Day 03 | 100 Days of Coffee
Lets talk about the highest extracting manual coffee brewer that just hit the market.
Enter: the Australian-made, Tricolate brewer
The Future of coffee
Lets talk about what high extractions mean, and why it’s important for coffee. Extraction is merely dissolving desirable compounds that occur naturally in coffee beans. It is said, that only 30% of the bean is water soluble. The desirable extraction of coffee is typically between 18-22%. Any lower and coffee will generally taste weak/sour, any more and it will generally taste bitter.
As science in the industry progresses, we’re able to extract more, over 22%, without tasting bitter. Getting an extra 1-2% extraction without overpowering bitterness is a huge deal, and will almost always taste better when done correctly. The problem is, there are so many variables in the way of this. An un-even coffee bed, filters clogging and slowing down flow, bad particle size distribution from grinders, and many more problems occur. We’re able to reach a point in extraction where we start to see diminishing returns. Bitterness creeps in and it starts to ruin the flavor, so we have to settle for that extraction…As high as we can get it.
Since we’re brewing one cup at a time, in any brewing method, producing a specific extraction consistently is very hard. We have to control those many variables. Just imagine how crazy it sounds when that extraction relies on gravity to feed water through millions of finely ground coffee particles (such as in a pour over brewer). Combine this with the grind size needed, the waters Alkaline, Alkalinity, and Hardness levels, the brewer design, it’s insulation, the porosity of the filter, etc… It’s a job for a mad scientist, really! Once all of these things are controlled, we can only hope that water evenly passes through the coffee grounds and extracts all of the coffee around the brewer perfectly the same.
Unfortunately, this can never happen. We can only get as close as possible.
One thing Jonathan Gagné (Astrophysicist by day, Coffee Scientist by night) wrote about was how all of these brewer designs for pour over keep us from grinding finer and extracting more. Since the finer we grind, the more we clog our paper filter. Also, paper that doesn’t clog is too porous and allows fresh water to pour out the sides of the brewer and not extract down to the bottom of the coffee bed, a variable know as Bypass. So either way, we have to grind at a specific grind size before reaching these diminishing returns.
Now you might be thinking, why should we have to deal with the inevitable variables of a pour over when we can just make an immersion brew like a French Press?
I think brewing pour over coffee is silly. It’s a crazy idea to that of a simplistic immersion brew…But…There’s just one catch: Poor flavor clarity. All those millions of coffee grinds can’t be simply filtered out. If we poured a French Press into a pour over filter, it would instantly clog. We love pour over SO MUCH because, when brewed well, it has clarity of flavors with so much depth and dimension.
If someone just created a vacuum with a very thick filter attachment to suck out of an immersion brew, it would probably be a revolution for home brewers. I would be 100% on board lol. This kind of grind would probably be too fine for any Aeropress attachment and would need a more powerful force to push through the grounds. Maybe you can brew and Aeropress upside down, wait for the grounds to settle, and attach a filtered tube for the slurry to flow out of into your cup? Anyways, I’m getting way off topic…Though If you’re interested in this idea, there is a revolutionary commercial machine like this called the Ground Contrl, which sucks up the coffee brew in multiple stages. Might be worth checking out.
The Future Is Now
Tricolate provides incredibly high extractions with only having to control one variable - Grind Size.
I am able to grind ridiculously fine with this brewer. My brew times are ridiculously long nearly double - triple that of a V60 pour over. AND my coffee to water ratio is ridiculously high at 20:1! These three settings are more than what any other brewer can do while making tasty cups. Meaning, this is an incredibly high extracting brewer. I’ve had some of the best cups of my life with this brewer and i’ve only used it enough to count on one hand.
How does the coffee taste?
Unlike the brew from Day 01, this had a lighter body (though heavier than the V60 pour over from Day 02), and much more clarity than the V60 from Day 02. I was able to get a lot of nuttiness out of this coffee, which is super weird because I never really had that in the other two brews. I think it’s due to its Brazil origin, a common flavor profile. I think with this ultra-high extraction, I am able to taste flavors previously unexplored (or hidden) from a lower extraction (though still a high 20-22% cup). Juicy plumb notes came through a lot more as well. I was surprised this wasn’t a tea-like body considering I used a 20:1 ratio, which would make any other brewer very weak and flavorless. Thick, juicy, sweet, and incredibly complex. This is easily one of the best cups of my life and I haven’t even begun to dial it in yet!
What this means for the industry
Cafes
Savings
• In terms of cost for cafes, you can end up saving thousands per year. Lets say your slow bar sells 100 12oz cups of pour overs a day. You’re using the most common 16:1 ratio (i.e. 16 parts water to one part coffee). With this brewer, at a ratio of 20:1, you save over 20% of coffee, while providing the same size cup (and it tastes better!). At this busy slow-bar cafe, you’ll save nearly 31 pounds a month of coffee. If you pay $12.50/pound, that’s nearly $400 of savings and over $4,500 a year. Just from this ratio change alone.
Reduce Errors
• Out of all the batch brews and pour overs I get, I am often left with a badly extracted cup. I hate to admit this, but it’s so frequent it probably happens over 90% of the time. Batch brews are often too bitter, and pour overs are often too under and over extracted. I can go to the best cafes only to see the batch brew was sitting for an hour and a half or the barista was brewing my V60 pour over while solving a customers issue at the same time, or they poured two brews at once, mine with their opposite (sloppy) hand! This brewer will remove any sort of error that can be made while pouring and you can completely walk away while its brewing after pouring the rest of the water at 1:00. This will not only provide maximum quality, but will save SO MUCH TIME for your busy multi-tasking Baristas.
Home Brewers
It has never been easier to make better coffee with this brewer. Your cups will have more depth, dimension, and clarity, and will be more evenly extracted than any other pour over and possibly batch brew you can get at any cafe.
I can’t wait to share more of what I find in this brewer, as it’s only been used less than 5 times. Already though, I’ve had some of the best cups of my life with this, and I can only think there is a lot more ‘best cups’ to come in the near future!
Sincerely,
Connor
This is a whole new playing field.