When I make pour over I typically use a chemex and I normally set my digital kettle to 200-2005 degrees. A few days ago I decided to test the temperature of my my cake of coffee as I was in the brewing process. The reading came back as 170-180degrees. I tested my instant read thermometer inside my digital kettle and received an accurate reading of 200-205 degrees. I repeated this temperature testing a few times and got the same reading. I tried bumping my kettle up to it's max temp, 212 and still the coffee in the chemex stayed under 190. What gives? Have we been told 197-205 with the expectation we have significant heat loss. What temp do you pour over at and what's your heat loss? Fwiw I typically do 3-4 longer pours of about 150grams of water, reheating the kettle between pours.

How does it taste? I wouldn't get too caught up in the temp variance if you are producing good coffee. If you aren't, then might be worth looking into.

c1raider wrote:When I make pour over I typically use a chemex and I normally set my digital kettle to 200-2005 degrees. A few days ago I decided to test the temperature of my my cake of coffee as I was in the brewing process. The reading came back as 170-180degrees. I tested my instant read thermometer inside my digital kettle and received an accurate reading of 200-205 degrees. I repeated this temperature testing a few times and got the same reading. I tried bumping my kettle up to it's max temp, 212 and still the coffee in the chemex stayed under 190. What gives? Have we been told 197-205 with the expectation we have significant heat loss. What temp do you pour over at and what's your heat loss? Fwiw I typically do 3-4 longer pours of about 150grams of water, reheating the kettle between pours.

Your confusing starting brew temp of the water with slurry temp.
These will always be different.

c1raider wrote:What gives? Have we been told 197-205 with the expectation we have significant heat loss.

Yes, this is exactly it. The NCA Gold Cup standard states (emphasis added):

To achieve the Golden Cup Standard, water temperature, at the point of contact with coffee, is recommended to fall between 200°F ± 5° (93.0°C ± 3°)

Slurry temperature will naturally be lower than that target water temperature. Is it okay to target 195-205 F in the slurry? Definitely. You can make great coffee in a wide variety of ways, including in ways that would seem to "break the rules." These criteria were developed decades ago using the equipment and coffees available at the time, and while they still have some value as guidance in coffee making, they aren't meant to be the be-all-end-all of brewing.

Very helpful, thank you. Might be fun to play around with a little. I wonder how much better the double walled brewers do at heat retention, like the one made by fellow, and if there is much of a difference in the cup. If anyone has any experience it'd be appreciated.

Love the prima coffee coverage of sce products!

If you want to brew at a constant, high temperature, a siphon brewer is your best option.

Personally I found I got better cups using pour over brewers despite their lower slurry temperatures, so I moved the siphons on after playing with them for a few years.

maxbmello wrote:How does it taste? I wouldn't get too caught up in the temp variance if you are producing good coffee. If you aren't, then might be worth looking into.

^++

Your water cools off by about 10 f just from evaporation when pouring. Be consistent, do what tastes good to you. Dont measure things you cant control, be consistent.

[creative nickname] wrote:If you want to brew at a constant, high temperature, a siphon brewer is your best option.

The first thing I noticed when I got a siphon was how different the coffee tasted. Far different than all the other brewers I'd tried before. This makes a lot of sense, as it seems that the siphon actually keeps higher temperature during the brew. Interesting!

Is it really the steady temperature that makes siphon taste different than a pour over?

I once did a series of brews in a stainless steel vacuum thermos. The temperature remained essentially constant, just like a siphon. But the resulting coffee wasn't really any different than what I get out of my Aeropress, which of course has a steadily declining temperature.

If you want to brew with temperatures higher than 90C/194F, you probably need to pour water that's straight off boil. Water loses heat all the way. If I pour with water off boil, brew slurry never gets higher than 93-94C, and that's just at the beginning. The further into the brew I get, the lower the temperature is.

If I poured with 93C water, I would probably not get much above 85C in the brew.