Kalita Wave flat bottom brewer
For single-cup brews, we love working with the stainless steel Kalita Wave. The Wave comes in two sizes – a smaller “155” size, suitable for 1-2 cups, and a “185” size, suitable for 3-4 cups. The Kalita works like any other pourover brewer, including the classic percolator: water drips down over ground coffee, dissolving the soluble bits, and finally filtering through a thin paper filter into your carafe or cup. What makes this brewer excellent is its ease of use, and how foolproof an even extraction becomes because of its flat bottom and low flow rate. Three little holes in the bottom of the brewer ensure a consistent drip of coffee, which means you can focus on changing fewer variables to dial-in your brew. Here’s our preferred recipe for brewing our coffee on a Kalita 155, yielding 10oz of drinkable coffee.
You’ll need:
- 20 grams coffee, freshly ground on a good grinder. (On an EK43, we like 7.4 – 7.5, or just about the size of sea salt.)
- Enough filtered water to pour at least 400 grams in a clean kettle.
- A scale that accurately measures in grams, or smaller.
- A Kalita with paper filter.
- A small spoon or paddle to stir with.
- A cup or carafe that can hold at least 10 ounces of hot coffee without spilling.
- Heat your water to 205-degrees. Place your Kalita over your carafe or cup.
- Wet the filter and heat the Kalita with a brief pour of about 20 grams. Make sure the paper doesn’t stick flat to the sides of the filter. Drain the water out.
- Place 20 grams of ground coffee into the middle of the brewer. Tap the sides to level the bed flat, which will help with an even extraction. Set your carafe/cup and Kalita setup onto your scale, and Tare it to zero grams.
- Start your timer. With purpose, pour 40 grams of hot water into the bed of coffee. Get as much of the coffee wet as possible.
Gently stir the coffee with the spoon to make sure everything got wet. (This is the “bloom,” when carbon dioxide exits the fresh coffee, and allows water to better extract the tasty solubles like sugars and acids.) - Let this bloom sit until your timer reads 40 seconds.
- With purpose, pour another 160 grams of 205-degree temperature water into the bed of coffee within the next 20 seconds. Make sure you don’t overfill the Kalita.
- Every 20 seconds, add another 30 grams of 205-degree temperature water until your scale reads 320 grams. (If the water is emptying too-quickly, and your coffee ground bed is exposed, you’ve ground too coarse. If it’s dripping too slowly and filling up, you’ve ground too-fine.)
- At this point, lift your Kalita (but not your cup/carafe) up about a quarter of an inch, and “tap” it back down. This will ensure your grind bed is flat, and your extraction is even.
- Let your Kalita empty the last few drips into your cup or carafe. (Total brew time should be 2:45 to 3:00.)
Pro tip: Shorten your brewing time as time passes from your coffee’s roast date. As time passes, it is increasingly easy to extract tasty stuff from coffee grounds, but also to extract less desirable flavors like woodiness and earthy notes.