Coffee brewing can seem complex when you begin to explore different methods and techniques, but the basic concept is surprisingly simple. When you use water to extract coffee solubles from your coffee grounds, you get the delicious liquid we call coffee. There are two primary methods used to achieve this extraction, and most brewing techniques fall under one or the other. They are immersion and infusion.
In immersion brewing, you submerge your coffee grounds in water and steep them, like when you’re brewing tea. As the coffee soaks, the water becomes more and more concentrated until it reaches the optimal amount of coffee soluble extraction. Immersion-based brewing methods that don’t use paper filters result in more coffee oils in your final cup. A French press is an example of an immersion-style coffee brewer.
In infusion brewing, water is gently poured over the coffee grounds. As it flows through the grounds, the water creates the right amount of turbulence for perfect solubles extraction. Coffee aficionados like this method because they have control of the water temperature and the pouring speed. A proper manual pour-over requires precision and focus; the water needs to stay just below boiling for the duration of the pour, which should not take less than four minutes. It can take practice to perfect the process, but the result is a delicious and flavorful cup of coffee. (Read: The Science Behind the Perfect Cup of Coffee and check out our coffee grinding guide)
All drip coffee brewers use infusion, but very few achieve the rich flavor of a pour-over extraction. They may not get the water hot enough, may forcefully spray the grounds and create too much turbulence, and may brew for too long, leaving the grounds oversaturated and your final coffee over-extracted.
The Moccamaster is a “pour-over style” drip coffee maker because it recreates the same process automatically that a coffee lover would do manually, following the precise, scientific brewing standards defined by the European Coffee Brewing Center (ECBC) and Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). Rather than relying on a mechanical pump, natural percolation pushes the heated water through the Moccamaster brewer. As the water begins to boil, the first glugs trickle out slowly, allowing the coffee to bloom. As the water moves through the outlet arm and over the grounds, it creates the correct amount of agitation to fully extract the coffee solubles. Combined with carefully controlled water temperature and brewing time, the result is a perfect yield of coffee solubles in your final cup. Moccamaster delivers the deliciousness of manual pour-over coffee with the simple flip of a switch. Learn how to use your coffee brewer.
