Brew the Lost Sheep way
We’re often asked, ‘What’s the best way to brew coffee at home?’
Here’s our step-by-step guide to the perfect home brew, the Lost Sheep way.
Aeropress
This affordable plastic brewer was built to make espresso but never created enough pressure to make it effective. However, it has become an excellent 1 person filter maker! To get the best out of any coffee, we always recommend grinding it fresh. We use a small burr hand grinder which only costs £20! Grind the coffee to a coarse sand texture, but not as granulated as you would for a French press. Our go-to recipe is a 1:15 ratio, so for 16g of ground coffee, it should make 240g of liquid heaven.
Traditional method
- Wet the filter paper and place it in the basket and attach the basket to the brewing chamber.
- Weigh out your 16g of ground coffee (a medium light roast is best). Then pour it onto the wet filter.
- Pour 50g of hot water (87-95 degrees filtered water is ideal) onto the coffee and stir gently. this is called the bloom and you can knock out some of the natural gases.
- Top up the water to 240g total and secure the plunger on tight.
- Wait 1 minute then slowly plunge for about 20 seconds. Let it cool slightly and enjoy.
Haven’t got any scales to hand? No problem, there is another method, inverted
- Assemble the Aeropress upside down with the filter at the top. Take the basket off.
- Pour onto the plunger 16g of coffee (about 1 level aeropress scoop).
- Top it up to the top with hot water (again, 87-95 degrees filtered water is ideal), all the way to where you screw on the filter basket.
- Give it a light stir and screw on the basket with the wet filter paper inside it.
- After 2 mins, place a cup on top of the basket and flip the Aeropress quickly!
- Plunge into the cup and let it cool.
Interested in other recipes? Aeropress championships have gone global, browse Youtube, for all sorts of crazy methods!
Cafetiere
Cafetiere or French press is an easy go-to coffee brewer, no filters are needed and great for sharing!
- Our go-to brew ratio is 6g of coffee to 100 ml of water. For 2 large mugs to share we like to use 30g of coffee to 500ml of water.
- Place 30g of medium/medium coarse ground coffee into the bottom of the cafetiere. Pour 500ml of boiling filter water straight onto the grounds (Cafetieres are often glass or metal and can lose heat quickly, so boiling is best. If it’s a cold day, preheat the cafetiere before brewing)
- Stir to combine grounds with water and let sit for 3 minutes to brew. Once the 3 mins are up, stir again.
- Any remaining coffee sitting on top of the water, scrape off with a spoon. Now you can place your plunger and plunge.
- Let the cafetiere sit for a further 3 mins, this allows all the bits of coffee to sink and give clarity to the brew. Now it’s time to pour and enjoy!
Filter
Pour-over filters like V60 and Chemex are the perfect way to get super clean, sweet black coffee. This method is unlike any other and when using a light roast (1st crack) single-origin coffee, you can make something light, delicate and flavourful, which would look more like herbal tea rather than a ‘traditional’ coffee. The guide below is for the Hario V60 with a paper filter. If using a Chemex or a Kalita dose, the grind size may differ, but the method the is very similar:
- Fold the seam of the paper filter in on itself, then open it out inside the V60 cone. Lightly wet the filter, sticking it to the sides of the cone.
- Dose 15g medium fine-grind coffee and place it in the middle of the filter paper.
- Pour 50g of *hot filtered water onto the grounds and swirl the slurry. leave for 30secs, this is called the bloom!
- Pour another 100g of water on and give the V60 another swirl.
- Pour your final 100g of water, have a final swirl and tap on your cup or jug to level the grounds.
- It should finish draining at about 2:30-3 mins. Let it cool slightly and enjoy!
* Use water as soon as it has boiled, it won’t ‘burn the coffee’ the coffee has already been in a 200-degree roaster!
Espresso
Espresso has been finding its way into the homes of coffee lovers more and more over the last 5 years, specifically semi-automatic machines (those that control pressure instead of a manual pull of a leaver). There are many variables to consider when pulling a shot, and these can vary widely depending on the type of coffee you’re using. The following instructions are for a medium roast coffee, we recommend steering clear of dark roast coffee.
- Freshly grind your coffee fine on your burr grinder. Fine enough to lightly clump when you pinch it between your fingers.
- Fill your filter basket, 17-19g depending on the size of your basket.
- Level the grinds with your finger and tamp level and firm with a quality tamper (not hulk like!)
- Flush your group head with hot water, this cleans and heats the head ready for extraction.
- Place the group arm back into the machine, and make sure it is tight!
- Press the button and start extraction, you are looking for small streams of espresso with a golden colour.
- Extraction should take 25-35 seconds according to the coffee and your own taste. Here at Lost Sheep, we start with a 2:1 ratio, meaning if we dose 18g of coffee we are looking to finish with a 36g espresso! 19g would yield 38g etc.
- If the espresso is running too quickly, fine up your grinder, too slow coarsen it. Always adjust your grinder by the smallest possible settings it has!
- Enjoy a great espresso as it is or use it as the 1st step in making that perfect drink you prefer whether that is a long black, flat white or latte.* Grinder Settings; coarse = faster / fine = slower.
* Different coffees will need different extraction times. a lighter roast will need longer than a medium, but ultimately it’s all about your personal taste, so play around a bit.