# Home brewing problems



## 1st_crack (Oct 18, 2010)

Hi all,

This is my first time on coffee forums and am in need of some help with my home setup.

Currently I have:

- Everpure Claris small water filter

- Porlex hand grinder

- kettle

- v60, aeropress, chemex, syphon, french press.

My problem is in the final cup of all of my brews. I sometimes get nice flavours, light and heavy body depending on coffee, but my problem is the clarity isnt there. There always seems to be a cloudiness in taste, and I have tried the coffee's I use at home in coffee shops in London and have tasted what they can be, and am never able to achieve this at home.

Bit more info about setup:

- Water was tested with a carbonate hardness (KH) kit and is 10ºKH, so by following the guide in the Everpure manual I set the bypass valve to number 5, which took things down to 5ºKH. For the record I have also tested it at numbers 1-4 aswell. The filter is less than 3 months old and hasnt been used enough to be empty.

- Porlex hand grinder gets cleaned once a week so burrs are free from oil and grounds. Grinder is maybe 9 months old.

- kettle gets descaled once every month or so

- beans are from various roasters i.e. Square Mile, Hasbean, PJGourmet

Obviously most people would assume that if I have this setup then it is me that is screwing things up. I have thought about this many times aswell, so have asked for exact brew recipes from Dose in london for certain coffees I tried. Most recently, SQM Kilimanjaro fully washed, which I tried yesterday in the shop and replicated the brew recipe when I got home to get very different results.

At the moment, my way of thinking is that the grinder is producing a lot more fines and therefore tainting the brew. I don't believe the water filter is faulty, as it is still so new and been tested, and I am definately not going to blame the beans as they are from very reputable roasters. That leaves the grinder, the method and me!!!

If anyone has any ideas as to why this setup might not be producing good results then please feel free to post. I don't want to spend any more money on a better grinder just yet until I can get to the bottom of it.

Cheers

Pete


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

Hi Pete and welcome to Coffee Forums UK

What a great first post. Very detailed too.

Porlex grinders are generally very good, but can produce a lot of fines. Try coarsening up the grind a wee bit to see if this works before trying any other variables. This reduces the overall surface area being extracted and may remove some of the muddiness.

Not sure that any other grinder would make much of a difference until the other variables have been discounted.

What temperature are you brewing at?

For Aeropress, Chemex or Pourover have you introduced turbulence (through a stir during the process)?

For comparison, have you considered trying Volvic mineral water? (just to eliminate the water being an issue - but sounds like it shouldn't be)

Hope this gives some food for thought


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## LeeWardle (Nov 16, 2008)

Hi Pete!

Welcome to the forum mate and sorry you are having some trouble. I can be really frustrating can't it!!!?!

It does sound like your grind is a little on the fine side. Also, when you use your French press, using a couple of soup spoons scoop out most of the grounds (which will be all floating at the top) before plunging . This will definatly give you more clarity in your brew.

I havnt used Chemex/aero press yet so can't help with those particular processes! Try a courser grind and let us all know how get on.

Lee

P.S. I'd be really I interested to hear how you get on with the volvic, it's something I have often though of trying.


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## 1st_crack (Oct 18, 2010)

Cheers for your help guys.

So today I took the Claris to my office and plugged it all in to see if for some reason my water supply acted different. It didn't!!! So water filter is doing its job properly.

Glenn - I think my problem with Porlex isn't necessarily courseness of grind, but steep time. I try not to go too fine, but in the process seem to be underextracting a bit too much. I usually brew aeropress at 93-95deg and for chemex/v60 I start with a temp of around 96 in buono kettle as it cools before it hits coffee. With aeropress I stir after adding water, and stir before plunging. For chemex/v60, i stir bloom and also stir on drawdown to aid even extraction.

Lee - havent played with my french press for a while so will try tomorrow to see how things are tasting with that aswell. Its not a brewer that I use alot compared to aeropress/chemex, but sometimes feel in the mood for a FP.

I just came back from Dose where we tried a few things against James' Vario. The first 2 brews were tasting similar to my home brews, for the 3rd we Mojo'd and came up with 16% extraction, which was quite underextracted, but still slightly better taste than what I got at home. Conclusion was to leave grind as it was, and steep coffee for longer.

Back at office now and made another brew, this time leaving for 1 minute steep, and 20sec plunge. Brews are tasting better.

Tried with another coffee, this weeks IMM yirgacheffe. Used similar method, except bumped up to 18g and 1minute steep, and coffee is tasting good.

So in conclusion...a poor trademan always blames his tools!!! It was good to use the Mojo to see how much I was underextracting, so am going to play around with some coffee's over the next week or so and then see if James will be good enough to try with me again and see if I have improved. Otherwise, might even splurge out and get a refractometer to really try and improve myself.

Once again, thanks for your help guys!


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## RolandG (Jul 25, 2010)

Glad to hear it's improving for you. The aeropress is a difficult one to quantify against, because there are so many variations on style and method with it. With the Chemex, which size is it? What masses of grinds and water are you using, and how long are you extracting over? Sounds like you've been very thorough with your variables, so I'd be surprised if temp or water hardness where an issue. Personally, I aim for about 2min 30 with the V60 and about 4 mins with my 1-3 cup chemex (although I like it a little over-extracted relative to the gold cup target, I suspect) (and both of those times include a 30 second bloom time).

P.s. Not really looked into Hardness much, but after some quick research and calculations (wikipedia







) 5 degrees KH should equate to about 90 mg/L of carbonates. My only source of reference as to a good target range is that Scott Rao's two books recommend 70-80mg/L. If I pushed that as far as a conclusion, I'd suggest a hardness of 5 on your water filter should theoretically be on the high end of okay, but I'd be very interested to hear what you thought of it in comparison to higher and lower hardness brews.


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

Thats good to hear Pete

Are you in North London by any chance? If so am happy to swing by and Mojo your results at home and help identify reproducible methods for each brewing type


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## 1st_crack (Oct 18, 2010)

Roland - the chemex is the 3-6 version. I always start with 30g/500ml and go from there in terms of strength. I usually aim for a 3:30-4:00 brew time, with a stir at bloom for 30secs, and a stir after last pour. With V-60 usually between 2:15-2:45.

Glenn - I actually live near Astrora Roasters in Teddington, so opposite sides of the map to you! But thankyou for your kind offer.

I am opening up the thread again as yesterday I was brewing some coffee and a few things struck me. First of all is was using the IMM yirgacheffe from Hasbean which is lovely. I was at Flat Cap Coffee and in the morning and afternoon and I made 2 aeropresses. Both times I used 17g of coffee, ground using my porlex on the same grind setting, and used the method of placing aeropress on cup, add 200g water at 94deg, stir, steep 40secs, stir then plunge for 15-20 secs.

Both times the coffee was amazing, a classic yirgacheffe with light body, lovely lemon and peach notes and great acidity. Now the other day I thought my porlex was the one giving me problems but if this coffee was anything to go by then it clearly is not. The clarity of the coffee was what I had come to expect from Dose.

The difference between that coffee and the one I have just made myself this morning is massive. The only difference in equipment is water and means of heating water. Flat Cap uses a Claris XL (same as Dose espresso, and I believe both have it set to 2 or 3) and take hot water from the machine, whereas I have Claris Small set to 2 (4deg KH) and use a kettle to heat water.

A big thing I noticed this morning was the colour of the bloom as soon as the water hits. My bloom was a deep brown colour, whereas both Dose and Flat Cap were a lighter creamy brown colour, and the colour of the liquid slightly lighter both times aswell. To top it all off, the aroma of the coffee once made was on another level when made with their water/machine setup.

So, the beans are top quality, my grinder seems to be performing well, even my method worked well yesterday which leaves me with the water!!! If there are any people out there that know a lot more about water chemistry than I do then please help me!!!


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## waterboy (Nov 19, 2010)

Hi 1st Crack

Hopefully I can help a bit.

The kH you refer to is actually the alkalinity (AKA temporary hardness) of the water, not the Total Hardness. The Claris works by reducing the alkalinity, therefore reducing the total hardness by a similar amount and the TDS as as well.

It's actually the TDS and Total Hardness that have most effect on the coffee taste, contribution of alkalinity is scale formation on the coffee machine and nuetralising the coffees acidity if too high.

Obviously you've checked the the kH where you are, if you also look at the Total Hardness and TDS (rough figures can be obtained from your water suppliers web site) I might be able to give an indication of how the water quality you can expect from the Claris.


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

Water hardness has been measured, both with a TDS and a refractometer and the baselines noted.

Volvic improved the clarity of the brew marginally and a great session was had adjusting doses, stirs and checking brew temperatures for each drink prepared

We went through a bag of James Gourmet roasted Kenya Karimikui (yum) in both a V60 and Aeropress.

Even some of the slightly under extracted brews were delightful to drink, but once we hit the range the clarity and taste improved

In your experience have you found that some settings on the Claris soften the water too much to get decent extractions?


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## KopiLuwak (Nov 4, 2010)

hi pete,

you may have to ask a professional to help you out with your home brewing problems. you need to fix it in person with the professional so you won't have to do it yourself again. practice makes perfect they say. good luck!


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## waterboy (Nov 19, 2010)

Hi Glenn,

I ought to get my personal interests out of the way first which is that I'm Sales Manager for Everpure. In a prior life. though, I've got over 20 years experience in the professional coffee business so I'd like to think I understand a little about the machines and beans as well as the water.

The Claris is designed to be tuned to the water you get out of the tap, allowing you to get out water which is fairly close to what you want. It does this by reducing the Alkalinity (temporary hardness) and is this is major constituent of Total Hardness and TDS will reduce thos as well.

Typical tap water in London is around 400ppm TDS, 320 Total Hardness and 260ppm Alkalinity, which in itself would give an under extracted brew with the alkalinity counteracting the coffees natural acidity and the high TDS adding a flavour all of its own - it will also scale equipment very quickly - but is sfae to drink !!!!!

Even if set to minimum bypass "0" the Claris is designed not to remove all Alkalinity, and at this setting you'd expect to get with our example water something in the region of 155ppm TDS, 75ppm Total Hardness and 15ppm Alkalinity. Whilst the TDS and Total Hardness are about's perfect for coffee, some people might consider the Alkalinity to be a shade to low, but I doubt it would be really noticable. The water in this state will also be unlikely to cause a scale build up.

For 1st Crack with slightly soft water, I would think a setting of 2 would probably be somewhere abouts right, but this is a total guess not knowing the Total Hardness and TDS of the tap water.

For the professional operator this water would not give them the life of filter they require so most would go for a comromise on filter life and water quality. For the Home Barista though, you'd still get 640 litres of excellent quality water which would be a big saving over the Volvic.

Hope this helps a bit unravel the mystery that is given to water.

Nigel


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

Great post thanks Nigel and great to have you onboard also

Many people may not know about Everpure, but a good deal are exposed to the brand through your generous sponsorship of regional/country and world barista competitions.

I'd welcome a few words about what you do and how your products are used commercially as well.

As water is 98.x % of the beverage we consume its important that we understand as much about this subject as possible, and I'm sure we'll all benefit from your experience.

Thanks again for your helpful post (and disclosure)


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## 1st_crack (Oct 18, 2010)

Hi all,

thanks for your info Nigel, I am going to run a few tests this weekend with a TDS meter and a KH and GH test kit, write all the fugures down from my house and also my work where I have been testing things, and write back on Monday or Tuesday.

Cheers

Pete


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## 1st_crack (Oct 18, 2010)

Right...

So I have tested the water at my home and office using a HM Digital TDS-3, Sera Test KH solution and also Tetra GH solution (which I assume is total hardness?).

Home

Tap: 320ppm TDS - 10deg KH - 14deg GH

Claris bypass 0: 180-190 TDS - 1deg KH - 1deg GH

Work

Tap: 343ppm TDS - 10deg KH - 14deg GH

Claris bypass 0 - 190ppm TDS - 1deg KH - 1deg GH

Straight away the figures have varied quite a lot from what Nigel said could be expected from water of a harder quality, mainly the TDS doesn't seem to be lowered as much. As you can see my water and work and also at home is very similar, so one would asume I get similar brews. I started testing this week with a Hasbean Costa Rican and also Square Mile Mauritania.

Starting with my work setup, both brews were made using aeropress and chemex, and were tasting fantastic. Good aroma, nice clarity and pronounced flavours and was very happy with the results (although didn't use refractometer brews tasted great)

Repeated the exact same profiles at my home using the same grinder, beans and softened water but the same thing occured as before. Aroma has been softened, clarity of flavour is clouded and flavours become muddled.

Is there any other tests I can perform to find out why the water at my home seems to be tainting my brews, as this is very frustrating!!!


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## waterboy (Nov 19, 2010)

Hi pete,

Apologies for not answeruing sooner, but I've been travelling extensively and kept away from a computer over christmas.

The TDS isn't a milion miles away from the theoretical softened figure - and water doesn't often do things by the book, so that is not an issue. What confuses me though is the kH drops from 10 -

The only other test worthwhile doing is pH, you need to be between 6.5 and 7.5.

Other than rechecking the test results and pH my only other comment is that the water is probably a bit soft for ,ideal is between 1 and 6 dH (Total). so you may be over extracting.

It would be worth trying the bypass at a different setting, 2 (or 1) and see if that affects the quality.

Regards

Nigel


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