I couldn't pass up the chance to pick up this Stagg XF from a fellow HB'er right here in the city and I'm glad I did.

I bought it with the plans of taking it into work to use as the filter for my Ratio 8 in the office. The tall, narrower vertical column seemed ideal for the narrow diameter brew head of the Ratio 8. I'm quite simply stunned by the improvement in the qualities of my brews, compared to the Kalita Wave/Blue Bottle Dripper/V-60's I've been using up until now. I'm a bit surprised that it hasn't been discussed here before.

I picked it up on the way home from work and won't be back till Sunday, so I'm currently just using it with my kettle at home. The method is simple and the results are stunning. I probably could grind a tad coarser than I already am, but I can't complain with the results. The quality in the cup seems to agree with what Scott Rao suggests in terms of brew column height for filter brew. A taller bed of coarser ground coffee might universally taste better, I don't know, but the cup results so far are encouraging.

Has anyone else played with one? They're a bit pricey compared to their competitors, but I'm happy with it. Even happier getting one at a discount and a ton of filters!

I've been looking at the XF recently, as I've been frustrated at the inconsistent results with my V60 02 and Kalita Wave 185 for brewing 500ml.

Out of curiosity, what recipe are you currently using? May have to pick one up soon..

tv79 wrote: Out of curiosity, what recipe are you currently using? May have to pick one up soon..

Keeping it simple so far. 15:1 ratio plus 100% compensation for the dose weight. Comes out to about 400g water for 25g of medium coarse grinds. I set my Fellow PID kettle to 212 and sometimes impatiently pick it up and start any point after 208.

A few seconds to stir the bloom, since I get the impression that the tall column of off-gassing grounds are going to be prone to channeling and pushing water to the outer edge without it. The coffee is absolutely dazzling, and I've been brewing the exact same coffees many times on all the other devices without this same level of quality.

Thanks Tom. This sounds like a fairly repeatable method, and perhaps one better suited to larger volumes of 400ml+ (Fellows' site claims it'll brew 600ml).

So after the bloom stir, do you just continuously slow pour until you reach your 400ml target, or are you breaking it up into multiple pours? Also, it's Friday and my comprehension skills have apparently left for the weekend - what do you mean by "plus 100% compensation for the dose weight"?

The thought of a more consistent pour over method is really intriguing. So far I've had my best results with 4-6, but even those results weren't as consistent as I'd like (it probably doesn't help that my Vario with steel burrs doesn't seem to go all that coarse either).

The grounds in the filter (on average) hold twice their mass in water that doesn't make it into the final brew. So in my case with a 25g dose, there's almost 50g of my brew water I calculated for my recipe that isn't in the final beverage. If I'm not worried about having a more diluted beverage (say, aiming for 17:1) I can also compensate by adding an additional 50g of water to my original calculation.

But I was brewing the new honey processed Geisha from Colombia, mentioned in the Home Roasting section, and I wanted a stronger cup. So instead of adding double the ground coffee mass to compensate, I only added 25g (100%)

Ahh, ok appreciate the clarification. I just ordered the XF along with the Proper Coffee Pour Over (which happened to be on sale for $29.99). Both offer steep brew columns, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they stack up.

Let us know how it goes. I've found there is hardly any information comparing the Fellow XF. I'm tempted to get one, it sounds like it's right in the middle between the Kalita and Chemex.

I'd be interested in "how coarse" you actually grind (and with what grinder) relative to a V60 02, or Kalita 185... I'd been debating on trying the XF for a year or so, but didn't see any compelling reason to purchase. Filters are pretty pricy...

TomC wrote: I set my Fellow PID kettle to 212 and sometimes impatiently pick it up and start any point after 208.

Do you normally start you pourover brews at 212F? From the point that you start pouring, do you keep putting the kettle on the base so that it maintains this temp (HOLD - on) or do you start at 212 and just it drop naturally? I never brew this hot, maybe I should try it.. hmmm

I LOVE my stagg kettle so I'm always interested in any of their other products. Thanks for posting about it.

Made my first brews with the XF this morning and was absolutely amazed at how quick draw down was at the same grind (coarsest setting on Vario w/ steel burrs, calibrated at 1A) as I was using for V60/Kalita.

For my first attempt, I went with 16:1 @ 200°, 70g bloom, then at :45 filled the brewer, after which point I just topped off till I hit 500g. This completed right around 2:00, and not surprisingly was severely underextracted.

After dumping the first batch, I decided to lengthen brew time using 4-6 and same dose/grind/temp. So 5 pours every :45, with 500ml completing around 3:30. The result was still underextracted but drinkable. I plan on sticking with this again tomorrow, but going 1-2 macro notches finer.