How Chemex Is Brewed - Nicole VanPutten

Once, a very long time ago I was naive enough to believe that a Keurig Brewer made delicious coffee. I was young. As time progressed and I discovered that coffee was more than just a blight on the environment and watery coffee, I learned how to use a french press, which was adequate, but, quite frankly as annoying as Hell. After a tremendous amount of coffee type research I was introduced to the Chemex and my coffee has only been improving. Let me teach you how. First you will need supplies. As you know, I am incredibly picky about products, so what I use to make my coffee is as follows:

Chemex Hand Blown Glass Water Kettle
Chemex Wire Grid – If you have an electric stove you need this
Chemex Glass Handle 6 Cup Coffeemaker
Chemex Filters – Pre-Folded Squares
Coffee beans – I like Water Street decaf
Coffee Grinder – My Capresso $20 grinder works like a champ
Coffee Cup – Thermos Travel Mug will keep my coffee hot for 9 full hours

Let me start by saying this is how I brew my coffee. Chemex has a cult following and there are people who take their coffee very seriously with scales, and timed pours and thermometers, but I’m more specifically interested in drinking tasty coffee moderately quick. I save my thermometer for something really serious, like making marshmallows. The first thing you will want to do is put your kettle on. Now, take a filter, which is square, and stick your finger into the corner so that you have one layer on one side of your hand and the remaining three layers on the other. Making the filter form a cone, place it in the Chemex. If your Chemex is small, like mine, fold over the excess filter. Here is the folded filter. At this point your water should be hot enough to both warm your Chemex and rinse your filter. There really is no science to this. Simply take hot water from your kettle and pour it over your empty filter. The water will run down into the Chemex and warm up the glass. Don’t forget to empty the Chemex. After you have rinsed your filter and your kettle is back on your stove, it’s time to tend to your coffee. I prefer a medium to mild cup of coffee so I use four to five tablespoons of beans. I add coffee beans to my grinder and then I commence grinding. I believe 20 seconds is not long enough. Not finished yet. Twenty five to thirty seconds is the perfect amount of time. Unfortunately if you over grind your beans you will have a disaster and your coffee will not brew. If you under grind your coffee beans you will be drinking coffee flavored water. Add your perfectly ground coffee to your rinsed filter and by this time your water should be just nearing the exact right almost boiling temperature. Please don’t get out a thermometer. Just watch the water and if it’s almost boiling then it’s the exact right temperature. All you need to do is pour your extremely hot water over your impeccably ground coffee and let Chemex do all the heavy lifting. As the hot water filters through the beans keep replacing it with more hot water until you have a Chemex of coffee. Take the filter and used ground coffee and either throw it in the trash or in your environmentally friendly compost bin. Pour the hot coffee in your cup and enjoy one of the most amazingly enjoyable cups of coffee Keurig will never dream of brewing.