Great, thanks! When I get access to my siphon (packed) I'll be sure to give it a go.

Eastsideloco wrote: Siphon coffee tasting bitter/burnt

David - is this how you siphon, too? Do you ever polish glass rod-filtered siphon brews?

I have a Hario NXA-5 - I'm assuming you'd both recommend the steel filter, although I do enjoy the clean feel of cloth-filtered siphon brews.

In my (much more limited!) experience, a 40s immersion time is pretty tight. I'm thinking my usual siphon grind would be much too coarse for this method. Interesting - something to toy with tomorrow morning!

Allan is describing a typical siphon brewing method popularized in Japan, which is characterized by fine grind size and short brewing times. The short brewing times are ideal in a production environment, as you can serve more customers that way. And if you are serving 100 cups per night, the repetition will allow you to streamline your processes without sacrificing consistency.

I've experimented with a broad range of approaches to the siphon at home, in some case brewing one or two siphons daily. But often brewing one or two per week, which isn't a recipe for process consistency. I use also different siphon vendors and volumes. However, these are all table-top rather than stove-top brewers.

As I have measured how much the water temperature in the funnel after kick up can vary-depending on things like brewer volume, when you install the funnel, ambient temperature, burner selection, process variation, and so forth-I prefer to add grounds to the funnel after kick up. I've experimented with different brewing temperatures. You can brew over a wide temperature range, if you want to (or aren't careful). Regardless of your temperature preference or target, your slurry temperature with a siphon will likely be lower than your strike or pouring temperature with most other manual brewing methods.

I don't have a preference regarding grind size or duration of brew. You can get a good cup either way, provided you're making appropriate compensating adjustments. You don't want to grind fine and brew long, for example. Because of the immersion brewing component, baristas have a lot of flexibility with siphons in terms of grind size and brewing times.

My filter preference tends to vary by brewer. I always use the glass filter with Cona vacuum coffee makers. The full-bodied cup is just part of the charm with this brewer. I've experimented with steel, cloth and paper filters with my Japanese siphons. I'm partial to paper-filters, in part because of the ease of cleanup. (Just toss the filter in the compost with the coffee.) But I'm also generally partial to paper-filtered coffee, going back several decades. Other baristas prefer cloth or metal or glass. They all work. Each is a little different in the cup. There is no right answer, as people are sensitive to different things.

Since I'm not brewing 100 siphons per day, I use crutches to improve consistency. This is my typical setup w/ a Thermapen (fast-read thermocouple), coffee paddle and digital timer:



And I pre-heat and rinse everything prior to brewing. In fact, I use two electric kettles (and water sources) for siphon brewing. One kettle heats my rinse water (filtered tap water); one kettle heats my brew water (bottled or formulated water).

Eastsideloco wrote:... Regardless of your temperature preference or target, your slurry temperature with a siphon will likely be lower than your strike or pouring temperature with most other manual brewing methods...

I can manage and hold 200° with a Yama stovetop using our stove's variable gas burner application, using a Thermopen to assure temp.

Absolutely stunning photo. You should enter that image in some competition --- just a thought.

Boldjava wrote:I can manage and hold 200° with a Yama stovetop using our stove's variable gas burner application, using a Thermopen to assure temp.

Exactly. And with a manual pourover method you might set your PID kettle for 205° or more in order to hit that 200° slurry temperature. It's not that the target or ideal brewing temperature is different, so much as the thermal properties of the brewing systems are different.

Boldjava wrote:Absolutely stunning photo. You should enter that image in some competition --- just a thought.

Thanks! I'd lose that competition. The quality of the coffee nerd photography on Instagram blows my mind. (In a good way; it's inspiring.)