In the spirit of experimentation, I've started to toy with my Chemex settings. After re-reading Rao's spirited questioning of the standard operating procedure regarding Chemex brewing, I figured I would shake up my ways a bit.

I figure I'll try a number of different changes, recording those changes
and the resulting brew. Today, the only change I'll make from my usual
is that I will pull the filter when the resulting brew looks watery,
light, or unappealing - similar to ending a shot of espresso once
blonding appears. I anticipate this will occur at or around 3:45 of the
brew time.

Other parameters:


Coffee: New Harvest's El Salvador Las Ranas
Throw: 55g to 750 ml, admittedly a slight updose from 60g/L, and I don't know what the actual final volume will be.
Grind: "31" on my trusty Maestro
Pour: 50ml prewet, @:30 spiral pour to 200ml, stir, @ 1:00 spiral pour to
350ml, stir, @ 2:00 spiral pour to 500ml, stir, @ 3:00 spiral pour to
750, stir. Pull when resulting brew seems unpleasant.
Temp: I do my best to keep the water in the boiling vessel over 200F, though
without a Fluke and some kind of wire probe, I have no way to
accurately measure the temperature of the slurry. I do the multiple
small pour method specifically to keep the temp in the brewing vessel
as high as I can, though I can't verify that this is the case.

RESULTS: Pulled the filter @ 3:50, yielding a final brew volume of 576ml, thus
the final brew ratio was 55g/576ml, or 95g/L - an updose by anyone's
standard, and quite frankly borderline wasteful. In any case, my only
means of measurement is the ol' human tongue (imprecise at best!), and
until I can get my hands on an ExtractMojo, that will have to do;
luckily, most of our customers are similarly equipped!

The tasting notes on the bag (of New Harvest Las Ranas) are honey,
tangerine and clove. The front of the cup has a very pleasing acidity,
with more body than I would have expected from a Chemex brew (probably
attributable to the massive updose from pulling the filter early). I
find the citrus mostly in that first burst, slowly fading into a light
honey peak - at this dose, the body even FEELS like honey, which is
pretty awesome, with the whole experience winding down into quiet
herbal finishing notes. Again, probably due to the updose, the tasting
experience is quite a bit longer than I would have expected.

CONCLUSION: This cup is a very nice cup. I would be very pleased to be
served this in a cafe, and flabbergasted to get it at a restaurant. I
think that my next brew I will reduce the dosage slightly, and perhaps
tighten the grind, in order to reduce the sheer amount of coffee I'm
using (95g/L, sheesh!).

(simultaneously posted on cedetocup.blogspot.com)