3TEMP Pour Over Brew Philosophy
Coffee is complex, nuanced and layered and we want to simplify your control over it. We want you to be able to access the fullness of it and taste every aspect that makes a cup of coffee, a quality cup of coffee.
It is often said that coffee passes through many pairs of hands before it even makes it into your drink. Our ethos at 3TEMP is simply respecting the process and appreciating the coffee. Coffee should be treated like the complex product it is. 3TEMP equip you with the tools to unlock the many facets of your brew.
An excellent cup of coffee is, at worst, serendipity; at best, alchemy. We are here to help you tap into the gold.
For decades, the world has applauded the humble, ubiquitous pour-over, or drip, style of brewing. Known for highlighting acidity, sweetness and body in varying degrees in a coffee. We couple this with the manual brewing skill of the barista. A staple in every specialty cafe. This includes their attention to detail at each step of the brewing process. Their consistency, their intuition regarding the coffee they are working with. We value this skill so much that we bring it to the highest standards of competition. Every coffee shop often required this competency.
But how do we replicate this at scale in cafes, without overtaxing the barista? How do we serve delicious drip coffee in high volumes? How do we keep compromising consistency and quality in the cup at any stage?
Enter the 3Temp Hipster Brewer.
Our Pour Over Brew Process Breakdown
Each of the five Hipster Brewer models contains the same components in different formats. This depends on your cafe layout and desired installation.
These Brewers, and their core components, can be classified into three main categories – the Cold Water Parts, the Warm Water Parts, and your Hipster Control System.
Cold Water Parts
Freshwater is drawn from your cafe’s water treatment system for each brew cycle; the 3TEMP Hipster Brewers do not contain a water storage tank as in most other brewers on the market. In such a setting, when water sits in a storage tank, heated periodically to ensure that it is up to temperature for brewing, this can cause it to go stale, as oxygen is gradually removed from the water over time through repeated cycles of heating/cooling. In the patented 3TEMP system, you’ll only ever draw the optimal amount of water you need for the batch you have programmed.
The cold water first passes through the water airbrake, which contains temperature and level sensors that detect incoming water temperature to protect and prolong the usage of the pump. (Our patent: Knowing the incoming water temperature in the airbrake, in-wall voltage supply, the resistance of the block-heaters, we control the water flow through the heat exchangers, so we end up with precisely the correct brewing temperature).
From there, the water passes through the flowmeter and into the pump of the Brewer.
Warm Water Parts
As water flows in from the flowmeter and through the pump, it passes through the first of two run-through heaters, also known as thermal block elements. Both heaters contain stainless steel spiral coils, which facilitates your water being heated effectively and efficiently. These heaters are off when you are not brewing coffee, a nod to the sustainability that is at the core of 3TEMP’s values.
The temperature of the water is measured at regular intervals throughout our patented brewing process. This means that you are not expending a large amount of energy to heat up a single mass of water, but heating water incrementally as it runs through the system, which is far more energy-efficient.
This intuitive energy regulation is embedded in how each recipe is profiled, particularly with regards to the amount of coffee you are brewing per batch, as well as the pulses programmed into your recipe. The Hipster Brewers can accommodate recipes with yields of anywhere between 200 millilitres to 3.8 litres of coffee!
For smaller batches, with yields between 200ml to 1.1L, only one heater is turned on. For larger batches, with yields between 1.1L – 1.6/2.7L, both thermal block elements are turned on – with one operating at 100%, and the other at varying levels depending on the recipe. And, of course, when you are brewing “Cold Drip Brew” with the Hipster Brewers, the heating elements don’t come on at all.
In each block element, and leading from the second block element to the Brew Hat, lies 2.4 metres of stainless steel tubing, to guard the system against limescale and other residual build-up, thus ensuring the longevity of your Hipster Brewer. Because there is a continuous flow of fresh water, there is little chance for the minerals and the lime scale to get stucked inside the polished tubing walls. Your freshwater, now heated to the right temperature, gets to the Brew Hat, where the real magic happens.
Pour Over Brew Hat
Gone are the days of unthinkingly whacking a coarse-ground batch brew on, to be brewed at a single temperature, for a predetermined number of pulses, and then to be sat on an induction heating plate. With 3TEMP’s Hipster Brewers, we are moving into the age of pour-over brewing.
For great-tasting coffee, the right type of water needs to meet the right type of coffee (coarse and roasting level), under the right circumstances. The final cup of coffee is incredibly sensitive to any changes during the brewing process – from tweaking the temperature of the water by a single degree, to the volume of water in a single pulse, to how finely (or coarsely) the coffee is ground, to how the water is distributed. Add to that the fact that the Hipster System allows you complete control and customizability in varying these factors in the different phases of the brewing process: namely, during your bloom, your brew/extraction phase, and your draw-down/end phase.
All of these variables combine in our Hipster Brew Hat, which comprises a flush tank reservoir above the hopper, supplied with water to the temperature that you have specified. The Hat is equipped with a wide showerhead for even and gentle distribution while avoiding channelling. Combined with the flat-bottomed geometry and heavy angled walls of the brew basket, which highlights complex acidity and sweetness through a hybrid drip/immersion brewing method, the Hipster Profile Brewers ensure that your coffee grounds are fully saturated for even and consistent extraction.
Bloom – The Fruity Core
In the bloom, several things happen in your Hipster Brew Hat in quick succession. The Hat has a default, quick, pour-over wide flush at high temperatures – this initial contact stabilises the temperature inside the brewing cavity in order to account for the relatively cooler surface area of your basket, filter paper, and coffee. The pre-infusion pour-over flush brings the brewing cavity up to temperature and prepares the coffee for the main brewing phase.
Upon contact with the hot water, soluble compounds within the ground coffee dissolve into the water that forms your coffee yield; the grounds simultaneously expand in size, releasing carbon dioxide for about 20-30 seconds, in a process known as degassing.
Brew – The Sugar Valley
Once we have finished the bloom, and established our “core fruity flavours”, we are setting the stage to extract sweetness from our coffee. The Hipster Brewers achieve this in several ways: we can prolong contact time and immersion of the grounds by programming more flushes, and/or lower the temperature of your brewing water to reduce the rate of extraction, keeping the bitter compounds at bay for a little longer to allow more sweetness to form in the cup.
The Hipster Pour Over Brewer lowers the temperature of the water by speeding up the flow of freshwater through the heat exchange system, to decrease the temperature of the water in the Brew Hat, keeping the brewing phase in the “sugar valley”.
With the 3TEMP System, you are at complete liberty to adjust and manipulate your brewing variables – your ratios, water temperatures, brew phases, overall contact time, and pulses – to create your desired profile, unlocking new dimensions of flavour in your coffees.
Draw-Down – The Fade Out
The draw-down is the final phase in the brewing process and often corresponds to the final 30-40% of the brew. As the final compounds to extract in the extraction timeline are those that create bitterness, it pays to keep a close eye on the draw-down, as lack of attention to this part of the process may result in undesirable bitterness and a watery, faded mouthfeel. Pour over timing, temperature and fresh water must be in focus.
It’s worth reminding that bitterness isn’t an inherently negative aspect of coffee! Instead, just the right touch of bitterness can round off the flavours of your coffee, enhancing its complexity while highlighting your acidity and sweetness in perfect complement.
Variables To Account For
A range of compounds responsible for different flavours in coffee is extracted in a certain set order. Your organic acids and enzymes, your sugars, and finally, your bitter compounds.
Organic acids and enzymes are usually the sources of your fruity and zingy top-notes in coffee. You then go on to extract sugars, creating sweetness in the cup. Finally, compounds that cause a pleasant bitterness in the coffee. While none of these flavours is inherently negative. It takes skill to achieve them in balance to create a complex, quality cup.
Under-extracted coffee may taste sour, salty or flat because the sugars have not yet been extracted, due to reduced contact of coffee with water; conversely, over-extracted coffee can be bitter because contact time is prolonged, such that your complex acids and sugars are lost in the overwhelming bitterness of your final compounds.
Light-roasted coffee is less porous than dark-roasted coffee. This results in a longer contact time to achieve optimal extraction and balance in flavour. This is often why light-roasted coffee favours drip brewing with a slow, gentle pour over technique.
What Happens Now?
We need to pay attention to the final steps in the brewing process. Which include storing and serving your delicious cup of coffee.
We stand by our ethos of sustainability, so we stored the brewed coffee in a quality thermos. Our patented brewing system does not come with a heating plate, as seen in most other batch brewing machines.
By storing your coffee in a vacuum-sealed thermos, you’re preserving the quality of your coffee. There is limited oxidation of the coffee, and thus a limited increase in tannins in the brewed coffee. This largely correlates with a decrease in the perceived quality of the coffee over time. Additionally, you’re not further heating the brewed coffee, which means you avoid scalding it or causing it to go flat after a while.
Through each and every single step, we are maximising the potential of the coffee you brew.
Hipster Control System
Your Brewer is part of a vast network of Brewers all around the world. The core team of engineers at our headquarters in Arvika, Sweden overseen you.
Each Brewer comes with a router and internal circuitry, as well as a control system. This allows you to program your Brewer. 3TEMP in Arvika proactively monitor the status of all Brewers to narrow down and troubleshoot issues without much hassle. A QR code printed on every Brewer gives you easy access to support.
Circular economy
This seamless end-to-end coverage is part of our Brewer-As-A-Service (BaaS) program. A comprehensive, interconnected way of working directly with us as well as with other users in the Hipster Brewer community.
