We really hesitated in publishing this - there's so many great, great recipes out there. And there's so many different grinder and brewer set ups, different waters, different taste preferences (cup strength/body, intensity vs clarity, all these things)... publishing something concrete is ultimately going to lead to bad cups if it's followed too rigidly. Consider this a "roughly what works for us, for our preferences, with our setup" guide - take bits, adapt it, play around. Don't follow it to the T.
If you have a recipe that you like, that tastes good already - you can very safely read no further.
TL;DR to save you scrolling: Soft Water, Long Blooms, Pulse Pours.
Setup:
Your favourite brewer + Paper. We like low-to-zero bypass brewers + fast draining filters, like the Orea V4 with Sibarist filters. Our recipe is written with that set-up in mind - wave filters, conical brewers, true zero bypass (like pulsar, etc) may require a different technique.
This is not an immersion recipe (like french press/aeropress etc) - there are pretty optimal techniques published already (many are by the big coffee personality names on youtube) and we'd really be re-inventing the wheel to cover this.
We use very soft water in the roastery for our filter - double filtered (For the water nerds:
45-60ppm and 1-2 dGH and 1dKH). London inbound tap water is very high in calcium but low in magnesium - that ratio is preserved via the filtering, and we do no post remineralisation.
At home, the closest way to replicate this water is by using two filter jugs - a zero water, and a cartridge filter like Brita, Peak, BWT, etc - and blending them together. We recognise that's long, so we also check at home with straight tap filtered via cartridge jug. If you are going to use a jug, we recommend BWT's magnesium remin ones - it's a much harder/higher mag water than we use in the roastery, but we like the brews nevertheless.
We think there are great grinders for the at-home experience these days. We recommend flat burrs electric grinders like the Wilfa Uniform, DF range (like the DF64, DF83, etc) as well as the Fellow Ode. Hand grinders have come a long way in recent years since the days it was mostly Hario Skertons and Commandates; and whilst typically conical, the cup profile they can produce is great. Higher clarity burrsets tend to do better with our filters, higher fines for the espressos - YMMV.
If you have a grinder that's in the £1k++ range, we assume you already are deep enough in the rabbit hole to know the brewing style you like already
Resting:
Nearly all of our roasting and quality control loops are built with the idea of at least some resting period - a time spent waiting to open the bag before brewing - because we find the end result to be wayyyy tastier & enjoyable, and that is pretty much the core idea of how we source + roast. Finding coffees we love, that we want to drink ourselves, and sharing them - and we think coffees that need a little rest can show immaculate complex characteristics that a heavier hand with the roaster (to make them open up faster) would obliterate. If you have to open them earlier, if you can try grinding a little bit before you brew - if you have time to let it degas a bit. Else try increasing the dose of coffee a bit more than the recommended amount to increase some of the perceived intensity
Agitation:
No swirling. No stirring. Kettle stream only. Reasonably fast flow rate pours, spiralling inwards and outwards.
Maybe one singular tap of the brewer right when the bed is draining at the end of the brew, but only if you feel like it. Not required
The recipe:
Prepare a dose according to the recommended brew ratio we provide with each coffee. For example, 60g/L would be a ratio of 1:16.6 (1 gram of coffee = 16.6 grams of water, as 1ml = 1g).
Let us take a random coffee as an example:
Pikudo Gesha:
Filter: 62g/L & 96°C, with rest we like to move down to 93°C
Best Rested: 3-4 weeks
1000/62 = 16.12.
We typically brew 16g doses, so 16 * 16.12 = 257.
16g dose, 257g of water.
Assuming we have waited 3 weeks to open the bag, we're starting with a water temperature of 93°C in our kettle. Maybe since we're right at the edge of the resting recommendation, we might start at 94-95°C and reduce it as we got through the bag.
We prep the filter, grind the coffee, get our scales set up.
We're going to bloom, then do a number of pours afterwards that are dependent on how fast the coffee is drawing down. Roughly we are looking at a 50/100/100 ratio but adjusted entirely to the ratio and coffee. Let's look at how that works:
Pour 1 [Bloom]: 57g
(We're making sure the remaining water is nicely divisible into 25g/50g/100g increments)
Wait 1 minute. Long blooms are probably the biggest bit of advice we'd recommend for our coffees.
Pour 2: 100g
Watch how fast it drains.
If the water drains slowly:
Around 1:40, pour the remaining 100g to a final water weight of 257g
If the water drains fast:
We're going to instead wait until the bed is nearly dry, then pour the final 100g in either 2 x 50g increments, or if it's really, really fast draining - 4 x 25g, waiting until the bed is nearly drained before each pour in each case.
This is a fairly grind-size agnostic recipe - requiring minimal faffing once you get in the ballpark for our roast style. Adjusting the pour structure to the draw-down speed means we also adjust how much water-stream based agitation is added - meaning coffees that are inherently slightly less soluble meet a higher extraction technique, and vice-versa.
Total draw down time tends to be from 2:30-3:30 depending on the coffee, if you want higher acids adjust the grind so it's on the faster end, more body push towards the longer time. Don't worry too much about hitting a certain time - follow the taste first and foremost.
Don't take anything set in stone from this - adapt to your local circumstances and available equipment - this is just how we brew our own coffees, as some kind of psuedo-reference!