Since last year, I have been buying equipments here and there for hand drip (with minimal or actually can be considered NO knowledge). Some stuff I bought are not quite suitable. Guess I'll just change them gradually on the way. I used to think hand drip coffee is super simple and easy. Just pour hot water over cone, what's so hard or complicated about that? Argh, I was SOOOOO wrong!
Anyways during my trip to KL last week, I visited Good Friends Cafe for a hand drip coffee brewing lesson. After coming home, I couldn't wait to try it out on the stuff I have. Actually its a fail attempt. But I'm considering blogging about it, so I can look back at my coffee journey next time ^^ If there are any coffee experts, or more experienced coffee lovers reading this, I would really appreciate your comments / advice.
Since I know my equipment is probably not quite right and my skills are barely even up to the acceptable standard, I decided not to bother buying fresh beans. I've got good beans, a gift from a friend in Australia, but it's been kept for a while and not that fresh. Taste still good enough for me though.
List of equipment used:
Hario Coffee Scoop (scale of 8g, 10g, 12g)
Hario Skerton Coffee Mill
Daiso 2-cup dripper
Daiso 1-cup filter
Hario 400ml coffee server
Kyle Trading Japan Pour Over Kettle
Tiamo Thermometer
Proportion:
25g coffee with 150ml H2O (at 90degC)
Tasting Notes:
Over Extacted, Highly Bitter
The coffee beans
I bought a Hario V60 dripper and it came with a measuring spoon. This is great! ^^
What I learnt was 25g coffee for 150ml H2O. I used to go with 15g with about 250ml H2O, but I decided to try out this proportion today. So 2 spoonfuls of coffee beans. I don't have a weigh yet, so I'll just trust this spoon for the time being. Planning to get a digital weigh soon :)
To the fineness as shown here. Actually I grind to the fineness from memory in class. Think its about like this. And it was pretty silly of me to forget to buy the V60 filters when I bought the V60 dripper. When I came back to Miri, I couldn't find the filters locally. So I had to use back my oversized 2-cup-Daiso-dripper with the smaller 1-cup-Daiso-filter. I never thought it was a problem until I went to class and see that the filter actually FITS the dripper. Hahaha.
Then I started pouring boiled hot water at 90degC. My pour over brewing kettle seemed to be another problem. I bought it in Taiwan with no knowledge of hand drip coffee. I had the intention to learn but had totally no idea of any brands what so ever. And I 'heard' Taiwan has cheap and good coffee equipment. Then I thought it looked good and cost about RM90++ which I thought it was a good deal. After trying out, turns out the pout angle isn't quite right where its hard to control the water flow. Water tends to gush out horizontally. It was already hard using a good kettle from my shifu. So with this its even harder. Also I realize the tip of the pout is not quite right where it tends to direct water flow horizontally instead of a steady vertical flow. After buying, I tried googling the brand Kyle Trading Japan and didnt have any luck. Lesson learnt. Next time research first! >.<
And here is the overall equipment used for my brew today. I bought the Hario 400ml coffee server from Parkson. Got a 50% discount by surprise so I think its a pretty good deal. :) Pouring over the water, I tried using the techniques I learnt but it didn't quite work out. Think its due to the dripper and filter's odd size and then the water flowing too quickly. So in the end I got a cup of over extracted coffee. So concentrated that I had to dilute and add sugar. Due to the long time water was holding in the dripper, the taste was bitter. Also I kinda doubt my proportion. Maybe I've heard it wrong. From experience and some googling, perhaps it should have been 15g instead of 25g. Didn't quite look right either.
And so this was my first fail attempt. More to learn, practice and improve. Gambateh!!!
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