Intentional Coffee at Home - Part 2: Making Good Coffee in a Coffee Maker
We’re picking up where we left off in our series, Intentional Coffee at Home. In Part 1, we covered a few of the basics like gathering equipment and sourcing great coffee to use at home (read it here), now we’ll focus in on:
Step 3: Practicing Good Technique
A coffee maker is one of the simplest ways to make coffee at home. And honestly, it doesn’t require too much technique. The best investment you’ll make with this method is in picking out your coffee maker. While there are many models on the market, there are a few that stand out for their treatment of the coffee during the brew.
A few years ago when I decided to get a coffee maker, I chose the Bonavita 8-cup coffee maker with a glass carafe. I chose the glass carafe simply for the look of it, but the model with the thermal carafe is a fantastic choice as well (in fact, it probably holds it’s temperature longer than the glass). The reason I chose this machine was not solely for the looks, but also for the way the coffee is brewed.
I was trained as a barista at a cafe that was known for its pour over coffees, so I learned to take a lot of care and use a lot of intention in making coffee. I wanted a coffee maker that would mimic the pour over coffees I was making every day at work. I didn’t want water to douse the beans and mess with extraction, I wanted a more methodical, careful automated pour of water over the coffee bed just like my pour overs I was making in the cafe. Back when I started as a barista, there weren’t too many coffee makers on the market like this. But since then, a variety of options have come on the market.
Choosing Your Coffee Maker
The Bonavita I mentioned earlier is a reasonably priced option for a coffee maker that closely mimics the pour over method. This machine allows for a bloom (we’ll discuss this more in part 3 of this series when we discuss making pour overs) and automates the water so that the coffee is evenly extracted.
There are a few other options for coffee makers I’d recommend, in case you’re interested in researching what might work best for your home set up. I love the look of the Ratio Brewer, but it is more expensive. And I’ve heard great things about this Oxo Brewer - it brews directly into the carafe which cuts down on heat loss which can occur in the other two brewers I mentioned.
Brewing Your Coffee
Coffee made with a coffee maker needs a medium-coarse grind setting. Looking at your grinder, move the dial a few notches away from the middle, toward the coarse setting. This brewer is resilient – it won’t take much trial and error to find a good grind setting. Always taste and adjust, but you may find that you enjoy the first setting you try.
I like to have 18g of ground coffee per 10oz cup, so a four cup brewer would need 72 grams of ground coffee (my 8-cup brewer makes 8 5oz cups of coffee, which equals out to 4 full 10oz cups of coffee - make sure you look at ounce measurements here instead of cups!). I list out measurements in grams, because for accuracy, we use a scale to measure out our coffee. If you don’t choose that route or don’t have access to a scale that weighs in grams, 18g equals out to a 1.5 tablespoons and 72 grams equals out to 6 tablespoons. I like this ratio for single origin coffee, but you may want to up the dose for coffee blends (try closer to 80g if you like it stronger!)
Now that our coffee is ground appropriately, we can brew our coffee.
The coffee machine doesn’t require too much technique, that’s part of what I love about it!
For an 8-cup coffee maker:
Weigh out 72 grams of your coffee of choice.
Grind at a medium-coarse setting.
Add 40 ounces of filtered water to the water tank on your coffee maker.
Place filter in the basket of your coffee maker & add ground coffee.
If available, bloom your coffee per the instructions on your machine.
Turn the coffee maker on to brew.
Once finished, pour coffee into your favorite cup and drink black or with milk!
My coffee maker offers different size brews, so I adjust this ratio for whatever I need (36 grams coffee to 20 ounces water, 54g coffee to 30 ounces of water). The same process applies!
Final Notes
A coffee maker is a pretty easy tool to use at home and it can do so much with so little effort! I love this method when I don’t want to spend as much time on my coffee or when I’m making coffee for a crowd. Figure out what you need for your desired home coffee station and play around with it until you find exactly what you like.
I hope this has been helpful in getting you started with your own home coffee station. If you have any questions about tools, ratios, or techniques, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email! I’d love to nerd out about coffee with you! Happy brewing!