To Chemex or to Chemaer?

   Any of loyal followers will know that our go to brewer has been the Chemex for years. However, at a 5 AM brewing session travesty occurred! We dropped our Chemex and while this wasn't its first drop, it would be its last as it did not survive this one!

  We knew we would immediately order a new one, and a few weeks ago Bethany mentioned she wanted to try out the new Chemaer. This model is based on the Glass Handled Chemex which comes in an 8-cup size. The extra capacity is nice to have when brewing for more than 2 people.  You can get 4 reasonable servings out of it or 3 large servings (by our standards). The handy part is that it takes the same filters as the 6-cup model and has identical brewing characteristics and drawdown time, so realistically there are no drawbacks. The added feature on this model is 2 paddles molded into the carafe that allow you to aerate your brew. 

   To brew with the Chemaer, you start out as you would with a normal Chemex. We use the standard 1: 16 coffee to water ratio. For the two of us that is usually 45 grams of freshly ground coffee; ground slightly more course than an auto drip grind setting (on a Baratza Virtuoso a 20 Grind Setting). Rinse the filter with your heated water (we set our kettle to 207 degrees F) and discard this water. Pour your grounds in and level the bed, some people make a little divot in the middle, we don't. Pour your bloom phase of 100 grams of water in and allow the carbon dioxide to escape for around 30 seconds. This phase is important because if you continue to pour while the coffee is de-gassing the water does not extract the grounds and you will end up with an under extracted brew, which can be sour. Begin your second pour and pour to around 450 to 500 grams of water and give it a good swirl. Allow it to draw down some and begin your third pour at about the 1:30 mark. Slowly pour until you reach your 1:16 ratio, which in this case is 720 grams of water. Allow the water to finish drawing down which should complete around the 5-minute mark. This can be fine-tuned by your pour speed and grind setting; a longer brew will be bolder, and a shorter brew will be less so. Keep in mind too short will be under extracted and likely sour and too long will be over extracted and likely bitter. Discard/ recycle/ compost the spend grounds.

   Now for the Aeration step! Here is the tricky part- the max amount that can be in the Chemaer for it to properly aerate is about 400 grams. Since we did 720, I will pour about half into a mug and give the Chemaer a good swirl. You can swirl it clockwise or counterclockwise, I found counterclockwise to work better. I will then pour this into another mug, and then aerate the other half of the brew. This does seem to cool the coffee a good bit, so keep that in mind. I personally like my coffee to cool down a bit more than Bethany does, so I will make my cup be the second one to be aerated (you will lose temperature with all the back and forth pouring) 

  I have found the aerated coffee to be a bit smoother than traditional Chemex, not a wide margin, but slightly. I have also found it to have better results on lighter to medium roast coffee as opposed to our normal go to medium dark roast. 

   So ultimately should you get a Chemaer? My suggestion is that if you do not already have a Chemex, then this is definitely the one to get- there is no draw back unless you just have to have the wooden handle. If you already have a standard Chemex, I will personally say there is not enough difference to justify it, however if you are a true coffee nerd and already have several brewers, then this is a good one to experiment with! Otherwise, I would personally recommend a Hario Wave or V60 if you already have a Chemex. 

  One little side not on the wooden handle version- It tends to be a bit more difficult to clean. The leather strap is easy to get dirty and the wood tends get less than beautiful. I think that the wooden handle one looks the best, but the maintenance did get old....