The following is a quick rundown of my method brewing with everyone’s favorite immersion-percolation hybrid brewer, The Clever Coffee Dripper.
Equipment:
- Clever and filter
- Scale
- Timer (your smartphone is perfect)
- 15 grams of coffee, medium-coarse grind
- 242 grams of near-boiling water (plus some extra for filter rinse and clean-up)
- Something to stir (small spoon or butter knife)
- Your favorite coffee cup
Brewing
- Fold the seams of the filter and place it in the Clever.
- Grind 15 grams of coffee and heat your water (don’t weigh your water pre-heated!).
- Pour just enough hot water into the Clever to wet the filter, then place on your cup to drain.
- Put the Clever (without your cup) onto the scale, tare (zero out the scale) and add your coffee. After confirming you added 15 grams of coffee, tare the scale again. Give the Clever a little shake back and forth to even out your coffee grounds (the “bed”).
- Set your timer for 4 minutes.
- Start the timer and pour about 40 to 50 grams of water, fully wetting the bed. Give it a little stir to make sure all the grounds get wet.
- Let the bed “bloom” for about 30 to 45 seconds. The bloom and bubbling is the release of CO2, the intensity of which will vary depending on the coffee’s freshness (fresher, more CO2).
- Pour in hot water until the total water mass is 242 grams, give it a gentle stir (three to four laps) and place the lid on top.
- Remember the hot water you drained into your cup? Pour that out.
- When the timer reaches 1:00 to 1:15, place the Clever on your cup and the “drawdown” will begin! Give it another gentle, counter clockwise stir. The drawdown should take about 45 seconds (if it takes significantly longer, you probably have too fine of a grind).
- Once the Clever has drained to a point where the bed is still glisteningly wet, put the lid (now a coaster) on counter/table/rock, lift the Clever off your cup and place it on the lid/coaster.
- Toss the filter full of grounds in the compost, pour some hot water in the Clever, swirl it around, drain it and let it air dry.
- Enjoy your coffee!
I use the small Clever with Filtropa #2 filters. If you have a large Clever you can simply up the amounts, following a .055 to .062 grams of coffee to grams of water ratio.
One of the several beauties of the Clever is the control over contact time between the water and coffee. Use this control to experiment, finding a cup of coffee that suits your personal taste. If you’re feeling bold, go ahead and experiment with grind size and ratio, too.
If you have any questions or problems, I’m happy to help!
Don’t have a Clever? Get one!
Comments (1)
Thanks for posting this, Vince! It has been a long time since I tangoed with the Clever