Bitter Press

Coffee, yo.

Re-Batched

Batch brewing. It’s been a fairly hot topic recently. As most coffee bars attempt to redefine their modern identity, manual brew methods have come into prominence all over the world as a way to highlight and promote quality coffee prepared with care. The coffee in the picture taken above, however, was not prepared with a manual brew method. It’s from da Matteo, in Göteborg, a roasting company that has three coffee bars in its own city, and does wholesale to a number of different outlets as well. 

This coffee was brewed via a batch brewer (a small Bunn system, I believe). And it was tasty. What confused me, of couse, was the little card that came with the coffee explaining what the coffee was, and where it was from. Mats and Torkel explained that in Göteborg they were fighting against a very strong Italian coffee culture (which admittedly, da Matteo had helped establish fifteen years earlier) and they wanted to focus on good coffee sourcing and promote this to the average person coming into their store.

In the States, putting the focus on coffee being offered generally means putting the focus on the brew method by which it’s prepared. We’ve had a lot of success as an industry promoting specialty coffee with the spectacle of manual brew methods. In Sweden, however, there was a slightly different approach. 

With really high labor costs, it’s hard to logistically work out a pour-over only coffee offering. The extra people required to staff such an operation and the training required are troublesome. Aside from that, there was also concern for consistency. If every cup was brewed with a manual brew method, it would be hard to give each brew the time and attention needed or required to make a great cup, especially with the limited space of Göteborg storefronts. 

That isn’t to say that da Matteo doesn’t offer manual brew methods. At their Viktoriapassagen coffee bar I had a number of great V60 brews, and they offer a number of other methods there as well. Their bakery/roastery also features a small brew bar. What I realized, however, was that the coffee that was brewed for me via manual brew method was just as tasty as the batch brew Ethiopien I had at the Vallgatan cafe. 

So why not send it out with an origin card? It was delicious, showcased the depth and tastiness of the coffee, and helped promote the good work da Matteo was doing in traceable sourcing and their pursuit of quality. And more than anything, it was a uniquely delicious cup of coffee that stood out against traditionally commodity purchased, darkly roasted Swedish coffee.

Recently there’s been a surge in approval amongst quality focused coffee folks for batch brewing. Which is great. There’s a long standing joke that goes like this: 

A barista approaches a coffee equipment technician, in pursuit of a better way to make pour-over coffee.

“I just wish I had some sort of water delivery device for my coffee dripper that allows me better temperature control, even saturation, and consistent flow delivery.”

“Congratulations! You just invented a batch brewer!”

Okay, that’s not a long standing joke. It’s what I was told after talking with some techs about water delivery systems like the Über boiler and LB-1. They’re right, too. Batch brewers are designed to give better consistency than humans are able to. Friendly, helpful, hot-water robots. 

Personally, I’ve never been able to dial in a batch brewer to make coffee as delicious as I can with a manual brew device. Which is disconcerting. Everything that I’ve discussed theoretically has been in support of batch brewing. What’s the hold up?

Well, the problem always seems to be the batch part of the equation. If I’m brewing 26 grams of coffee and notice that my grind size is off, due to the water draining much too quickly, I can abandon ship and start again. But when that too-large grind is encased in a closed off brew basket, and the water delivery is timed out to the second, I won’t notice an off brew until I attempt to taste it. And I have to wait for it too finish the brew cycle. And my batch is likely much more coffee, meaning that much coffee has been wasted with a bad brew!

I’ve spent multiple days in a row playing with minute variables on batch brew systems, only to see the progress I was hoping for literally go down the drain. However, with a pour-over brew device, chances are I’m able to make a minor adjustment and notice a major change in the brew. 

That’s actually a bad thing. Batch brews are much more consistent and stable not only because of the equipment upgrade, but also due to the fact that there’s a larger margin for error when brewing a larger batch of coffee. The smaller the brew amount, the more specific one needs to be with their brew parameters. We pride ourselves on being able to brew fantastic coffee as if we’ve been blessed with a special gift, but in reality, we’re just fighting against the odds that our small volume coffee brews come out extracted differently than we’d hoped. It’s like being proud that we dug our ditch with a shovel while our competition brought in a Bobcat. 

But there’s something to be said about a hand-dug ditch. Each shovelful of dirt was deliberate, and even though it takes longer, the shape and scope of the ditch is much truer to form of what we want that ditch to be. Also: this metaphor is reaching a bit further than melodramatic blog posts should be allowed. 

The real truth is that we’re not always trying to dig a ditch. Sometimes you’re just trying to dig a hole, and in that case, a backhoe isn’t going to achieve your goal. The real danger, however, is that coffee professionals tend to be really good at digging holes for themselves. 

The questions is, can we get ourselves out of them if we need to?

  1. bitterpress posted this