Brew a great cup of coffee with the immensely popular Chemex!

Just to get one thing straight, the answer is yes – the Chemex is extremely precise and somewhat labour intensive. But given the fact that it is still immensely popular after close to 80 years since its inception…well, what else needs to be said about the results Chemex can deliver?

To get it right, you are going to need the freshest coffee of the highest quality, purified water and an accurate scale for measuring each step of the process. If you already have the gear you require, simply proceed in accordance with the following steps and find out what all the fuss is about for yourself:

1. First of all, you are going to need to put your filter on the top of the Chemex, with one layer against the handle side and three layers against the spout.
2. Once the filter is in place, it should be rinsed thoroughly with hot water. This ensures that no paper filaments are left behind, while at the same time gently heating the glass.
3. Empty the hot water from the Chemex, leading the filter in place as you do so.
4. Take approximately 38g of freshly ground coffee and place it in the bottom of the filter. Agitate it gently to ensure that it is as even as possible when it settles.
5. Heat the water you intend to brew the coffee with to as close to the 200° F mark as possible.
6. Here’s where things get a little more precise, as you need to gently pour around 75g of water into the coffee, using a circular motion and ensuring that the pour doesn’t take any longer than 15 seconds.
7. When the timer reaches 45 seconds on the dot, you will then need to use the same circular action to gently pour more water over the coffee until the weight reaches 350g.
8. Leave it once again, before waiting until 2 minutes and 30 seconds have passed in total. At which time you will need to use the same gentle circular motion to pour additional water into the coffee, until it reaches a total of 600g.
9. At this point, it is simply a case of waiting for your Chemex to finish doing its job, which from start to finish should have taken somewhere in the region of 4 minutes. By which time you are free to remove the filter and pour the coffee into the container or mugs of your choosing.

One important point to note – if when using the Chemex method you find that everything is finished closer to the 3-minute mark, this probably means that your grind was too coarse. Conversely, if things pan out significantly slower than expected, your grounds may have been too fine.

So as always, there is a degree of experimentation to it all, before finally hitting the nail on the head. That said, if you are perfectly satisfied with the results, stick with whatever Chemex method works for you!

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