Caffeine Dojo’s Recommended Coffee Gears
Welcome to Caffeine Dojo’s recommended coffee gears where you can find the perfect equipment for coffee brewing.
If you are starting out with coffee brewing, you will most likely be overwhelmed with the selections of coffee brewing gears out there.
Buying the wrong coffee gear is especially painful if you are tight on a budget. Trust me I have been there and I hate to think about how much money I have wasted on the wrong brewing gears.
Therefore, this article is to help all of you out there to kick start your coffee brewing journey the right way.
Why Do You Need Good Coffee Brewing Gears?
The one and only reason to have good coffee brewing gears is to ensure that you can brew consistent great-tasting coffee.
That said, having excellent gear is only half the story, the other half relies on your brewing skills. Yes, you may have coffee beans with unique tasting notes, but using the wrong coffee gear and poor brewing skills, you will not be able to highlight the best of the coffee beans in your brew.
Therefore, be sure to check out all our brewing tips and tricks to level up your coffee brewing game.
Now that we have got the reason to get the best coffee brewing gears, let us dive in to some of the recommended coffee brewing gears for each category.
Electric Coffee Grinders
Ask any baristas or home brewers out there, I bet all of them will definitely vouch to allocate more budget to get a better coffee grinder.
This is because the core of extracting the best flavors stems from having the right coffee grind size for each brewing method.
If you are serious about how your coffee taste, absolutely do not attempt to grind your coffee beans with a food processer or blender. These will yield very inconsistent coffee grind sizes and in turn yield a cup of highly imbalanced tasting coffee.
Here are some of our picks for Electric Coffee Grinders.
Breville Smart Grinder Pro
Stainless steel conical burrs designed to minimize grinding heat and protect the essential oils in the coffee bean.
With 60 unique settings, this programmable conical burr grinder maximizes the potential of any brew. Choose between ‘cups’ for French Press or Filter and ‘shots’ for Espresso to get the right dose for the coffee you’re brewing.
Baratza Encore
Baratza Encore is an award winning grinder and you certainly cannot go wrong with this.
Equipped with 40 grind settings, it fits all kinds of brew methods. Be it espresso, Aeropress, Hario V60, Chemex, French Press, or automatic brewers.
Perfect as an entry level coffee grinder.
Manual Hand Grinders
Like electric coffee grinders, manual hand grinders have also made a place for itself in the coffee brewing community. This is because, not everyone would want to invest in a electrical coffee grinder, especially if you are only brewing occasionally.
On top of that, manual hand grinders are small and compact which makes them portable and travel friendly.
This is another important factor as coffee beans will rapidly lose its aroma and flavor when your grind them into coffee grounds. And so, the best way is to grind your whole coffee beans fresh right before brewing.
Manual hand coffee grinders offers these flexibilities and they are an essential addition to your brewing set up.
Porlex Mini
Reigning all the way from Japan, the Porlex Mini is a small but highly reliable manual coffee grinder.
This little guy is equipped with ceramic conical burr which is highly durable.
On top of that, the stainless steel body prevents static which prevents coffee ground clumping up.
TIMEMORE Chestnut C2
The TIMEMORE Chestnut C2 is a mini upgrade from the Porlex Mini with a more luxurious outlook while retaining its function as a manual coffee grinder.
The coninal burr is a stainless steel burr which is strengthened for extra durability.
Pour Over Coffee Gears
Pour over coffee have taken over the world by storm and there are more pour over brewing gears out there than I can count.
While all of them uses the same brewing concept; percolation, which means pouring water over a bed of coffee grounds through a paper filter, they all result in fairly different tasting coffees.
Here are some pour-over coffee brewing gear which are best for beginners and professionals alike.
Hario V60 Plastic Coffee Dripper
Don’t be fooled by its simple exterior. The Hario V60 Plastic Coffee Dripper is capable of brewing some of the best tasting pour-over coffee if done right.
Sometimes simplicity is the best!
Chemex Pour-Over 8-Cup Version
The Chemex is another simple and easy to use pour-over coffee brewing gear.
Very similar to the Hario V60 with the extra aesthetics.
Other Brewing Gears
For those who love an intense and bold coffee but do not want to blow a fortune on an espresso machine, the Moka Pot and French Press are your next best bet.
With the Moka Pot, it forces hot steam through a bed of coffee grounds to extract the coffee oils and flavor compounds. As a result, the coffee liquid is rich, intense and full-bodied.
That said, although the intensity and the complexity of the coffee does not match a true espresso, the resulting coffee from the Moka Pot is comparatively close.
On the other hand, the French Press steeps coffee grounds in hot water over a period of time. By using time as a factor to maximize the extraction of flavors, the French Press will also yield a rich and full-bodied cup of coffee.
However, the intensity does not come close to a Moka Pot, more so of a true espresso. Even so, French Press has its loyal fan base because the coffee is much more palatable due to its lower intensity.
Here are the best picks for both the Moka Pot and the French Press.
Bialetti Moka Pot 3 Cups
Made in Italy from the Moka Pot founder itself, you do not have to worry about its performance.
With the Moka Pot, you can make rich and bold coffee hassle-free!
Cafe Du Chateau French Press
The Cafe Du Chateau French Press has a 4 level filter system with 2 stainless steel screens which will keep your coffee clean and crisp.
On top of that, the heat resistant glass is a nice little addition to make the overall brewing process more pleasant.
Aeropress
Finally, the one and only Aeropress that has won the hearts of many coffee lovers around the world.
Founded by Alan Adler, the simple yet powerful Aeropress first makes its presence to the world in the year 2005. To date, the Aeropress still retains most of its physical features and coffee brewing concept.
So what makes the coffee brewing concept so unique and manage to stand the test of time?
The Aeropress uses a combination of:
i) Immersion Method: To steep coffee grounds in water to extract richer and bolder tasting coffee.
ii) Percolation Method: By introducing pressure and forcing the coffee liquid through a filter, this produces a cleaner cup of coffee.
The combination of these two methods allows the Aeropress to brew a cup of coffee which is clean, crisp and also bold and intense at the same time.
Aerobie Aeropress
Aerobie Aeropress is an extremely beginner friendly coffee brewing gear.
This is because the brewing process is fairly forgiving and you can almost make consistently great tasting coffee everytime.
Perfect coffee gear for first timers.
Coffee Scale
A part that makes coffee brewing so fascinating is all about the precision. Coffee aficionados measure everything to the dot when it comes to coffee brewing.
From the weigh of coffee beans, weigh of water and finally to the weigh of the coffee yield from the brew.
All of these may seem trivial but to true coffee brewers, these are valuable data that tells them about the resulting coffee.
You must have one of these to complete your coffee brewing bar!
Hario V60 Drip Coffee Scale
The Hario V60 Drip Coffee Scale measures in 0.1 gram increments for the highest precision.
On top of that, there is a built in timer which is certainly a plus point for all pour over coffee brewers.
Gooseneck Kettle
The gooseneck kettle is the final piece that completes your coffee brew bar. Other than looking sleek and aesthetically pleasing, the gooseneck kettle plays a vital role in coffee brewing.
To answer your curiosity, the answer lies in the gooseneck looking spout.
What is does is that it streamline the water flow from the kettle into a clean laminar flow. This allows the brewer to have more control over the brewing process in terms of water flow and pour speed.
On top of that, the smooth flow creates minimal impact on the coffee bed and hence keeping the extraction of coffee balanced.
Here are some of our picks for Gooseneck Kettles.
Bonavita Gooseneck Electric Kettle
On top of the elegant gooseneck spout which allows precision pouring, the Bonavita Gooseneck Electric Kettle has a built in temperature variable setting.
This way you can get the precise brewing temperature for your pour-overs!
Coffee Beans Storage
Unfortunately roasted coffee beans are not indestructible and will degrade over time. Fortunately, the factors that affect coffee beans shelf life are well understood and there are plenty of products out there that can help you lengthen the life span of your coffee beans.
Some of these factors includes oxygen, moisture, light and heat.
Knowing these facts, these products are designed to keep these pesky degradation factors away from your coffee beans.
That said, I’d highly recommend consuming your coffee beans 2 to 3 weeks from the roast date to experience peak flavor and aroma of the coffee beans.
Veken Coffee Canister
Veken Coffee Canister is capable to keep air out and free of harmful oxidation with a one-way CO2 valve and 100% BPA-free silicone rubber seal.
Say goodbye to stale and rancid coffee beans!
Closing Notes
There we have it folks, a comprehensive list of recommended coffee brewing gears.
I believe there is certainly one or two items up there that would have caught your attention. On a side note, if you do have any coffee gear that you personally would like to recommend, feel free to share below with us!
Who knows, we might try it out and feature them here too.
If you find this piece of article informational and have found you a thing or two about great coffee brewing gears, please share it with your fellow friends, baristas and home brewers!
Happy brewing!