There is a growing trend among coffee drinkers to move away from macoffeechine blended brews and to opt for manual coffee brewing at home, to get that just ground, just made flavour which can’t be beaten.
But what’s the best way to manually brew coffee at home? There are many methods which can be used safely in your own kitchen so here is our summary of the top ways to brew your own coffee without costing the earth.
The Drip Method
This is the oldest and probably the most popular and easiest way to make fresh coffee at home. You simply pour hot water, over the coffee in a paper filter. The coffee then drips through the paper into the cup below.
This is how electric coffee pots work, however, you can also do it manually using a coffee cone and there are many different brands which make these – they are generally plastic, ceramic, steel or glass.
It’s an easy method to use but does require paper filters and will only allow you to make one cup of coffee at a time.
The Pour Over Method
This is a similar method to the drip over, as the hot water is again poured over the coffee in a thicker paper filter this time, which holds more coffee. The resulting drink is captured in a flask rather than a coffee cup, allowing you to brew more than one cup at a time.
It will take a little longer to brew and will require regular cleaning every time you make coffee, as well as replacement filter papers. It is also a fairly fragile coffee maker as the flask is generally glass, but it does make it easier to transport the coffee to your guests.
The coffee plunger
This is one of the easiest ways to brew consistent coffee. You need a coffee press pot which sees the coffee soaked and then strained in the hot water. This helps preserve the purest coffee flavours and is great for coffee lovers who value the flavour.
You simply add the coffee into the pot with the water, leave for a few minutes and then press the plunger down which filters all of the grounds out of the water, leaving you with a perfect cup of coffee ready to pour.
They also come in a variety of sizes so you can make one cup for yourself or you can make a larger pot and serve several people. These pots are also designed to be portable so you can make the coffee in the kitchen and then transport easily into the dining room to serve.
Stove top coffee pot
These date back to the 1930s, and involve sitting a steel coffee pot on top of a heat source, to boil the water. When the steam pressure from the boiled water passes through the coffee grounds in the middle section, the result is brewed coffee sitting in the top section of the pot.
These create a great very strong coffee flavour and remove the need for paper filters but do have to be constantly watched as you have to sit them on a gas ring on the oven to work. They also only produce one cup of coffee at a time. They are very portable but do tend to produce an espresso-style coffee shot.
A siphon coffee maker
This is a very fancy and fiddly type of coffee maker but it’s a fun one to impress friends at a party if you want to. It was developed in the 1840s. The coffee grounds are put into the upper level and heat is applied. The heat pressure forces hot water upwards to mix with the coffee.
Once it is removed from the heat, the brewed coffee is pulled through a filter by gravity, into the bottom level and is then ready to drink. It produces a mellow light flavour of coffee and can produce several cups at a time.
It is a fiddly machine to then keep clean and it is not portable. You also need a burner or heater to keep it hot, and a filter for inside which can cost extra so it’s really not the most practical way to brew great coffee at home.
There are many novelty ways to make coffee at home but it’s really a case of trial and error to see which method produces the flavour and taste of coffee that you prefer. It can be a case of trying out different types of coffee with different brewing methods until you come across the combination that is perfect for you.
Whether you want a quick and easy way to brew a cup for yourself or a way to impress guests at a party, home coffee brewing is here to stay.