GET WITH THE GRIND
We need to break the whole beans down to let the water in and do what it does—extract delicious flavour out. This is called grinding coffee, and different coffees need different grind sizes.The coarsest setting looks something like fancy flaked sea salt, the finest setting something like flour.
Helpfully, all grinders have numbers on them when changing grind sizes. Lower numbers indicate finer settings, higher numbers indicating coarser settings.
MOCCAMASTER GRIND SETTING
So if the highest number is fancy sea salt, the lowest number something like flour—for a Moccamaster grind setting you want to be a little over halfway, somewhere in the top third number. The grinds should look closer to table salt than fancy flaked sea salt.THE MAGIC’S IN THE MEASUREMENTS
There’s no point in making a delicious pot of coffee in the morning—then failing miserably the following morning. So if you measure the amount of ground coffee you use, and the amount of water you brew with, you’ll easily be able to repeat the magic each morning.Scales are best for measuring both coffee and water. But you could also use a measuring cup for water and a levelled-off spoon for coffee. However, you measure—measure the same each morning.
So start with 1 litre (or 1000g) of filtered water. Conveniently, with the Moccamaster there are indicators on the water reservoir for water volume—aim for the ‘1L’ mark.
Stay away from tap water or bottled water from the supermarket—it’s complicated, but those kinds of waters are great to drink, but not so great to brew coffee with. Use filtered water from a domestic Brita filter or the like. You'll still get good coffee from tap water! But generally filtered water is best.
For the coffee, freshly grind 60g. While the beans are whole, they’re protecting the flavour inside from nasty stuff—like oxygen and that weird spice smell down the back of your pantry. Pre-ground coffee is not bad at all though—you’re probably just going to notice more flavour when you grind fresh—a good reason to invest in a decent grinder.
GET BREWING
You would have received some Size 4 Moccamaster filters with your machine. Give one a quick rinse with hot water, place in the cone, add the ground coffee, and gently shake it side to side to level the coffee off. It should look nice and even, like a putting green.With the water in the reservoir, slide the cone into place at the top of the Moccamaster, and place the carafe beneath it, making sure the carafe has pushed in the little white button at the base.
Turn the brewer on, and you’ll see both the light on the switch, and the orange embedded light on the side, turn on. This means the Moccamaster is on (huzzah!) heating water and getting ready to brew.
Once the water is moving and starts hitting the coffee, start a timer. At the 30-second mark, grab a teaspoon and give the coffee a really good swirl and mix around with a spoon, stick, or bamboo spatula. You want to make sure the water dispensed so far has got every last grain of coffee wet.
Leave the lid on now and wait. As tempting as it is to watch your coffee brew, the best tip here is to keep the top on. It’s going to help retain heat which will be helping get the flavour out.
Now, wait for the water to finish doing its thing. Once the water has stopped dispensing, you want the coffee to finish pouring out of the bottom in around 5-7 minutes.
If the brew takes longer than 7 minutes, then you’ve ground the coffee too fine—go a notch or two coarser. If the brew takes less than 5 minutes, you’ve gone to coarse—go a notch or two finer.
Give the carafe a good swirl, a knowing sniff, then pour and enjoy.
GET THE GEAR
A good place to start is the Moccamaster itself.
Fresh is best, so grab a grinder too!
Have fun brewing!