You don't have to spend thousands of dollars on equipment to get home-brewed coffee that rivals the stuff at your favorite cafe. **The right toolkit, however, will prove vital to achieving a truly first-rate brew**. Below, we highlight recommended coffee equipment from James Hoffmann, Ben Kaminksy, and the ChefSteps team.

Some things we list here, like gooseneck kettles, are aimed at optimizing your experience—you can still create killer coffee without them. Others, such as a digital scale and a Burr grinder, are pretty much essential if you want to truly level up your experience. There's simply no way to dial in your recipe without being able to weigh your ingredients and control the size of your grounds. 

But don't cash in the 401K just yet. There are inexpensive models of each that, for coffee-making purposes, will perform just great. Also, considering how much you'll likely save once you start brewing regularly at home, your investment should pay for itself in no time. And then you can go ahead and get that gooseneck kettle.

Coffee Equipment Guide

Quest for the Perfect Cup

Notice this section isn't called "Buying Coffee Grounds." Fact of the matter is, if you want great coffee, you gotta buy whole beans. Pre-ground coffee tends to lose its aroma and character, and can often dry out and become stale on the grocery store shelf. Imagine, mastering the art of perfect home brewing, then extinguishing all that effort with stinky old stale grounds. Sad, right? Remember, too, that bulk-buying is best for stuff like paper products and bars of soap. When it comes to coffee, buy only what you need for a week or two at a time.

Buying Roasted Beans

Making Great Coffee: What You’ll Need

Whether you're sampling wine, cheese, caviar, marshmallows, or coffee, the goal of a controlled tasting is not just to sip and scarf delicious stuff—though that's certainly a perk of the process. Instead, we're looking to do two things: First, **we're zeroing in on preferences**. Do you enjoy the Pinot Noirs from Oregon more than those from Burgundy, France? Do you like that Wisconsin cheddar fresher, or aged as the wizened wise man who lives high on the mount? **Tasting things side-by-side allows us to determine what we like the most**, and identify the qualities that make us like them, so we can go forth and find more things to like. 

Tastings also help us develop an ability to distinguish tastes and aromas, and identify and describe them in an increasingly precise way. But here's where a lot of people get unnecessarily intimidated. If you're just starting to taste coffee, **don't worry whether its more smoky or ashy,** or citrusy in a way that's more like an apple or a lemon. These things come with time—and only if you want them to; **tasting can be quite illuminating even without fastidious description**. Allow yourself, instead, to focus on what's most important: what do you like, and why?

How to Taste

Here it is, your easy guide to sous vide cooking. Juicy pork chops, asparagus with just the right amount of snap, a slow-cooked brisket that bursts with flavor—all these can be achieved easily with the help of this handy little guide. To use it, simply pick the food you’re preparing and the doneness you desire, and you’ll find the time and temperature settings you need to achieve exactly what you want. No more scouring the internet for information; these well-tested numbers are the same we use in our development kitchen. 

One of the things that makes sous vide absurdly convenient is the way it gives us a long window in which to work. A butternut squash will be ready in an hour, for instance, but we can leave it in the water bath for up to three. It’ll take about four and a half hours to cook a decadent prime rib to perfection, but you can leave it in the bath for nine and a half more, and you’ll still have a killer dinner. To help you take advantage of this set-it-and-forget-it convenience, we offer time ranges for tons of different kinds of foods. Use sous vide to serve dinner whenever you’re ready, and you’ll never worry that last-minute schedule changes will ruin the meal.

So stick this chart on the fridge and share it with your friends: this is our guide to preparing all your favorite foods—from juicy pork chops to tender green vegetables—exactly the way you like them.

Learn More: A Wee Lecture Series

Extraction Matters

If you make coffee and it tastes weak, the solution is to add more coffee grounds next time, right? Not so fast. Adding more coffee will strengthen your brew, sure, but most likely it will also taste bitter and harsh. That's because often, the problem isn't the amount of coffee, it's the size of the grounds. If you're working with too-coarse grounds, you won't be able to extract **the great flavors and aromas locked inside each bean** *no matter how much coffee you dump in that filter*. 

As James Hoffmann explained in our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/coffee#/extraction-matters Extraction] video, coffee beans are made up mostly of insoluble wood. 70 percent of the bean has nothing to offer us when it comes to flavor in the cup. Of the remaining 30 percent, the first 15 extracts readily. No matter how coarse your grounds are, you're likely to achieve 15 percent extraction when you brew. But at 15 percent, your coffee won't taste all that great. When your grounds get a little finer, and you extract about 20 percent of the soluble materials in a bean, things improve remarkably—your drink converts into something balanced and full of flavor, with a nice clean finish. When you start to move past that mark, however, things grow murky again. At about 23 percent extraction, coffee will go from smooth and sweet to bitter and unappealing.

Specialty coffee consultants like Ben Kaminsky tend to travel with a refractometer, a device which we imagine must flummox TSA agents but which also allows us to calculate extraction—quite a handy thing when you're refining recipes for cafes and restaurants. But those of us who live outside the bean-bubble rarely have a refractometer on hand, and, to make matters worse, communicating grind size is impossible because every grinder grinds differently and there are no standardized numbers or sizes. With these things in mind, here's a method that will help you achieve great extraction *sans* special gadget, so you can rest assured your morning cup hits the sweet spot every time.

Getting the Good Stuff

Dialing in Your Daily Brew

There’s a lot to love about the French press. It's cheap, space-efficient, and emits a stylish yet easy-going vibe that jives well with a lazy weekend morning. Less loveable: that **slug of sludge you get at the bottom of your cup**, a blight of the brew method that belies the rich, full-bodied brew you just finished sipping. 

This easy technique **fixes that problem**. World Barista Champion [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/contributors--2 James Hoffmann] showed it to us the last time he swung by Seattle, and we haven't looked back since. Hoffmann himself learned it from Norwegian brew-guru Tim Wendelboe, and subsequently converted a good swath of the coffee-nerd community. Now, it's your turn.
 
A couple of quick notes before you brew: First, if you haven’t yet purchased a French press but are in the market, we strongly suggest you **go for [link http://www.amazon.com/Bodum-1928-16-Chambord-Coffee-Press/dp/B00008XEWG/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1408482681&amp;sr=8-5&amp;keywords=french+press&amp;tag=delvkitc-20 glass] over plastic**. Plastic brewers tend to absorb aromas, as well as the soap you clean them with, meaning you’ll only get a truly clean cup of coffee the first time you use them. Also, we demonstrate the technique using a 34-oz French press. For a larger brewer, adjust your coffee amount so that it is equal to 7.5 percent the weight of the water. Then, get ready. Your home-brew world is about to get rocked.

No-Press French Press

As its legions of fans will readily attest, cold-brew coffee—with its **low acidity and rich body**—is well worth the 24 hours it usually takes to make. Given the option, however, wouldn't you rather make it in two? Enter the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/whipping-siphons/landing#/ whipping siphon]. Yup, the kitchen tool you use for your favorite aerated pie topping also makes a flavor-packed coffee concentrate (no to mention foams, carbonated cocktails, amazing hollandaise, and, like, so much more). 

Just pour water and coffee in the pressurized environment of the siphon, chill it, go watch two episodes of [link http://www.channel4.com/programmes/black-mirror/ Black Mirror] or something, filter, and voilà: perfect cold brew. No more waiting until tomorrow for that smooth dose of caffeine-packed goodness—the future, as they say, is now.

Quick Cold-Brew Coffee

Moka Pot

Now a common menu item in many a cool-kid coffeeshop, pour-over brewers such as Chemex and the popular products from German company Melitta and Japanese company Hario are well-suited to home kitchens as they're inexpensive, take up little space and—provided they're used correctly—**can yield an uncommonly clean cup of coffee**. This lo-fi method gives you a lot of control over results, but the trade-off is it requires a fair amount of precision and focus. (Ever seen a barista get his suspenders in a snit after a bunch of pour-over orders come in at once? You'll empathize once you've tried it.)

Pour-over brewing works by percolation, meaning water passes through the coffee grinds, extracting flavor as it goes. A filter—paper, cloth, or metal—prevents the grinds from making their way into the resultant beverage. The size and amount of coffee you use will impact the taste and body of your drink, as will **the rate at which you pour the water through the coffee**. The slower you pour, the more you'll increase extraction by lengthening the brew time.

With the pour-over method, we wet the coffee grinds in the filter before brewing. Adding a small amount of hot water to the coffee releases trapped carbon dioxide, provoking coffee to swell or "bloom." After that, just let it mellow for 30 seconds before adding the rest of the water to brew. 

Here, we walk you through the technique for using a Chemex, but the same principles (and coffee-to-water ratio) are at work with any pour-over brewer. If you find you're not thrilled with your results, try adjusting the grind size. Too-bitter coffee may mean you've ground too fine; overly coarse grinds can produce a drink that's weak and sour. Play around a bit, and you'll soon land on your own personal equation for that perfect cup.

Chemex & Other Pour Overs

If you're a traveler, tinkerer, loner, or outdoorsy type (or any combination of those four), you should run out right now and **buy this versatile little contraption**. Invented in 2005 by Alan Adler—he's also responsible for that orange [link https://www.google.com/search?q=Aerobie&amp;es_sm=91&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=vmjSVLGDA4SxogTCoYLYDw&amp;ved=0CAoQ_AUoAw&amp;biw=1412&amp;bih=651 Aerobie] still stuck in the tree at your parent's place—it's durable and portable and makes damn fine coffee with little fuss. 

Adler's apparatus works via **a combination of immersion and percolation**. Coffee and water steep together as they do with a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/french-press French press], but then a piston push the grounds through water, and then a filter. It can make a whole range of different coffee, too—the size of your grind, amount of water, and brew time can all drastically affect results here. With this method, we use the same water-to-coffee ratio we do with a French press to produce a beverage that's akin to a regular cup of coffee—[g 7.5] of coffee for every [g 100] of water. To make yourself a shorter, stronger result, use [g 10] to every [g 100] of water instead. 

There are so many ways to impact results with an Aeropress, but our expert [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/contributors--2 James Hoffmann] suggests varying one thing at a time. Try a different grind size in one trial, plunge faster in another. Limiting variables will allow you to develop your own personal preferences in a controlled, repeatable manner. Plus, you'll get a good buzz along the way.

Psst: Since you're brewing directly into your cup here, use a robust mug without any cracks to avoid incident. 

One more *psst* before you go: Once you get obsessed with your Aeropress, and most owners of this little guy do, you're going to want to check out the website of the [link http://worldaeropresschampionship.com/ World Aeropress Championships], replete with recipes that showcase the many, many strength- and flavor-variations achievable with this ingenious gizmo.

AeroPress

This is not a latte. Okay? Yes, it looks like a latte. Yes, it drinks like a latte. Still, trust us when we tell you it is not a latte. 

So what is it? It’s a frothy, satisfying beverage that you can make without any dairy products and without an espresso machine. We originally **developed the recipe with Ben Kaminsky**, a crucial expert behind our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/coffee/landing#/ Coffee class]. But whether or not you like to nerd out on the java, we think you’ll appreciate this killer trick. It couldn’t be easier: Grab some brewed coffee—whatever brewed coffee you like—a little bit of xanthan gum, and a blender. Combine the two ingredients, give ’em a whirl, and there it is: the tasty, dairy-free treat that will wow guests at your next brunch or baby shower. 

**WHAT YOU’LL NEED:** 
[link https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/coffee/landing#/ Brewed coffee] 
[link https://www.chefsteps.com/ingredients/xanthan-gum Xanthan gum] 
An immersion blender (a standing blender’s okay too)

Tips & Tricks: This Is Not a Latte

Brew Methods & Other Techniques

400-Micron Ground Coffee

We couldn't be more excited to show you this maverick method for prepping coffee grounds—**a super-simple step to help you produce seriously delicious home brews**. Before we get into it, however, let's take a moment to understand the theory. So, why do we grind coffee beans? That's easy. If you brewed coffee with whole beans, you’d wind up with a watery, tasteless result. We grind to increase the surface area of the coffee, allowing us to extract more of that great flavor lurking inside each bean. **But size matters.** If your grounds are too big, you’ll wind up with weak, underextracted coffee. Too-small grounds—industry people call these “fines”—can lead to a bitter, *over*extracted drink. The size of your grounds will also impact the speed at which your coffee brews, so it's important that these little fellows be uniform in size.

If you've got a [link http://www.amazon.com/Baratza-Virtuoso-Coffee-Grinder-586/dp/B006MLQHRG/ref=sr_1_2?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1399348662&sr=1-2&keywords=baratza+coffee+grinder&tag=delvkitc-20 burr grinder]—a worthy investment for any coffee lover—you may already be working with relatively uniform grounds. Because there's no universal scale for grinders, however, it's hard to know if those grounds are of optimal size. **Here's where this technique comes in handy**. By screening out the big guys with a sieve, discarding those, then rinsing what remains to filter out the fines, you wind up with uniform grounds that are *also* within the size range for making properly extracted (read: delicious) coffee.

But here's the thing: Because you've now got grounds that have soaked up some water, **you’re going to need to futz with your brew ratio**. Our typical brew ratio is about 7.5 percent coffee. In trials using rinsed grounds, we found increasing the ratio to 15 percent coffee was the way to go. In other words, if you typically use [g 75] of coffee for every [g 1000] of water, go with [g 150] instead. Once you play with this technique a few times, we're confident you'll get your recipe down pat. But if you're dead set against messing with brew ratios, try the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/coffee#/400-micron-ground-coffee 400-Micron Ground Coffee] method. It's equally quick and easy, and will also help you achieve optimal grounds for making killer coffee.

Got all that? Great! Let’s go get those fines.

Rinsing Coffee Grounds

Level Up: Pre-Brew Techniques

Adding a handful of amazing rubs and spice blends to your pantry is one excellent—and super easy—way to up your culinary game. Guests coming over at a moment's notice? No problem—grab a whole chicken from the grocery store, rub it all over with our sweet-and-salty Coffee Rub, throw it in the oven for an hour at [f 400], and bam: you've got a beautiful, bistro-style meal on the table that'll have your friends begging for the recipe. "Oh, this ole thing?" You'll say. "I just threw it together." You devil, you.

PSST: Looking for more spice blends and rubs to add to your repertoire? Try our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/house-rub-01 House Rub 01], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/rib-rub Rib Rub], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hazelnut-nasturtium-crumble Hazelnut Nasturtium Crumble], and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sweet-spice Sweet Spice].

Coffee Rub

Implementing a solid cocktail program—including staple spirits, aperitifs, and digestifs—in your home kitchen can be expensive, but we tend to think it's well worth the effort. It's one thing to open up some interesting beers or wines at dinner time, but it's another thing entirely to offer a smorgasbord of fascinating cocktail options to guests just arriving in your living room. And even better—and cheaper—if some of your spirits are house-made. 

Our Coffee Bitters are easy, versatile, and delicious—a great way to get started with your home bar. The simple infusion technique only takes about ten minutes and they'll last for months on your shelf, which is good because you'll only need a couple of drops per cocktail. The flavor is robust and smoky, with a soft, silky mouthfeel that'll take the edge right off boozier drinks.

Hooked on making bitters? Try our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chefsteps-bitters-013 ChefSteps Bitters 013].

Coffee Bitters

Coffee Butter

Let's get right down to it: This is a recipe for chocolate, except it's made with coffee beans instead of cacao beans. So it's chocolate, without the chocolate. It looks like chocolate, it acts like chocolate, but it ain't chocolate. At least, not technically.

Pure chocolate is made by combining ground cacao beans, cocoa butter, and liquid soy lecithin in a thing-a-ma-jig called a conche (which, by the way, is a remarkably affordable tool), that continuously grinds and swirls the ingredients together until they soften into a smooth, creamy liquid that looks like melted dark chocolate. That liquid is then made into your favorite sweet treats—cast into individual chocolates; drizzled over granola bars; poured over peanuts to make chocolate turtles; combined with milk to make milk chocolate; you get the idea. Our "Dark Matter," [link http://blog.chefsteps.com/2015/02/coffee-class-contest-name-that-recipe/ aptly named by heroic ChefSteps community member Jon Low], simply replaces the cacao beans with coffee beans, and then follows the exact same procedure. The result is a robustly flavored, velvety coffee paste that behaves just like raw chocolate. 

What to do with it, you ask? Pretty much anything you'd do with regular chocolate. Once you make the raw ingredient, the rest is up to you. 

Note: As you may have guessed, Dark Matter is loaded with caffeine. Yes, you can use decaffeinated coffee. But if you opt for the regular stuff, just consume conservatively. That is, unless you're taking the bar exam tomorrow and haven't even started studying. In that case, eat a lot of it right away, and bring some more to the library. Good luck.

Dark Matter

Cooking With Coffee

Meet James Hoffmann & Ben Kaminsky

Hit the Books

Want to learn **how to roast coffee at home**? Back in the day, turning those green beans brown was a common household practice—then again, so was churning butter, sewing your own dresses, and marrying your cousin. Much of the world has turned to pre-roasted beans for the convenience factor along with the fact that—as [link https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/coffee#/contributors--2 James Hoffmann] points out below—it's not easy to compete with the roasting prowess of the best specialty brands. 

So why do it? Do it because you're curious to learn how to do it. Do it because you want to **roast small batches of lots of different kinds of fresh beans in order to taste a range of varieties**, or because you just love things to be crazy fresh. Do it to feel closer to your coffee. Do it because all your Brooklyn neighbors also have ZZ Top beards and fixed-gear bicycles, and you need something new to secure that all-important hipster cred. Just know that doing it will likely result in some failures along with some fun successes. 

Oh, and another thing. We don't roast our own beans! We're too busy making recipes and stuff. So, to complement Hoffmann's advice on home roasting coffee, we've asked some of our bean-toasting community members to offer **tips based on their home endeavors**. Enjoy, and hit those guys up in [link https://www.chefsteps.com/forum the forum] with your questions.

Community Tips on Home Roasting

Coffee Talk

Other Resources

How do you take your coffee? We bet you have a tried-and-true answer—maybe you prefer it with a spoonful of sugar, a spot of half-and-half, hazelnut syrup and whipped cream, black, or just-give-me-the-damn-coffee-before-I-cut-you. The thing is: It doesn’t matter how you take it. If you take it every day, it should be perfect. Shouldn’t it? This class is about just that: Dialing in your daily brew—choosing your favorite roasted beans, picking the perfect brew techniques, and refining your recipe—until that morning ritual isn’t just about caffeine intake, it’s a full-on culinary experience. To create this one-of-a-kind class on all things home brew, we teamed up with two coffee experts—James Hoffmann, founder of the renowned London roastery Square Mile Coffee and author of The World Atlas of Coffee; and lauded coffee consultant Ben Kaminsky, cofounder of Boston’s Barismo and a three-time World Tasting Champion. Whether you’re new to home brewing or come bearing serious coffee skills, this class will offer you one-of-a-kind insights, exclusive game-changing techniques (sludge-free French press! amazing dairy-free latte!), and practical advice from coffee’s cutting-edge experts. And to round out this crash course in everyone’s favorite caffeinated beverage, we offer four killer ChefSteps recipes, including a novel technique for coffee “chocolate,” a bitters recipe to instantly up your cocktail game, a coffee-infused butter to spread all over your steak, and a flavor-packed rub that perks up any protein in a flash. And when it’s all over, we’ll ask you again: How do you take your coffee? Your answer: My way.

Cook smarter with ChefSteps classes.

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