My Clever Review
From From http://billykangas.blogspot.com
This week I finally got my hands on the Clever Coffee Dripper. Sweet Maria's has been going gaga over this thing. Nick Cho (of Murky Fame) is also apparently using the brewer.
This week I finally got my hands on the Clever Coffee Dripper. Sweet Maria's has been going gaga over this thing. Nick Cho (of Murky Fame) is also apparently using the brewer.So what's the big deal?
Well take a look at the picture to the right...
Do you notice anything "wrong"?
If you said the coffee should be pouring all over the counter you're right! The Clever is a neat little device that steeps the coffee until you place the whole dripper on a cup. The cup triggers a valve to open allowing the coffee to pour into the cup.
In theory it should have many of the benefits of french press coffee with a much cleaner cup! Does that make sense?
Ok I'll explain
The coffee steeps like a french press (coffee sits in hot water), and then is drained through a fine paper filter which will get all the silt and stuff!
In Practice: Yesterday we (Jim Saborio and I) brewed up some Kenya Kiambu Ndumberi Peaberry with the clever.
1)We pre-wet the filter in the clever
2) We ground 20g of coffee at a very course setting... near french press and added it to the filter
3) We poured 12oz of hot water over the grounds
4) We covered the filter with a plate (this step helps quite a bit) to keep in heat and stuff
5) We let it sit for 2 minute then fold coffee
6) we let coffee sit for another minute and a half (3:30 minutes of steeping total)
7) we put the dripper on a mug and let the coffee drain out (to stop flow you can just take the dripper back off! neato)
In the cup
I got a ton of lemon tones (expected) and tomato tones (not expected) and not too many other bright tones (I was looking forward to the strawberry and other berry tones it's "supposed to have")
The brightness seems muted and the coffee doesn't have a ton of body
For some reason the citric acid is coming through strongly, but the phosphoric acids which are notorious in Kenyans aren't coming through at all...
If anyone knows the answer to this riddle let me know!
All in all a fun toy, but I don't understand the hype yet... perhaps in time I will get all the parameters right!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bryan Wray on
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Did you have a control for the experiment? The fact that tomato was coming through tells me something went wrong in the roasting, not in the brewing. Try it with a coffee you know better, or try it against a Chemex and a press and see how everything compares.
-bry
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Permalink Reply by Billy Kangas on
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It'll definitively take some more work to understand...
Bryan Wray said:Did you have a control for the experiment? The fact that tomato was coming through tells me something went wrong in the roasting, not in the brewing. Try it with a coffee you know better, or try it against a Chemex and a press and see how everything compares.
-bry
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Permalink Reply by Nick Cho on
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Questions and some tips:
1) how coarse? you should play with different grind sizes around the coarse range.
2) for 12 oz of water, you should be at between 21 and 24/25 grams
3) If the coffee is fresh (within 4-5 days off roast), add about an ounce or 1.5z of water at the beginning for about 20 seconds before adding ALL the water.
4) how's your water temp? those Kenyan qualities you're looking for really want good-temp (~200*F) water to wake up.
5) Use a scale! One of the great things about using a scale for coffee water is that at 200*F, 1.0 oz of water by weight = 1.0 fl.oz.
6) Fill up the pouring pitcher high. Don't portion out just the water you wanna use, cuz it'll cool down much faster. Pour it slowly and move it around to get some good turbulence going evenly throughout the coffee bed.
7) Do the phosphoric acid qualities come through from that coffee with other brewing techniques right now? Tomato is TOTALLY a Kenya/SL28-quality!
8) We've been starting the 'dump' at the 2:30 mark, with a target of 3:30 to pull the dripper off the cup.
That's been badass for us. Granted, we could play with more variables, but it works for us! Good luck!
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Thanks Nick,
Jim has played around with the coffee a whole lot more I'll invite him into the fray...
SL-28s have been a curiosity of mine for a while do you know any good resources on them?
Nick Cho said:That's been badass for us. Granted, we could play with more variables, but it works for us! Good luck!
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Permalink Reply by JIm Saborio on
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Billy, these are as much of a novelty to you as they are to us.
We just got these brewers last week. I've probably used them less than four times. When Comet has *embarrassed* a bit more coffee on-hand, the staff and I will run it through the wringer. Initial results seem much more promising than with the v-60 cone, which frankly seems like an absurdo super-under-extraction device to me.
We have been fond of the aforementioned Kenyan offering from Ritual... a strawberry cream-cheesy fruitiness when iced. This cup seems to be more about fruit than tomatoes (well, they are technically fruits, but...). The cup we brewed was not quite right. Mr. Cho's assessment seems dead-on.
I like these brewers as a retail item because
a) they are extremely affordable and require few accessories
b) the paper filter makes it more friendly to folks with blade grinders
c) they are easy to use and understand even if you aren't Scott Rao
If I feel they do a more flavorful and consistent job than the beehouse cones, we'll have a sale on used porcelain drippers.
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Permalink Reply by Rich Westerfield on
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Anything new to report on this?
We've been using Abids since June and they've caught on quite well. We wet the filters (white #4 - haven't noticed significant difference between Filtropa/Melitta/generic cheap brand) and use 22.4g grounds (on a Bunn, halfway between "Electric Perk" and "Press") for 12oz H2O. Our steep is 90 seconds and it's about a 45 second drain into the cup. We serve in 10.5 oz ACF cups, so the last bit is for us.
And it was Scott Rao who turned us onto them. Had a great - and long - discussion with Scott back in February. We got our hands on one, started experimenting, then ordered a few for the bar. Much easier to train on Abids than on a pourover station and we think the quality is as good or better and the consistency is way better. Soon we'll be selling them retail ourselves. Can't beat the price for a nifty home brewer.
Fwiw, Customers who've had many of the coffees we offer brewed on a Clover compare the cups favorably.
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