Trap Coffee Brew Guide: CHEMEX
Refashioned from a German scientist's laboratory, the Chemex brewer perfectly marries Mid-Century Mod sensibilities with sound science. The resulting cup is clean and bright, and it is easily adapted to brewing for a solo cup or a brunch with friends.
Step #1. Prep and preheat
Place the Chemex Filter in the brewer with single fold away from the spout and multiple folds lined up against the spout. Rinse the filter with hot water to get a nice even seal all the way around. This preheats the brewer and gets rid of any paper flavor from the filter. Dump the rinse water and fold the filter toward the spout to reinforce this area.
Step #2. Weigh and grind coffee
Add 21g or about 3 Tablespoons of coffee ground kind of like Kosher salt. Center the coffee in your brewer and zero out the scale. If you do not have a scale Put one rounded tablespoon of ground coffee for every 6 oz of water. cup into the filter cone. Feel free to use more if you prefer it stronger
Step #3. Add the ground coffee into the filter
Evenly distribute ground in the filter. At this point you should have your water tempeture somewhere around 200-205°F, just off the boil.
Step #4. Saturate grounds
Start by pouring your just-off-the-boil water onto the grounds until all the grounds are saturated or until you reach about 2oz.
Fresh coffee contains CO2 gas. This step releases that gas, ensuring more even brewing. It also provides a reliable indicator of the freshness of your coffee: No bubbling bloom when the water is added means that your coffee has already started to lose some of its fresh flavors—time to buy more beans!
Step #5. Add more water
After the 30-second bloom time is up, begin slowly pouring the water in circular passes around the filter bed. This slow, careful infusion is key to thoroughly saturating the grounds and achieving even extraction. Pour with a wiggling motion, then a gentle spiral until the volume reaches about a fingertip down from the top of the rim or 18oz of water. Pour over the dark spots and avoid the light ones.
Step #6. Now we wait... (Jepordy music playing)
Allow the water to filter through the bed of grounds—it should take 1-2 minutes to finish dripping. Gazing longingly at the Chemex is optional. When the brew is finished, you want a flat bed of grounds looking back at you from your filter.
Step #7. Serve and enjoy!
Swirl the Chemex around a little and you’re ready to serve three cups of brewed Trap Coffee.
