Simple Coffee Brewing Guides: How to Brew Coffee at Home

Brewing coffee at home can often be a challenge if you’re a beginner in the speciality coffee world. How do you know which type of coffee you like when you’ve only ever drunk instant, or Starbucks, before? How on earth do you grind beans that’ll work perfectly for a Hario dripper? These are all common questions that beginners like to know before they part with their cash and delve into the coffee world.

Coffee machines are great for someone who wants perfectly brewed coffee at home without taking the time and effort to stand and brew coffee through a Chemex or Aeropress. The luxury of having a machine do this for you is brilliant, however, we understand that people, who are just getting into coffee brewing, want to experience the art of making a perfect cup to the fullest and want to understand how you go from roasted beans to a freshly brewed cup of coffee.

So, what happens when you have the equipment? Where do you start? Well, at Appliance City, we’ve come up with some helpful, albeit Lego-inspired, guides which take a look into the most common equipment used at home and how you go about making the first, perfectly brewed, cup.

 

How To Brew Coffee At Home

Brewing coffee at home requires a lot of trial and error. Coffee is a very versatile drink and can be manipulated in loads of different ways. You’ll first need to discover what your taste buds like the best when it comes to the tasting notes. Do you prefer a light and fruity coffee or a nutty and smokey coffee? Finding your perfect flavour will allow you to then experiment with different brewing methods to ensure you reach the optimum level for a fresh and flavoursome cup.

Below, we have listed the top home brewing methods, along with a recommendation on how to use the equipment, and brew a cup of coffee for yourself. Remember, coffee is all down to personal preference, so our recommended usage may need slight tweaks to work for your flavour palette.

 

How to Brew Coffee in a Cafetiere or French Press

By far the most commonly used piece of equipment for first-time brewers. A cafetiere is simple to use and can be easily manipulated to make 1 or 5 cups of coffee. Our best method for brewing with a cafetiere or french press is:

• Grind your beans to a coarse grind
• Add 7 grams of coffee and 125ml of hot water per cup
• Stir the coffee and water together
• Place the lid and plunger on top and leave to brew for 4 minutes
• Press the plunger down until it cannot go any further and pour into cups

 

How to Brew Coffee with a Dripper

 

A new, commonly used piece of equipment is the dripper. A coffee dripper is a fast method to prepare fresh coffee and requires little cleanup afterwards. These are mainly used for single cups but larger ones can be purchased to make up to 4 cups of coffee. To use a dripper to make 1 cup of coffee, we’d recommend:

• Grind your beans to a medium/filter grind
• Place the filter in the dripper and sit the dripper on your mug
• Add 15g of coffee into the filter paper
• Ensuring all the coffee grounds are wet, fill to the top with hot water
• The coffee will then filter through into your mug, and you’re done

 

How to Brew Coffee with a Chemex

The Chemex is a very pretty piece of coffee brewing equipment and is typically used when making coffee for 3 or more people, although, adjusting the amounts of coffee and water, you can make a cup for 1 or 2 people, too. Take a look at our preferred method, below:

• Grind your coffee to a medium/filter grind
• Place the filter into the Chemex
• Add 6g of coffee per cup to the filter paper
• Pour hot water over the grounds for around 35 seconds, go slowly!
• In a spiral motion, continuously pour the hot water over the grounds for a further 2 -3 minutes
• Pour your coffee into mugs

 

How to Brew Coffee with a Stovetop

Stovetops are very different from other brewing methods as they require the water to be continuously heated up along with the coffee grounds. This is because the water is pushed through the coffee grounds due to steam pressure that mounts up within the stovetop. To use a stovetop, you’ll need to:

• Grind your beans to a fine/espresso grind
• Pour 300ml of hot water into the chamber at the bottom of the stovetop
• Add 24g of the finely ground coffee into the filter basket
• Place the filter with the coffee grounds above the bottom chamber containing the water
• Screw the lid on carefully
• Using a low heat, place the stovetop onto the stove
• When you see the coffee rising up to the top spout, turn off the heat
• Allow the coffee to cool down to a drinkable temperature before pouring into mugs

 

How to Brew Coffee with an Aeropress

The Aeropress is another piece of coffee brewing equipment that is becoming ever so popular within the speciality coffee industry. It’s an inexpensive device that requires little maintenance and cleaning, and can easily be used when travelling. For brewing coffee with an Aeropress, we suggest the following method:

• Grind your coffee to a medium/filter grind (the Aeropress is very versatile so you can use fine and coarse ground if required)
• Place the filter paper disk into the filter and twist onto the bottom of the Aeropress chamber
• Place the Aeropress on top of your mug
• Add 1 scoop of coffee into the chamber – scoop provided with Aeropress
• Fill the chamber to the top with hot water
• Give the coffee and water a small stir – stirrer provided with Aeropress
• Place the plunger in the chamber and slightly pull up to create a vacuum seal
• Leave the coffee to brew in the water for 1 minute and then plunge down into your mug. You do have to apply a fair bit of pressure to ensure you have a sturdy mug!

 

We hope our guide into brewing coffee at home gets you on the way to speciality coffee heaven, whichever brewing method you pick!