Name: The Chemex
Uploaded: 2020-03-09T16:24:31.000Z
Duration: 10 min 32 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Today's video is the first in a new occasional Siri's looking at icons of coffee classics in the field, things that have endured, and I can think of nothing better to start off with in the Comix coffee maker.

Adverbs of degree

These videos aren't so much pure technique videos nor of a pure product reviews.

They'll have a little bit of those in there, along with a few other bits and pieces.

Almost start with the history of the comics.

While the Comex feels again quintessentially American coffee maker, its inventor was actually born in Germany.

S by its patent laws and he was an inventor.

And he patented, I think, over 302 different items, though this was by far the most successful and long lasting off, Um, he planted the comix in 1941 and it was ultimately released and produced in 1942 by the KMEX Corporation.

It's an incredibly simple yet beautiful design.

It's just a single piece of glass with a wooden color on a tie, and its distinctive design means that you might have seen it pop up in tons of pop culture on TV In the movies, you might have seen it in UNEP.

You might have seen it in mad men or even in into Stella.

They formed an emotional attachment to as a brewer and therefore to the coffee that it makes a swell.

But let's talk about why some people really don't like the Comix.

And that means we can look att two pieces of its design that I think are distinctive and fundamental.

There are other aspects of the design to talk about being the little wooden collar or the glass handle on the other version.

What I'm interested in looking at initially is the design decision to make this a single piece of glass toe have both.

The brewing cone on the base all is one thing that's not particularly common and actually presents a surprising little challenge.

And that challenge is that when you're brewing, it would be possible, in theory, for an airlock toe happen.

If air can't freely flow from the bottom chamber to be displaced by the coffee coming in, then it'll build up a little bit of pressure and coffee will stop flowing from the cone into the into the base below.

Firstly, you have this particular channel here that runs all the way down into the base, and that's really designed not just to pour nicely, which, thankfully it does do, but also to allow air out off the base section during a brew.

But what can happen is the paper can form a perfect seal with the glass all the way around on.

Then you'll stall your brew now to counter Act that there is the design off the comix papers so I can mix paper looks like this.

It's, Ah, very large piece of paper, which is kind of a problem, but it's folded in such a way that when you bruv, one side of your cone is much, much, much thicker than the other side of the cone.

When you're brewing, you're really supposed to make sure that the thick side is where the little channel is, where the air gap is, where the spout is.

This means that this paper is less likely to collapse on former seal.

The downside of this design is that you have so much paper.

Not only a chemical papers, much thicker, but having a triple ply on one side really does affect the way that the copy bruise for context, a single chemical paper weighs just under four and 1/2 grams.

A single to cup Harrier paper weighs about 1.5 grams.

It's injury, three times the amount of paper and potentially three times the amount of paper taste.

If you don't miss that out and also three times the kind of clarifying power, having a lot of thick paper will change the way that your coffee tastes.

It will taste cleaner in some ways, right?

You'll definitely remove about as much suspended material as you possibly can, And that's for most people.

People like a clean tasting cup of coffee.

Your filter paper will add a little bit of resistance.

Thio the way that the coffee brews that cone right?

Not only just the water have to get through your bed of coffee has to get through the paper as well.

As a result, I see people trying to grind just a little bit coarser to get shorter brew times with the comix and as a result, having a slightly weaker brew.

I often see people also using higher doses in a chemical than they would do and say Avi, 60 Oracle Ito are another brewer.

Ultimately, this is just a mechanism of dealing with the potential for under extraction.

This is not a flawed brewer, but you do have to make some accommodations to not get into a spiral of up dozing and under extracting.

Before I get too much into the technique stuff, though I do want to talk about a couple of the different options that you have and shapes and finishes, I guess this to me, this is the classic chemical right, this shape this size and actually this little wooden color.

This collar is a terrible piece of design.

In many ways, it's incredibly frustrating to use to tie and untie this thing.

To put it in the dishwasher or to clean it properly is annoying, and I don't think the wood ages particularly well.

But as I just look at it, I think it looks beautiful.

But the alternative is is popular with a lot of people, which is this one, and this is the one that doesn't have the wood color than it just has the glass handle.

Cities have something not hot to hold when you're doing it.

Now, I'm not saying that this is ugly or hideous or doesn't look good.

It's more practical, despite the fact that in theory it's more breakable.

It doesn't look as good as the original Comix.

There's the smaller shape, I would say, probably don't bother with it.

I don't particularly like that sort of steeply angled brewing dynamic, but I also don't think it has their proportions.

Andi just aesthetic loveliness off the original shape and size.

Let's talk about how I might recommend you change your broom technique specifically for the comix.

Now, a lot of this is based on the V 60 technique that I put out there.

If you haven't seen that, there's a link up here.

I'd recommend watching that before watching this because it'll make more sense.

Now I'm going to say we're gonna keep our dose at 60 grams per liter.

If you like stronger coffee, feel free to change that now.

One of the key things here is to not try to compensate too much for the additional resistance that the paper ads.

In a simple experiment, we brewed a comix next to a V 60 with same grind setting, right, same dose, same pouring technique and the brew from the comix just took much, much, much longer.

You don't have to compensate and growing much course of the chemical.

To get that 33 and 1/2 minute brew time, you're gonna have 4 to 5 minute brew times brewing half a liter with the comix, and you're gonna have great tasting coffee in terms of the bloom.

I would do exactly as I do in the B 60 2 to 123 to one in terms of bloom water to coffee dose.

So 60 grams of bloom to 90 grams of bloom.

If you're brewing 30 grams of coffee and let that bloom for at least 45 seconds, I would say a similar pouring technique in terms of phases to the V 60 video.

And at the end you're gonna do the same thing with a little stir and then a swirl to help the draw down and have a flat bed.

There is one Maur little hack that I have seen that is actually kind of useful toe have in your reserves now.

What happens if your paper perfectly adheres and sticks to the glass all the way around and you get that kind of airlock?

What I have seen people do is use something like a chopstick, and having a chopstick in the brewer seems a little weird, but it does help prevent the paper perfectly sticking to the glass.

It will always leave air space to get out, and it will not cause your brew to stall.

But know that you are sticking a piece of wood in your coffee maker.

Go visit like a Korean chopstick, which is made of stainless steel, which is great or a high quality chopstick will probably be okay, But maybe not a cheap disposable one.

Better still, really is just to be mindful of this gap of this spout, pay attention to it.

Make sure it doesn't close after you've rinsed your paper and do make sure you rinse your papers for comics papers.

Just make sure that it's tight across that gap isn't beginning to fold into it.