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Page1 of 8How to Brew Coffee Using a Kalita Wave Dripper | Serious Eats: Drinks

1/13/2013http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/01/how-to-brew-coffee-using-a-kalita-wave-dripper-po...


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CoffeeExtracting the finest details on coffee from our experts.

How to Brew Coffee Using a Kalita Wave Dripper

Jan 7, 20137:45 AM 6 Comments

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Everything you need to brew.

How to Brew Coffee with a Kalita Wave

1. Bring water to a rolling boil. You'll need 500 grams of water to brew with (about 18 ounces), and a li ttle extrato rinse your filter.

2. Measure out 30 grams of whole-bean coffee (roughly 6 tablespoons) to brew 500 grams (about 18 ounces) ofwater.

3. Grind your coffee fresh before brewing. The grind should be coarser than a traditional filter brew, but not ascoarse as for a French press. Aim for something that looks a bit like coarse-ground corn meal.

4. Rest the paper filter gently in the cone of the brewer, and pour a very thin stream of water directly into themiddle-bottom of the paper. You only need to add about 3 ounces of water; the moisture will climb up the sidesof the filter to saturate it. (I t can help to secure the filter gently with your f ingertips; just be sure it doesn't foldover or you'll have to start again with a new f ilter.) Once the filter's saturated, lif t the glass cone with the fi lterin it off the pot and dump the rinse water out before continuing.

5. Place the ground coffee in the filter and tare the whole shebang on your kitchen scale. We want to measurethe water as wepour it to get an accurate and consistent ratio.

6. Start a timer, and immediately pour about 60 grams of water into the bed of coffee, slowly but completelysaturating it. The grounds should "bloom," or swell and release gas, for about 30 to 45 seconds before youcontinue.

7. Pouring in gentle concentric pulses moving from the center of the coffee bed outward, all the way to thefilter's ridges, add about 40 grams of water at a time, making sure to keep the water level above the groundcoffee at all times. After two or three of these pulses, a little pool should have very clearly formed on top of thecoffee bed. This is precisely what makes the Wave so great, so keep at it.




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8. Continue to pour in 40 gram doses until you reach 500 grams, and wait for the coffee to completely drain.Your ideal finished brew time should be about 3:304 minutes; adjust your pulses or your grind size to speed upor slow down the time it takes. (Remember: Finer grind equals slower brew, and coarser equals faster.)

Of course, there are countless ways to successfully brew wi th these elegant l ittl e pots. Here is a video by NickChoof San Francisco's Wrecking Ball Coffee Roastersthe sole American distributor of Kali ta productsbreaking down the technique and getting deliciously geeky for the benefit of coffee lovers everywhere.

Do you use a Kalita Wave? Share your technique with us below.

About the author: Erin Meistertrains baristas and inspires coffee-driven people forCounter Culture Coffee. She's a confident barista,an audacious eater, and a smil ing runner, but she remains a Nervous Cook.

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6 CommentsRI Swampyankee12:28PM on 01/07/13Have you done a blind taste test with the same coffee in a Chemex? As a barista, I'm always looking for ways to compensate formillion or so variables that work on coffee but this seems a tech over the top.Meister12:49PM on 01/07/13@RI Swampyankee: I haven't done a side-by-side, no, but that's a good assignment. As there are multiple different variables in aChemex vs. the Kalita (e.g. grind size, bed depth, filter style, shape), I can guarantee there will be differences, and it's hard to accountfor them by doing a side-by-side unless you can be absolutely certain you've dialed both in to the best of your ability. Coffee being anawfully changeable thing, this is quite a task, but certainly not impossible, right? Let me see what tomorrow brings, and I'll reportback if I'm able.baronbrapp4:32PM on 01/07/13I'm really interested to hear whether folks think the Kalita brews coffee that tastes different than other pour-through brewing methods.

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I'm not a pour-through-er, so I might be ignorant, but I'll need some convincing that the Kalita brews coffee that tastes different than afilter-cone, a Chemex, or even a nice drip brewer.Tarmac3:30AM on 01/09/13God forbid a blind taste comparison between "methods". That would ruin the romance.Meister5:08AM on 01/09/13@Tarmac: I never said a blind taste comparison among methods ruined the romance of anything: It's just that in coffee, a true blindtaste comparison takes a heckuva lot more work and planning and consideration than, say, a bli nd taste comparison among types ofpotato chips or even glasses of wine, so it's not actually super helpful in a lot of respects. Each batch of coffee has to be prepared, anda host of variables have to be taken into account for each one (since every brewing method calls for different parameters, such as beddepth, grind particle size and contact time). And then you've got three finished, brewed pots of coffee all at different temperatures

because it takes you four minutes to make each one, so you have to wait 15 minutes until they're all cooled to body temperature so it'sa fair comparison-- but is body temperature the best judge of a coffee's quality, since nobody drinks their coffee at body temperature?

So if you can think of a better way to do it that doesn't involve rounding up a team of people to brew pots of coffee for a side-by-sidecomparison-- which, in the end honestly tells you basically nothing because every batch is totally different and dependent on the skil land care and preference of the maker anyway -- then let me know. I'm game!Meister5:16AM on 01/09/13@baronbrapp: I recognize that I am just one person, and there are plenty of brewing methods that I like to use, but I can tell you that(a) brewing in a Kalita doesn't make coffee taste significantly different than other methods because, you know, in the end it still tasteslike coffee, (b) the coffee that I've made on a Kalita dripper lately has been some of the best I've enjoyed in recent months, and (c) i t'sreally about the ski ll of the person making the coffee as much as it is about the maker itself, and in the end about developing andunderstanding your own preference.

I've had great Chemex-brewed coff ee and terrible Chemex-brewed coffee-- does that mean I don't l ike coffee brewed in a Chemex, ordoes it mean I don't like coffee that's made badly? Ya know?

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