by Peter G on Sat Feb 21, 2009 12:18 pm

Nothing like a good old fashioned rant to spur a little controversy!



Let me throw a few things out there:



On "Uneven Extractions": Frequently, rants against brewing styles or devices includes the "uneven extraction" idea. Whether Chemex, Melitta, single portafilter basket, whatever; claiming "uneven extraction" is a self-evident way to smack down a brewing paradigm. Obviously, an "even" extraction is better than an "uneven" one, right?



Not so fast. In food, unevenness is often a virtue. Take steak. A well cooked steak is overcooked on the outside (almost charred) and nearly raw on the inside. The in between areas are, umm, in between. This unevenness is delicious. It is easy to cook a steak evenly throughout- you just boil it. A boiled steak is cooked pretty evenly all the way through. Enjoy your evenly cooked dinner. The same is true for many foods. The cooking methods of grilling, baking, and sauteing produce uneven results as a matter of course. Boiling, braising and sous vide (the ultimate in evenness) are ways to cook with more uniformity. All have their different uses, for different foods, and different dishes.



Back to coffee. It seems that many have accepted the notion that the ultimate grind is perfectly uniform, the ultimate espresso machine is perfectly temperature-stable, and the perfect drip-brewer extracts perfectly evenly; and the closer you are to this ideal "evenness" the better your coffee will be. There is little evidence to support this idea. It is entirely possible that the uneven extraction that results from variable particle sizes, temperature variation, and extraction efficiency lends complexity to the cup, by mixing the differing flavors that come from deep extraction, light extraction, and the places in between. It is my feeling that this is exactly the beauty of the wide variety of brewing paradigms in the world; the complex profile of extraction efficiency, temperature variation, etc. give personality to the various brewers and make it possible to perceive differences in, and have a preference for, Chemex vs. Melitta vs. vacpot vs. Eva Solo.....



Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating for "unevenness" either. My feeling is that different coffees submit themselves to extraction in different ways. Let's really understand extraction profiles and the way different coffees perform within those extraction profiles before we start railing against particular brewers, along with "empirical proof" which is really nothing more than speculation based on dogmatic assumptions. Which brings me to my next subject:



On Dogma: We've got this unfortunate habit in coffee (indeed, many foodies seem to have this disease). It seems that many of the best and brightest in coffee turn their considerable intelligence towards proving what is wrong about coffee, rather than what is right. Often, this takes the form of "proving" that certain brewing methodologies, roasting protocols, processing methods, etc. are inferior to all others. These proofs are usually based on anecdotal or intuitive arguments, which once examined, fall apart. "Proving" that something is bad is the territory of blowhards, shallow minds, and religious fanatics. That is the sort of dogmatic reasoning that keeps us behind. Humble, curious exploration of coffee is what pushes us forward. There is nothing wrong with challenging conventional wisdom, but when you start trumpeting "proof" and "truth", you discredit yourself immediately. I submit it is a more useful use of energy to create rather than destroy. Therefore, I challenge those who are tempted to proclaim anything as "wrong" to instead work on making something useful. To do anything less is insulting to your own intelligence.



I have become so tired of those who find fault with clovers, vacpots, cone filters, French Presses, espresso machines, whatever. I have spent too many hours listening to people explaining their reasons why a particular brewing style (or roast, or process, or whatever) has disappointed them. I don't care to listen to your logic about why something cannot work. I don't give a s***. Instead, please figure out how to make awesome coffee, and tell me about THAT. Please include as much information as you can. Some of the brightest minds in coffee (oh man, I could make a list) spend all of their time railing against espresso, or DP ethiopians, or clovers, or whatever. It's a waste of intelligence and time.



Scott, your work in developing better systems for extracting coffee sounds fascinating. Don't hide that good work behind diatribes against a little, simple brewing device. You're better than that!



On Cone Filters: I have long heard the intuitive criticism against cone filters (Trish, I always associate it with Ric Rhinehart, but it might indeed have come from Kevin Knox as well). The argument goes that the little triangle of coffee at the bottom of the inverted cone gets overextracted, while the top layer gets underextracted. I've never seen this proven, it is always presented as an obvious, intuitive truth. In order to really go down this road, you would have to: 1. prove that this over- and under- extraction really happens and 2. prove that this over- and under- extraction is always a bad thing for coffee. I have never seen any attempt at such a study, in fact I can't imagine doing it, it would be so complex.



In my experience, water doesn't just flow down the cone and out the tip. Instead, it flows down and diagonal, brewed coffee exiting the filter paper well above the tip, bypassing it entirely. Also, we know that water's ability to extract coffee solubles is highly dependent on how much soluble material is already in the water. It is entirely possible that once water reaches the bottom of the cone, it is so full of solubles that it does a poor job of extracting the coffee at the bottom of the filter, therefore mitigating any overextracting effect there. One could conceivably make a bunch of different chemex pots, using the variety of techniques folks use, dry out the spent grounds, and analyze how many solubles had been extracted at different points within the cone. You'd have to repeat the experiment with a wide variety of coffees and roasts, and correlate it all with taste data. In the end, you might indeed "prove" that the tip of the cone is "overextracted". You might even prove that most coffee drinkers prefer coffees out of a French Press, or whatever. At the end of the day, you would have spent a lot of energy trying to discredit a brewing device which we all know is capable of producing delicious coffee . Hollow victory if you ask me.



At the end of the day, Chemexes and Melittas do a great job at simplifying the task of hand-brewing small amounts of coffee, which is why they have become popular recently. A barista handcrafting a Chemex in full view of a coffee lover has so many advantages over a machine, no matter how sophisticated, brewing coffee in a "black box" environment, where the only interaction is with the brewed cup. James Hoffmann and others are working diligently on developing and popularizing good techniques to really master the complex art of brewing coffee this way.



I always enjoy sitting around drinking delicious coffee while others prove to me that it isn't, in fact, delicious. I always try to drink it all before they stop talking. More for me.



ALL THAT SAID: I have only recently gotten good at cone-extractions; I have found my Chemex, Bodum Kona, and Beehouse Dripper sometimes difficult to get great coffee out of. However, a little focus has helped me tremendously; mostly I have used cooler water to great effect. Stirring coarse grinds and leaving finer grinds unstirred have both helped too. I had an astonishingly good cup of Peruvian farmer Ariel Pajoy's coffee using a paper filter in a Bodum Kona and a slow pour from a lipped beaker.



Peter G