It seems like until the people dismissing the idea have tried it and found it makes worse coffee that we should just accept it as a new idea that seems like it might have merit. While that particular idea has never crossed my mind, I've always wondered about better ways to brew coffee and this certainly seems like one that has possibilities.

Ira

For some odd reason whenever I open a thread in the 'Brewing' section, I smell coffee.

ira wrote:It seems like until the people dismissing the idea have tried it and found it makes worse coffee that we should just accept it as a new idea that seems like it might have merit. While that particular idea has never crossed my mind, I've always wondered about better ways to brew coffee and this certainly seems like one that has possibilities.

Ira

To be clear I'm not dismissing this and have done a version of this before.

DamianWarS wrote:I think we've entered a degressed topic here. I'm not trying to discourage agitation in the bloom, I'm showing a way I've found to wet the grinds more quickly and efficiently and in my observations agitation is less needed however the agitation part is not the point and you may agitate as much as you wish. The point is a more efficient way of wetting the grounds during the bloom.

I've attached a pic of typical dry flat bed, a "birds nest" that you shape with a spoon (Rao/Perger) then this cone bed that is made with a cone rolling and pressing the coffee into a thin layer along the walls of the brewer

Flat bed
image

Bird's nest (Rao/Perger)
image

Cone bed
image

What cone are you using for this?

culturesub wrote:To be clear I'm not dismissing this and have done a version of this before.

So from my perspective, it certainly felt that way. Hopefully you don't take it personally.

Ira

culturesub wrote:What cone are you using for this?

Any cone will work but a real cone, not one with a hole at the bottom for brewing. I actually use a bamboo weaved brewer meant to be used without any filters but that's just because that's what I have lying around. One day I saw the cone brewer while I was trying the bird's next approach and thought it would be better to shape with that which led to pressing/rolling in a thin layer. I think a solid wood cone may work better. Here is a picture of the cone I use.

The water flow/pour and blooming of co2 is going to disrupt the shape of the bed, so I doubt it is critical that you get a perfect cone shape. The simple bird nest is practical.

I am surprised that the birdnest idea is advocated as some sort of Rao/Perger methodology, as if they invented it, or that it needed ownership. It's a very simple concept, common sense, and it is obvious to anyone who has brewed coffee manually (and perhaps is interested in doing more than just mixing hot water with ground coffee) that there is a risk of some grounds not being adequately contacted, especially during the early phases of the brew.

I don't mean to suggest that Rao/Perger have coined it but I do know they recommend it. Just doing a quick search, however I'm not the only one that connects this method to Rao/Perger. The blog even suggests Barista Hustle did a lot of work to demonstrate the effectiveness of the birdsness shaping it with the end of a spoon. Actually after reading that blog apparently Rao discouraged using chopsticks to form the nest as it may be compressing coffee which can lead to channeling. Armed with that information my approach may actually be doing the same, compressing a bunch of coffee, but I don't think it has an impact since I make a point to collapse all the walls during the bloom as part of my agitation. In my expereinces, I've noticed that with a better shaped birdsnest (like this cone method) less agitation is needed and it wets the coffee better. Hoffmann does an aggressive swirl which I've never really liked but in one of his recent videos, he says most people's issue with doing the swirl is the grind isn't fine enough. The Hoffmann swirl itself spreads the grinds out aggressively so water comes in contact with all the coffee in a quick amount of time. I'm just spreading out the grinds first and then adding the water then you can swirl, excavate, agitate or whatever you want to do with the coffee.

But you may disagree and I can't say my v60s have had a appreciable difference either way. Perhaps the only way to tell would be to measure the extraction from the bloom alone, the method that extracts more probably has done a better job at wetting the grinds but I don't have a VST and the best I would be able to do is a comparison of just the blooms alone between different methods but I'm not quite sure I'm ready for that sort of commitment.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as condescending towards you

I've seen these various names associated with the different techniques. It's always rubbed me the wrong way. There is nothing particularly novel with spreading out the grinds, swirling the filter while brewing, evening out the filter bed, etc... It's great that there are people out there testing the ideas and such (and in most cases, not doing non-subjective analysis or any sort of scientific methodology), and advocating use of one way versus another, but in my opinion, it's ridiculous to attached one of these guy's names to the method. It would like if I advocated driving a car with your hands at 9 and 3, rather than 10 and 2, because it gave better control/ergonomics/whatever, and people started to call it the Case method. As it turns out, people have been driving various ways for very long, trying all types of hand positions, finding benefits/drawback to one or the other.

Valid points. I used the names for credibility because those guys are generally respected and... well... I'm a whole lot less respected. But I get your point. Erase the name drops and calling things "new methods" if it suits you better and just look at it as re-imagining an old method to spread grinds out to wet them as quickly as possible.