some thoughts on the bonavita brewer & flat-bottom auto drip
I haven’t posted here in approximately an eon. I won’t be posting here unless I have something vaguely interesting to say, perhaps every month or three. Anyway, let’s begin...
[next to the previous brewing abomination]
Last holiday, I had a chance to brew coffees on Bonavita’s newer model of auto drip brewer, the bv1900ts alongside a Baratza Encore grinder, since my family had recently picked up the pairing and I was visiting. All in, it’s around a $300 setup and one which I previously would’ve readily recommended readily. (Spoiler: it’s still one I’d recommend.)
First, I thought the Encore was pretty excellent. Retention was a mere .1g with single dosing and grounds looked pretty consistent. The grinder responded well to adjustments in size. Build quality is more than adequate for the money, and I have no reason to expect one wouldn’t hold up for at least a few years.
My opinions on the Bonavita were somewhat more mixed. Before I offer any thoughts, let me mention briefly the parameters I used. I brewed several coffees, and the ones which I remembered to note down were a Honduras, Pinona Pacas, from Ritual, and Intelli’s Zirikana, Rwanda. For both, I tried a pretty wide range of brew ratios, from 1:15 to 1:17.5; doses, from 30 to 60 grams; and a wide range of grind settings, from bitter-overextracted to sour-underextracted. I had absolutely no trouble getting what seemed to be a good extraction - sweet and clean and pleasant. I could get a syrupy, heavy mouthfeel if I wanted to.
[near-perfect post-extraction bed - better than most Fetcos I’ve seen]
But the flavors tended toward somewhat generically coffee-like. Now while I had tasted both of these coffees as v60 brews in keeping with my slightly-modified Perger technique, I didn’t have my equipment with me in Los Angeles to stage a direct comparison. But the thought that occurred to me was that this well-extracted but not aromatic “defect” was really reminiscent of what I’d experienced with the Kalita Wave. I used to be a believer in the Wave, and I still don’t think it’s a bad brewer, but once I learned to extract properly with my v60, I found the Wave’s aromatics lacking in comparison, even if it was more foolproof. In some sense, the two brewers remind me of each other - easy to produce good coffee, but in some sense not disposed to producing really excellent coffee.
It’s perfectly possible that flat-bottom brewers extract “better” than cones - more evenly, higher with an equivalent amount of bitterness... but I’m not convinced that the result is necessarily better to my palate. Maybe it’s just a technical issue, and certainly I think I have better cups from a well-dialed Fetco than the Bonavita. (For one, the Bonavita’s far less programmable. Also, the Fetco’s dispersion screen achieves a much more even - but not perfect - distribution of water. Why the world lacks an auto drip machine that can distribute water evenly without producing divots in the coffee bed is beyond me.)
As I have said before, I think we may actually be seeking near-perfection and not quite total perfection in our brewing practice. Some small elements of under- and/or over-extraction may produce a really pleasing, complex, aromatic cup. Don’t use “complexity” as an excuse to brew sloppily or to skip weighing or refracting anything, but remember than measurements are only useful to the extent that they correlate with ideal taste.