules rather than as whole bean. Depending on how good a coffee you buy and how much you tamp into your portafilter per shot, a good whole-bean espresso will cost anywhere from about 35 cents per serving through about 50 cents. The very finest and rarest espressos will cost more, of course.

On the other hand, capsules for the reviewed systems cost anywhere from $0.65 per capsule for most Nespresso selections up to $1.00 for the Starbucks capsules, or about 30% to 65% more than the cost of a good espresso blend purchased whole-bean.

Of course, to affect that savings you need to learn how to use the conventional equipment, plus spend a few extra minutes extra per day grinding, tamping and wiping grounds off your kitchen counter. Not a lot of attention and effort, but we are an impatient society, which suggests why there is a market for these automated capsule machines in the first place. The engineers who designed the machines did their work rather well; now the companies that support the machines need to get their coffee act together.

Starbucks Verismo; coffees by Starbucks

Tested model: Verismo System 580

Price tested model: $199.00

Number of coffees currently available in proprietary pods: Seven, three intended for espresso production and four intended for brewed coffee

Ratings (five tested)

Average price per capsule: $1.00

Frothed milk feature:

Milk pods (83 cents each) produce frothed milk in a separate step

Coffee features:

Versatile drink production: produces espresso (1-ounce servings); brewed coffee (7-ounce servings); and one-touch Americano (1 ounce espresso plus 7 ounces hot water)

Positives:

Consistent coffee production

The brewed coffee feature produces a sturdy coffee similar to Starbucks café production

One-touch Americano production

Compact footprint

Negatives:

The proprietary milk pods produced hot frothed milk that to our palates was close to undrinkable

Limited number of compatible coffee capsules available at this writing; only three designed for espresso

Capsules currently are not recyclable in the United States, but may be in Canada and Europe

The post Three New Capsule Espresso Systems appeared first on Coffee Review.

The Bunn My Café uses paper pods, the same dimension pods as the Senseo brewer. Bunn only brands the brewing units; it does not sell Bunn-branded coffee and no license is required to produce Bunn-compatible paper pods. This hands-off, open format approach makes the Bunn program unique among single-serve systems.

Proprietary capsule design: No
Approximate cost per serving early 2011: $.56 – $.62
Brewer cost early 2011: $99.99 – $439.95
Weight of ground coffee per serving, in grams: ~ 10.0 – 12.0 g
Volume per serving: User determines volume up to a maximum of 16 oz.; pour-over system
Tested volume per serving: 6 oz.
Pressure-assisted extraction: Yes
Range of available coffees: As of early 2011 relatively limited
Ratings of eleven compatible coffees tested (brewed in 6-ounce servings): High 88, Low 72, Average 80
Also produces espresso-style coffee: No
Incorporates hot frothed milk solution: No
Refillable pods available: Yes; Ecopad (refillable) and Perfect Pod Coffee Pod Maker
Model tested: My Café MC
Design notes: Clean, no frills
Footprint and general size: Medium

Pros:
Pour-over system; the volume of water you pour into the top of the unit displaces (after the brew button is pressed) the same volume of brewing water through the pod and into the cup.
Sophisticated brewing procedure, with pre-infusion and a pulse brew option that mildly intensifies intensity and bitterness, characteristics which some coffee drinkers enjoy and celebrate. Generally obtains a good extraction from paper pods.

Cons:
At this writing a relatively limited number of coffees are available in compatible pods, and based on our tests the quality (and distinction) of these coffees is not particularly impressive.
The unit we tested produced mildly off-tasting water, probably from contact with plastic parts, although this off-taste (mildly chemical, astringent) seldom seemed strong enough to impact the flavor of the final beverage.

Notes:
Designed to produce an American-style brewed coffee: no espresso or hot chocolate capabilities. Produces tea from compatible pods.
Compatible paper pods and their spent grounds are completely compostable, but the protective packaging for the pods is not.

Keurig

Uses only K-cups, a proprietary capsule design. Other capsules or pods cannot be used in Keurig brewers, and K-cups cannot be used in other designs of single-serve brewers.

Approximate cost per K-cup early 2011: $.62 – $.81
Brewer cost early 2011: $80.00 – $249.00
Weight of ground coffee per serving, in grams: 9.0 – 12.0 g
Volume per serving: 6 – 12 oz.
Tested volume per serving: 6 oz.
Pressure-assisted extraction: Yes, but very mild
Range of available coffees: Very large selection and growing
Ratings of twelve K-cup coffees tested (brewed in 6-ounce servings): High 89, Low 84, Average 87
Also produces espresso-style coffee: No
Incorporates hot frothed milk solution: No
Refillable pods available: Yes; refillable My K-Cup unit available at www.keurig.com
Model tested: B70 Platinum
Design notes for tested model: Backlit aquamarine
Footprint and general size of model tested: Largish. Less expensive models are more compact.

Pros:
A very large and growing range of coffees is available in K-cups, and the quality of these coffees is generally good to very good, considerably better than the quality of coffees available for all other tested systems except the Nespresso.
Generous-sized water reservoir.

Cons:
The unit we tested produced very mildly off-tasting water, probably from contact with plastic parts, although the off taste never appeared pronounced enough to adversely affect the flavor of the final beverage.

Notes:
Designed to produce an American-style brewed coffee. No espresso capability, although K-cup versions of tea and hot chocolate beverages are available.
K-cups are not recyclable.

Nespresso

For this month’s reviews we tested Nespresso capsules ONLY in the context of American-style coffee, in this case the 4-ounce beverage Nespresso calls “lungo.”
Uses Nespresso “Grands Crus” capsules. Other capsules or pods cannot be used in Nespresso units, and Nespresso capsules cannot be used in other designs of single-serve brewers.

Approximate cost per capsule early 2011: $.55 – $.62
Brewer cost early 2011: $199.00 – $799.95
Weight of ground coffee per serving, in grams: ~ 6 g
Volume per serving: 1.25 and 4 oz. factory default setting; manual override available
Tested volume per serving for this month’s reviews: 4 oz.
Pressure-assisted extraction: Yes, fully pressurized espresso extraction at 19 atmospheres
Range of available coffees: At present limited to 16 blends. Nespresso-compatible capsules from other roasting companies are beginning to appear in Europe as patents expire.
Ratings of 6 Nespresso coffees tested (all brewed in ”lungo” 4-ounce servings, not as espresso): High 89, Low 85, Average 87
Also produces espresso-style coffee: Yes; specifically designed for espresso-style coffee
Incorporates hot frothed milk solution: Yes, at additional cost
Refillable pods available: No
Model tested: CitiZ
Design notes: Retro locomotive for the tested CitiZ unit; quite attractive. Other units situate more in the Jetsons moderne to reticent box modes.
Footprint and general size: Compact for the tested unit; other, more expensive units are larger.

Pros:
The sixteen Nespresso “Grands Cru” blends are distinctive in character and high in quality. On the other hand, there are only sixteen, and only four are designed for “lungo,” a 4-ounce black coffee, though the other eight, designed for espresso brewing, make plausible short black coffees as well, particularly the three origin-specific blends from Colombia, Brazil and India.
The Nespresso produced virtually no off taste in the brewing water, even when run straight out of the box.
The Nespresso produces quite attractive espresso beverages; see our reviews at Convenience First: Espresso Pods and Capsules.

Cons:
Coffee lovers have only sixteen options from which to choose, although they are excellent options.
Nespresso brewing units are relatively expensive.

Notes:
The Nespresso system is specifically designed to produce only espresso beverages and short, European-style black coffee.
The metal Nespresso capsules are not recyclable, although capsule recycling collection programs have been developed for eight countries, so far all in Europe, with the intention of extending these programs to additional countries.

Senseo

The Senseo is designed to use its own line of paper pods, though pods that fit the Bunn My Café also fit the Senseo.

Proprietary capsule design: No
Approximate cost per serving early 2011: $.29 – $.34
Brewer cost early 2011: $70.00 – $140.00
Weight of ground coffee per serving, in grams: 7 g
Volume per serving: 4 – 8 oz.
Tested volume per serving: 5 oz.
Pressure-assisted extraction: Yes
Range of available coffees: As of early 2011 relatively limited
Ratings of seven Senseo-brand paper-pod coffees tested (brewed in 5-ounce servings): High 85, Low 76, Average 81
Also produces espresso-style coffee: No
Incorporates hot frothed milk solution: No
Refillable pods available: Yes; Ecopad (refillable) and Perfect Pod Coffee Pod Maker
Model tested: Senseo (entry level model)
Design notes: Jetsons moderne
Footprint and general size: Compact

Pros:
Least costly single-serve system, both for brewers and the Senseo brand pods.
Incorporates an adaptor that permits use of two stacked pods to produce taller (8-ounce) beverage sizes.

Cons:
At this writing only a relatively limited number of coffees are available in Senseo-compatible pods, and the quality (and distinction) of these coffees is only fair.
Small water reservoir
The tested unit produced off-tasting water, even after repeated use. The water quality adversely affected the flavor of several of the tested coffees.

Notes:
Designed to produce an American-style brewed coffee. Tea pods and a special tea-pod adaptor are also available. No espresso or hot chocolate capabilities.
Compatible paper pods and their spent grounds are completely compostable, although the bulk packaging for the pods is neither compostable nor recyclable. Nevertheless, the combination of completely compostable spent pods and low-waste bulk packaging arguably makes the Senseo program the most environmentally friendly of the single-serve systems at point of brewing.

Tassimo

Uses only Tassimo brand T Discs. Other single-serve capsules or pods cannot be used in Tassimo units, and Tassimo T Discs cannot be used in other brands of single-serve brewers.

Approximate cost per serving early 2011: $.38 -$.92
Brewer cost early 2011: $130 – $200
Weight of ground coffee per serving, in grams: ~ 6.9 – 14.5 g
Volume per serving: Default depending on beverage 4 – 8 oz. Manual override available
Tested volume per serving: 4 – 6 oz.
Pressure-assisted extraction: Yes
Range of available coffees: As of early 2011 quite limited
Ratings of ten compatible coffees tested (brewed in 4- or 6-ounce servings): High 87, Low 79, Average 84
Also produces espresso-style coffee: Yes
Incorporates hot frothed milk solution: Yes
Refillable pods available: No
Model tested: Tassimo Home Brewing System
Design notes: No-nonsense modern
Footprint and general size: Medium

Pros:
Most versatile of single-serve units (produces brewed coffee, espresso beverages, teas, and a hot chocolate), although the newly introduced Nestlé Dolce Gusto system is designed to match the Tassimo in its all-purpose, beverage-center ambitions.
Little to no off-taste in the brewing water of the tested unit.

Cons:
At this writing a very limited number of coffees are available in compatible T Discs. Furthermore, aside from the Starbucks blends, the quality (and distinction) of these coffees is generally low. To add to this discouraging picture, the Starbucks offerings almost certainly will disappear from the Tassimo repertoire soon, given that Starbucks has dissolved its relationship with Kraft, the owner of the Tassimo brand. At that point the only available coffees for the Tassimo will be Kraft brands, with the Starbucks blends replaced by presumably similar style blends from the Kraft unit Gevalia.

Notes:
So far as we could determine from a search of the Tassimo website, T Discs are not recyclable.

The post Single-Serve System Reviews 2011 appeared first on Coffee Review.

The problem I have with them is not philosophic. I truly want to find ways to live the good life on the cheap. Problem is, so often I’ve gotten Consumer Reports (from the library of course, if not a free read at Borders) and been disheartened by the results using their best buy ratings as a guide.

Years ago, I chastised them for ignoring standards of any kind, and only using their “test panel”. I’m guessing it was a bunch of prune-faced cheapskates who simply wanted to pretend to like products that were inexpensive. My Italian mother-in-law who always complains about the food in restaurants is the model of the sort of person I mean. She’s bound and determined to dislike anything that costs more than she can cook if for. It’s an affirmation of her staying home and cooking every meal herself. In her case, it’s partly justified because she can cook on par with most restaurants. She just doesn’t get that part of the enjoyment of a restaurant meal is sampling someone else’s artistry.

Consumer Reports doesn’t give you truly good alternatives, in my opinion. They just give you less costly ones, ones chosen by people, who, again in my opinion, don’t have any better idea than a random consumer about what’s really good versus what’s not. They might argue this is one of their strengths, but to just sample a cross section of consumer reviews, Amazon or epinions.com has it covered. I expect a magazine that charges to test using objective criteria and to publish both the criteria and results. The title of the magazine is “Consumer Reports” and I assume this means a report to consumers, not by consumers. This is a major problem with their methodology. I recall a quote from someone who said “the trouble with staying free of industry influence is you end with a bunch of peers who don’t know anything”.

I’m not challenging Consumer Reports’ freedom of industry influence, but this does not make them neutral. They seem too eager to become willfully ignorant in the bargain.

Take coffeemakers. The latest Consumer Reports article starts off well enough. They drop a name I agree with…. Technivorm. Technivorm is an industry standard auto drip coffee brewer.  They use it as a standard of comparison. I’m not only fine with that, I would agree. But, then, they don’t rate it number 1. In fact, they don’t even put it in the top ten! Why not?

Consumer Reports gives a nod to the industry standard requirements for a coffeemaker to get the water hot enough, 195˚ to 205˚F, noting that the Technivorm readily achieves this. Again, I concur. Then, they proceed to rate other brewer’s as best buys, citing an $80 Kaloric and eight others CR claims “brewed comparably”. Then, they recommend a $20 Black and Decker, described “for someone a little less fussy about their coffee” and claim it is “almost as good”. Never are any measurements given to back up their claims. My point is, if they publish stopping distances for cars, they should publish contact temperatures for coffee brewers.

Also, where are the other measurements that would allow the reader to judge the ratings to be valid? Nowhere is there any mention of how long any of the top-rated ‘almost as good’ coffeemakers keep the grounds soaked in hot water. I’ve tested many brewers that peak at between 195 and 205, but spend the first several minutes of the brew cycle at temperatures well below the ideal range. The Technivorm keeps your grounds in hot water for no more than 6 minutes. That’s because, as the coffee industry’s standards specify, any longer than six minutes and bitterness becomes progressively pronounced.

There are brewers out there that subject your grounds to hot water for more than twelve minutes. CR doesn’t list contact times anywhere.

Another problematic area of many auto drip brewers is that of submersion of the grounds in water. The French press has become the darling of the smart set due to its automatically keeping all the grounds well under water throughout the brewing cycle. Does CR even know this? Do they test for it? Many auto drip makers are prone to leaving dry grounds, so inefficient are they at getting all the grounds wet. This means you wasted money by buying and using grounds in your brewer that never “gave” anything to your cup of coffee. It means your coffee is weaker than it should be, right?

And, who is their test panel? If they don’t publish their test criteria, they are basically saying their results are “because we say so”. So, who are they? Are these professionals or consumers?

At the moment, these are the questions that come to mind. I have to say, I can’t take each unit and offer a ranking different than CR’s, without testing and this is my next step. What I can say, is Consumer Reports offered no evidence that they tested these units with any but the most casual attention to the standards for good extraction. It’s not brain surgery and their readers deserve more. So far, I would not put Consumer Reports as a best buy when it comes rating which coffeemaker to buy.

The post Consumer Reports Coffee Brewer Survey appeared first on Coffee Review.