Cupping is probably my favorite way to taste coffee, but it is far from ideal for enjoying a cup in the morning. French Press is great, but it can lack clarity and I don't like the sediment. Plastic manual drip cones (Melitta) do a decent job, but it is difficult to get a really great cup out of them. It is tough to find a simpler, more consistent way to make an awesome, clean cup than the Chemex, which is why it is the method I most commonly recommend for brewing at home.

To get started, you'll need the following:

  • Chemex brewer (I prefer the 6 cup)
  • Chemex filters (I prefer bleached)
  • A good grinder (the Capresso Infinity is great)
  • Gram Scale (a coffee scoop will also do)
  • Freshly boiled water (how you boil it is your business)
  • Pouring pitcher for water (or the kettle you boiled it in)
  • Timer (these words in parentheses for list consistency)

Lets do it:

  1. Get your water boiling. Filtered, but not distilled, water is best.
  2. Open the Chemex filter into a cone. One side should have three layers, and the other side should have one. Place the filter into the Chemex with the thick side against the pouring channel.
  3. Pour a bunch of boiling water over the filter to leech out any papery flavors and aromas. Use at least a few cups. I just use enough to fill the bottom portion of the Chemex. This step will also preheat the glass.
  4. Measure out your coffee. A good amount to start out with is 60 grams per liter of brewing water used. For this example, we'll brew 500 ml, which means we'll use 30g of coffee.
  5. Grind. Finding the right grind setting may take a bit of experimentation, but I would start with something similar to automatic drip.
  6. Pour the filter rinsing water out of the Chemex. Don't remove the filter when doing this; you want to keep a nice seal between it and the glass.
  7. Put your grounds inside the filter, and place the Chemex on the gram scale. Press the tare button on the scale so it reads zero with the Chemex on top. The scale will be used to measure the weight of the brewing water.
  8. If necessary, transfer the boiling water to a good pouring container. A preheated thermal carafe works well. There are also water kettles with long spouts intended specifically for pour over brewing, but they are far from necessary, and none that I know of are vacuum insulated. The water should cool to about 205F by the time you pour it.
  9. Start a timer, and pour just enough water over the grounds to evenly wet them. With 30g of coffee, I use about 40g of water.
  10. After about 30 seconds, continue to pour evenly and somewhat vigorously over the entire bed of grounds, filling the Chemex to about a half inch from the top of the glass. Wait another 30 seconds or so.
  11. Continue pouring, very slowly now, in the center of the grounds only, until you reach a total of 500g. Stay away from the edges of the filter! Pouring only in the center prevents the grounds from all sinking to the bottom of the filter and clogging it up during the final drip down.
  12. Let the coffee drip to the bottom of the Chemex. It should finish in about 3-4 minutes. If it finishes before this time, grind a bit finer next time. If it takes longer, grind coarser.
  13. Pull the filter out of the Chemex and throw it away. Appreciate your brewed coffee, which will be brilliantly clear, with an appealing reddish hue, and (hopefully) delicious, well-defined flavors.
  14. Rinse the empty Chemex with any leftover boiled water.

Final Thoughts

A scale is absolutely not a necessity, but can really help you use the right volume of water and finish at the proper strength. Without one, just eyeball it. The “belly button” on the outside of the glass marks the half full point on the Chemex. On the 6 cup model, this is about 500g. To measure the coffee without a scale, start with two tablespoons for every 6 ounces of water. The grind setting will also need adjustment to brew different volumes of coffee. To brew more, make the grind coarser, and to brew less, you may need to make it a bit finer. Adjust it however necessary to achieve the 3-4 minute extraction time. Half the capacity of the Chemex seems to be the easiest volume to get a good extraction with. These instructions detail the our preferred method for making a Chemex, but they are far from the only way. Experiment with water temp, brew strength, extraction time, pouring methods, stirring with a utensil, or anything else you can think of, and use whatever gives the best tasting result.