Brews / pour overs always interest me. Thanks to the brew gurus, we can consistently manage a sweet and a clean cup. I watched JH’s interesting YT video on the captioned subject last night. Head here, if any one is interested. @MWJB - Have you tried these before? I was wondering what you thought of them? It will be good to hear your views and how you found them vs other pour overs — say V60 and Clever. Thanks!

I can’t make the Tricolate work. Generic, brown liquid comes out, but it’s not what I recognise as coffee. Everything I have read, or watched about it has proven to be untrue (re. ‘no bypass brewing’, being more efficient, etc.). It is expensive, fiddly, faffy clean up, picks up odours & tastes & needs regular, proper cleaning (other drip brewers are OK with a rinse). If anyone has a tested & proven recipe with grind recommendation, I’m all ears. If you have a V60, Kalita, Melitta, Chemex (with V60 papers) or Bartleet pour over, you have as good a brewer as exists. If you want to buy another thing, you might try a V60 02 Drip assist for that, or the Kalita 185. Or, a steel can strainer will work well with any of the above apart from Chemex. But these things won’t allow you to access any previously unknown levels, they will only work as well as good technique maybe a little more forgiving if your pouring is a little erratic.

the comments to this vid sent me off down a rabbit hole as there was mention of an all glass German brewer, the RS16 https://coffee-consulate.com/en/RS-16-Intense-Extraction-GlassFilter/RS-16-Glas

gotters You can’t have optimal flavour and the fats, the fats (lipids) generally carry generic flavours and are counted towards undissolved solids, the coffee flavour carrying compounds are actually dissolved into the brew. Plenty of people like unfiltered coffee, so give it a go if it appeals to you, but it’s very different in concept to the paper filtered brewers previously mentioned.

MWJB If anyone has a tested & proven recipe with grind recommendation, I’m all ears. If you are unable to make it work, we don’t stand a chance! 😆 I think, JH didn’t recommend either of them. The challenge in these brew is both of them introduce ambiguity in the output as coffee powder needs to be absolutely flat. Brewing with a lower dosage is also difficult. This reminds me of the Indian filter, which also rests crucially on correct dosage and right grind size. A lack of either of them can make the cup sour. A dispersion screen (aimed at addressing the puck agitation), which needs to go in after the powder is filled and levelled, results in a very long steep, which is also not ideal if one doesn’t have time at hand. Thanks for your observations!

These brewers sit in a weird space for most people. They don’t tolerate fines in a similar manner to a v60, they are very easy to clog, I think for very light roasts they can be interesting especially with a large flat grinder. Although they can extract very high percentages, I think it doesn’t always equate to a good drink.

@MWJB Another question : Is there anything you do to address fines in brewing? I find it as a bit of a challenge in Clever as my grind size is at the lower end of the espresso range. But, this is hardly an issue for me as it is a long steep; after that, I leave it on the cup to strain for a couple of more minutes. On the V60, I have never faced the fines as an issue as my sweet spot is often on top of the pour over range. In either case, I don’t get any silts. They are always clean and sweet. Please share your experience and guidance. Thx

@MWJB Sorry, more questions than answers. Please tell us how do you use the V60 02 drip assist. I had a seen a video. I would use the inner circle for the first and the last pours and the circular pours the outer circle!

InfamousTuba I haven’t seen any signs of higher, good tasting extractions. At the same brew ratio, pour rate & grind, the Tricolate was at the lower end of extraction. People are grinding finer & brewing with longer ratios, this is what extracts more. They’re also not filtering the readings (something you must do with very fine drip grinds), so they are artifically high.

MWJB Tricolate was at the lower end of extraction Interesting mate! The JH video suggests >=21% extraction compared to The Next Level at 23%. Of course, he mentioned the cup lacked clarity.

LMSC “Is there anything you do to address fines in brewing?” All grinders make fines at all settings, I don’t think about “fines” per se. Set your grinder so the brews extract to a good balance generally, if you get silty cups go a bit coarser and/or agitate less. Grinders are just adjustable in terms of burr gap, all you can do is make it larger, or smaller, you can’t specifically affect fines…even if you had some reason to think they were bad, or could come to some kind of consensus as to what constitutes fines. Focussing on fines is like trying to gauge the size of an elephant’s ears, by staring at its toe nail :-)

Tricolate vs The Next Level

LMSC

DavecUK Why?

Kettle to spoon to coffee bed.

MWJB

LMSC

“On a normal V60 without drip assist, your method always has or had one or two centre pour(s) towards the end. How do you explain this, considering the above quote? 😊”

You can pour down the centre with a slower, more gentle pour with a kettle. Spiral pours are more agitating. I tend to pour in the centre whenever there is standing liquid over the bed, using a gooseneck.

With the Drip Assist the centre has bigger holes for a faster pour rate, the ring has a slower pour rate & the water drips very gently. So in both cases I’m aiming to reduce agitation as the brew progresses.

CoyoteOldMan

For those that don’t have 15 minutes of time to watch the complete version, this is an excellent summary. It covers all the main points really well.

DavecUK

I can’t watch this because he has a funny mustache. I also saw all I needed when I played with @MWJB Tricolate, a solution looking for a problem.

CoyoteOldMan

You don’t know what you are missing, @DavecUK

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