🌱 Coffee: Max Good, Min Effort

My Coffee Setup

My wife and I love coffee — and we drink a lot of it. So we want it to be good, while still not being too much of a hassle to make every day. And this post is me highlighting the equipment we use, and the process.

If you only want one-ish cup (and why I don’t like capsule machines)

When I say that we drink a lot of coffee, I mean that we drink coffee made of 0.75-1 litres of water/45-60 grams of beans. So it’s pretty obvious why something like a Nespresso capsule machine isn’t a viable option.

But other reasons I don’t like it, is that the coffee tastes much, much worse than alternatives, it can get expensive, and how much waste it creates. (For some info on environmental impact, check this video and this video.) In my book, capsules are Min Good, Min Effort.

I think capsule machines can be a viable option if you personally don’t drink coffee, but you want to have something to serve guests now and then (and you have room in your kitchen). But if you only want about one or two great cups of coffee for yourself, I’d either go for the quite quick AeroPress, or a more ritualistic pour-over, like a V60.

We sometimes make a pour-over — but most of the time, we use a (pretty) regular coffee-maker. ¹ But they’re not all created equal.

What you need to make great coffee

0) Good water

I almost forgot this because in Norway, we are very lucky to have great water on tap. But depending on where you live, this might be an issue.

1) Coffee (duh)

Nothing matters more than the coffee you buy. As you’ve probably guessed, as I’ve linked to three of his videos already, I like James Hoffmann. So I’ll let him explain how to pick out good coffee.

But what’s relevant here, is that you “need” to buy fresh, whole beans.

2) A good place to store them

As you’re dealing with fresh produce (kind of), you require a good place to store them. Many bags are good at this, as long as you can get them tight, but there are also plenty of canisters available. ²

I use the Fellow Atoms 🖇️. Coffee doesn’t love sunlight, so it’s not optimal — but I just love the look of coffee! I like to put the label on it as well, to remember what we have at the moment.

3) Scales

You also need to know how much of it to use. Some people seem to have the impression that weighing coffee is complicated — but I vehemently disagree. The coffee-makers I’m going to recommend have water containers like this:

OK, so when I have this much water, I need 45 grams of coffee beans. That’s just so much simpler than the guesswork involved with spoons (of different sizes).

I’m pleased with my Timemore scale 🖇️ (I have the 1.0, though). It’s accurate to .1 grams, has a timer function, and charges via USB-C. But a regular kitchen scale (even if it’s only accurate to 1 gram) is perfectly fine.

4) Grinder

The obvious downside of buying whole beans, is that you have to grind them yourself. However, a good thing about this (in addition to whole beans not going stale, like pre-ground ones), is that you can adapt the coarseness to preference. For my coffee-maker, you should always use 45 grams of coffee to 0.75 litres of water. But if you want it a bit stronger, you can just grind it a bit finer.

So you want a grinder where you can change the grind setting. A great starting-point, is the Wilfa Smart.

We had that previously — but for our wedding we got an upgrade, with the Fellow Ode Gen 2 🖇️.

But this is where I’d love some feedback from any coffee nerds out there: Because every review of the Ode Gen 2 I’ve read, has praised it for not producing much static when you grind. However, I think it does produce quite a lot of static — and I don’t think it grinds that uniformly… What gives?

So, while I’m not totally happy with my Ode grinder, it does have great reviews (from reputable reviewers).

4.5) A tiny spray-bottle

One thing that helps with the static (that almost all grinders produce), is to give the beans a tiny spray of water before you grind them. And to make that easier, you can buy a little bottle to keep on your counter.

5) Coffee-maker

There are a couple of reasons why Wilfa is a great brand to look at for a coffee-maker.

Good temperature control

The Norwegian brand, Wilfa, has co-operated with the (also Norwegian) coffee guru Tim Wendelboe when designing their coffee-makers. So it’s not surprising that they do the basics well.

Removable water tank

Most people use the carafe (the coffee gets brewed into) to fill up the water tank — but there are some good reasons for this not being the best design:

• The tank is usually the place where the measurement lines are — so if you bring that to the sink, instead of the carafe, you don’t have to go back with the excess water.
• The carafe gets dirty — and you don’t want the clean water to become less clean.

Variable drip size

Ideally, you’d want a different size of drip for different amounts of coffee — and most Wilfa models have this option.

So this one you just set to the amount of water you’ve used. (However, because of space constraints, we recently moved from a Wilfa Svart Precision to a Wilfa Performance Compact, which has an automatic drip stop (with only one size) instead of.)

Looks good

This is subjective, of course!

There are other coffee-makers that fit these criteria, of course. (For instance, Fellow is making one that looks interesting.) But Wilfa is a good place to start!

6) Thermal carafe

Coffee being very hot makes it taste less. If you’re drinking bad coffee (like the one from a gas station machine), this is very beneficial: When the coffee gets told, it becomes a bitter nightmare. However, if the coffee is good, it still tastes good when colder. This coffee might actually taste too little while at its hottest — so many prefer it to cool down a bit before drinking.

So the optimal thing, if you’re drinking as much coffee as we do, would be to make several batches, and have them cool down to the perfect temperature every time. But if you can’t be bothered with that, here’s my advice:

• If you want your coffee to preserve its heat (even though the coffee snobs are right in that pursuit not being optimal), putting it into a thermal container is better than keeping it on a hot-plate.
• Furthermore, use small cups. That way you can pour a cup, and be able to drink it at your preferred temperature. With larger cups, I usually find that the first sips are too hot and the latest too cold.

We have this carafe from Hario. I like it because you can brew V60 into it, it looks good, and is great to pour from. However, it’s not the best at keeping the heat. So when we need more heat-retention, we use a Hydro Flask.

Some coffee-makers come with a thermal carafe. This can be practical if you always use one — but you get less choice in looks and size, and you can’t not use one as easily.

Our process

1) Weigh the coffee

2) Give the coffee a spray

3) Grind the coffee

(Oops, not sure what happened to the focus here! Got to take another image of this…)

4) Fill the water tank

5) Rinse the filter paper

6) Pour in the coffee

I’m not sure if this is poor uniformity from the Ode of not…

7) Brew (and wait)

8) Pour the coffee on a thermal carafe

9) Put some water in the coffee-maker’s carafe

To sum it up:

• Buy good beans,
• that you grind at home
• (perhaps with a spray of water)
• after you’ve weighed them out.
• Use a good coffee-maker
• with a removable water tank,
• that you rinse the filter of,
• and leave a bit of water in after use.

And if you want to drink your coffee over a period of time,

• put the coffee in a thermal carafe (instead of leaving it on a hot-plate),
• and use small cups to get a larger portion of your total coffee drinking at your preferred temperature.