How To Brew The Best Coffee Without A Weighing Scale, Thermometer, Brewing Kettle & Grinder
It's true that you'll need proper coffee brewing tools to brew the best cuppa. But sometimes while travelling or brewing coffee outdoor, you simply don't have all the brewing tools with you.
Fret not, you can still make the best coffee without proper tools. Here's a couple of tips & tricks to make the best cuppa. Let's dive in!
Do you need a scale to brew delicious coffee? Not really!
How to brew the best coffee without a scale
If you love brewing coffee outdoor during camping or picnic like us, you probably thought it’s better not to bring the expensive coffee scale everywhere you go 😅
The coffee scale is not designed for travelling. You simply don’t want to risk your coffee scale going damaged 😢
Make sure you know the max load of your grinder
But no worries, you can still brew delicious coffee without a coffee scale! Here are a few tips for that
1. First, measure how many coffee beans can your coffee grinder fill in. Ours is 20g, just nice for a single cup!
2. Measure how much water can your coffee mug fill. Our Blaq Cup fills to 300ml at the top handle. Just nice for a 20g brew 🤩
3. If you are brewing 2 or more cups, it’s best to use a bigger server with the measurement! There you can brew more coffee and measure the total water pour in.
The best part about filter coffee is it’s very forgiving with a plus-minus of 10-20ml. After all, coffee tastes way better with beautiful views 🏞
Don't forget to make use of the marking on the coffee server
No thermometer? No worries!
How to brew the best coffee without a thermometer? 🌡
Getting the right brewing temperature is one of the most important aspects to brew the best cup of coffee, different roast levels of coffee need different brewing temperatures!
But not everyone has a thermometer at home or if you are brewing outdoor, it can be dangerous to bring it out! Here are a few tips to get it right if you don’t have a thermometer 😉
We never use a thermometer to brew coffee at home or anywhere
If you are brewing light right or medium roast coffee, always prep your brewer and grind your beans after the water boils!
It usually takes 3-5 mins (depending on the amount of water in the kettle) for the water temperature to drop from 100ºc to 95ºc.
Within that 3-5 mins, you can take your time to prep up brewers, weight beans & grind them at the very last minute right before you brew it. The brewing temperature will be just nice on 93-95ºc once everything is done. 😎
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Grind your beans right before brewing for the most intense aromatics cuppa
Also, your coffee will have the maximum aromatics because the beans are grind and brewed immediately, especially if you are brewing a few weeks old beans where beans are completely degassed & well rested.
For brewing with a dark roast that’s best below 90ºc, you can just wait a little longer to 7-10 minutes after the water boils. ⏱
If you wanna speed it up, just add a dash of water into the kettle will do! 💧
It doesn’t matter if you add a little too much water. After all, it’s best to brew at a lower temperature to avoid bitterness from over-extracting dark roast coffee 😯
Of course, if you wanna save all the hassle, a temperature control kettle like the Fellow EKG kettle will sort out all the problems.
Gooseneck kettle makes pouring real easy
How to make pour-over coffee without a goosekettle? 🧐
No doubt that it’s much easier to pour with a nice gooseneck spout kettle for V60 brewing. But what if you don’t have one (while travelling etc)? Here are a couple of tips to pour with a big water kettle 😉
First thing first, only boil the amount of water just nice for your brew.
Boiling too much water in a kettle makes it very difficult to control the flow, you’ll easily pour a gust of water due to huge pressure in the kettle ⚠️
If you are brewing 300ml, boil about 400ml water will be perfect. Just nice to wet filter paper and preheat your dripper & mug 😎
Second, always pour in a small amount of water in every pour and pour more frequently. Ideally, 30-50ml each pour and pour 6-7 times in total.
It’s very difficult (almost impossible) to pour in a thin flow with a big kettle. Pouring too much water at once & less frequency (4 pours below) cut short the brewing time. This may cause under extraction, especially for lighter roast coffees.
By pouring 6-7 times in smaller quantities, you’ll easily maintain the ideal brew time of 2-3 mins (20g ground coffee) for the V60 dripper 🤗 Also, make sure you wait for all the coffee to flow down into server before the next pour!
Third, always start pouring at the centre! The water flow from the big kettle is pretty strong and this will flush away the grounds that remain at bottom of the cone.
This prevents continuous over-extracting of the grounds that leaves a hint of bitterness on the aftertaste. Also, it gives a much even extraction and results in a much sweeter cup this way!
Lastly, don’t forget to only start grinding your beans and prep your brewer after the water is boiled. The 5 minute prepping time will be perfect for water temperature to drop from 100c to 95c, the perfect temperature for light & medium roast coffee!
Finally, how to brew delicious coffee without a coffee grinder.
Unfortunately, there is no way that your coffee will taste great if you don't grind your beans right before brewing.
Like cut apple, ground coffee goes stale within minutes and the beautiful aromatics are lost due to oxidation.
If you purchase a bag of beans & ask the barista to grind for you, the whole bag of ground coffee will go stale the moment you open it at home. Say bye bye to beautiful coffee aromatics.
To counter that, we have the Ground Pack to best preserve the ground coffee aromatics & flavours!
Grind your beans right before brewing is the best method of all
The Ground Packs are packed with our proprietary method into single serve sachet, this process eliminates the oxygen content in the packaging and keeps deliciousness for a much longer time, up to 6-8 months after packing!
Although it's not as perfect as freshly ground coffee, it's a way better solution to grinding a whole bag of beans!
The Ground Pack is perfect for any short trips & vacations, or even the best emergency coffee that you can keep in cupboard. In case you run out of beans at home!
There you have it! Hope these tips help to make the best coffee whenever you travel. Happy brewing ☕️
