dfk41 Can I ask my learned friends a question? Do you think the way the water is distributed onto the grinds is a red herring or is it a potential game changer for batch brewed coffee?
It totally depends on the design of the cone.
A circular dispersion pattern works well with a flat bottomed brew cone, maybe OK with truncated V cones with 3 holes.
But for truncated V cones like Melitta style with few holes (1-2), or V60, then a more centered stream works well.
My reasoning here is based on my experience with the Aromaboy (centrered delivery) with the supplied cone and with V60, or Fellow Stagg X. The Stagg X is a flat bottomed brewer, but with the paper in the base of the brewer, the bed is pushed more to the centre and the Aromaboy’s centered stream works well with this, the Melitta cone and the V60.
Switching the cones out to Hario Pegasus, Kalita Uno 3 hole, or Kalita 185 & 155 (flat like the Stagg X but more sloped at the sides allowing the coffee bed to spread out more) doesn’t work so well. The area at the top of the bed is larger, I don’t think that wetting and evenness flow is as good as with the smaller bed areas. When I say, ’doesn’t work so well’, I don’t mean that extractions change, I mean the coffee produced generally tastes worse at the same extraction.
Similarly, I have an OXO pour over brewer, which comes with its own circular pattern dispersion screen/water reservoir. Really hard to get a good brew with this and V60, quite hard to get good brews with the supplied OXO cone (Melitta style 1 hole), best brews by far with Kalita 185, with a bigger bed surface area that better matches the dispersion pattern.
For some reason I have yet to work out, my girlfriend procured a Smeg filter brewer (looks like Yuri Gagaryn’s bash hat). It takes a regular Melitta #4 style filter, but has a more circular dispersal head. It is one of the hardest brewers I have ever tried to use. Good brews seem more luck than judgement.
I would say that I would try to mate the dispersion screen with a comparable/similar bed shape.
The device you link to on E-bay is a bit like the Hario Drip Assist, I have a couple of these and use them frequently with a goose neck kettle. Does it produce better coffee compared to pouring on the bed (assuming you have a dialed in method)?
No, it doesn’t. It does simplify the the process and remove some ‘pour anxiety’, but I have found that you need to be very specific as to the proportions of brew water you pour in the centre vs the outside (e.g. first 40% in the middle, last 60% in the outer ring, once the dose is well wetted). You still have to work out the pour rate vs grind size, but it can reduce some risk of over agitation when pouring/pouring too aggressively.
I would draw your attention to this completely bizarre sentence in the E-Bay listing: “This coffee drip provide a new way for people to extract coffee stably, instead of realizing the perfect solution.”
I have experimented a whole lot with using an Aeropress, can strainers and collapsible colanders as water distributors for pour over with Chemex & V60, they can help, but typically work best only in the later stages of the brew. You need the agitation and more aggressive wetting of a direct pour (or two) in the early/bloom stages. I was doing this before the Melodrip appeared.
