Enjoy Delicious Morning Coffee with the Bialetti Manual Coffee Grinder and Glass Pourover Carafe

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With temperatures in the teens, a delicious, hot cup of coffee is a “must.” We usually grab the pre-ground coffee, put it into a drip coffee maker, add water, and go. But while drip coffee makers are convenient, if you want a rich, full-bodied coffee it takes a bit more effort. Bialetti offers some great products coffee-lovers will love.

My “Bialetti system” comes in two parts.

Part 1: The Bialetti Manual Coffee Grinder

If you are a coffee drinker, you know that nothing beats newly ground coffee beans. I don’t care if our can of Folgers coffee has an “aroma seal” that “locks in freshness.” Grinding coffee immediately before brewing a cup is always going to smell and taste better.

Using the Bialetti manual coffee grinder takes some effort, but it is worth it. At an MSRP of $49.99, the Bialetti manual coffee grinder is…

considered to be the best performing manual grinder in the market. It’s easy to adjust wheel allows you to adjust for your preferred coarseness, whether course for coffee press, fine for the moka express or extra fine for Turkish brew. It is designed to utilize less effort, while creating twice the output.

There is a chamber for the whole beans…

The chamber for the freshly ground coffee…

The bean grinder is part of the upper chamber that holds the beans.

And there is the handle.

To use the grinder, you load the chamber with the whole beans and twist the grey adjusting wheel to select the ideal grind for the coffee you are making. It takes some trial and error to determine which setting will provide the desired grind but be patient… it is worth the effort.

Once the grind level is selected, you will want to connect the bean/grinder unit to the ground coffee chamber. They lock together securely and, once this is done, it is time to grind.

After placing the handle over the small piece of metal coming from the top of the grinder, you will want to begin slowly rotating the handle. Be warned; it takes effort and more time than you might expect to grind the beans. Halfway through the process you might be included to drop everything, go to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and pick up an electric grinder. When you arrive at this point… and you will… it is time to take a short break. After a few minutes get back to work. Within a short time, you will have an empty chamber where the whole beans were and a lower chamber now filled with ground coffee. Take the handle off, separate the two parts of the grinder and breath deeply. Trust me, the newly ground beans smell amazing.

To get the most from the grinder, not to mention having the freshest coffee possible, you will want to maintain the grinder. The company suggests the following:

Care and Use:

  • Recommended on a regular basis to clean your coffee grinder by turning the crank back and forth while keeping the grinder up-side-down. This will help clean and clear the area around the grinder stone.
  • Unscrew the grey adjusting wheel completely and take out the ceramic cone. You will see that the cone is filled with residue.
  • Clean the grinder stone and cone with a stiff brush.
  • For a more thorough cleaning, you can put the cone in warm water and dissolve the residue.

I hated the manual grinder when I was halfway through the first use but, since then, have come to appreciate the need to put a bit of effort into my morning joe. Check out the Bialetti Manual Grinder here.

Part 2: The Bialetti Pourover Carafe Coffee Maker

Once your coffee is ground, it is time to brew a cup of coffee. You could dump the fresh ground into a drip coffee maker but that kind of defeats the purpose doesn’t it? That’s where you will want to grab the Bialetti Pourover Carafe, Coffee Maker.

The company sent me the glass Pourover Carafe Coffee Maker. It looks like a work of art! Be careful, the glass is fairly thin, and one bump on a stone countertop may result in your needing to clean up shards of glass and then head to Starbucks!

As the company explains:

Bialetti’s pour over coffee maker offers a functional and technical design for those that desire a more fundamental and controlled brewing method.

The $39.99 Glass Pourover Carafe can make up to six cups of coffee at a time. It ships with a stainless steel reusable filter. That means you can not only make a delicious cup of coffee, but you are also avoiding the waste that comes with paper filters that get thrown out after every use.

The carafe is dishwasher safe, but you will probably want to hand wash both parts to be safe.

To use the Bialetti Glass Pourover Carafe you will need the Bialetti pour over coffee maker, 20-25g of medium-fine ground coffee of your choice and 10-12 fl. oz. of filtered water. (If you get the company’s plastic pour over you will also need a mug into which the fresh coffee will go as it brews. The plastic pour over is less refined but is under $6!)

To make coffee, you will want to place the ground coffee into the steel filter and place the filter into the glass carafe. After you have brought water to a boil in a kettle, you will want to begin pouring it into the center of the grounds.

Then, slowly moving outward in a circular motion you will keep going until all the grounds are submerged.

Wait for the water to go down and then repeat the process. It takes some time but, little by little, you will see the glass carafe fill with fresh coffee.

When the process is complete, and you have used up all the water, remove the filter, pour your coffee and enjoy.

Bialetti suggests that for the best results you will want to use medium to fine grind coffee beans and filtered water. It you want to be as precise as possible they suggest using a thermometer and scale.

Bialetti offers three different pour over options. You can see all of them here.

So why would you want to go to such effort when you could simply grab some store-ground coffee and dump it into a drip coffee maker? The answer is simple- taste. Pour over coffee is in contact with the coffee grounds for far longer and yields a cup of coffee which smells and tastes far superior to anything you will get from a drip coffeemaker. It is richer, has more of the coffee’s natural oils and is a far better experience. Certainly, this won’t be a daily routine, especially when you are in a rush, but on a slow morning at home, nothing can beat a cup of pourer coffee and the morning paper!

Source: Manufacturer supplied review samples

What I Like: Makes delicious coffee; Lets you be part of the brewing process

What Needs Improvement: Takes time and effort which, before you have that first cup of coffee, may be in short supply

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About the Author

Dan Cohen
Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. Dan is married to Raina Goldberg who is also an avid user of Apple products. They live in New Jersey with their golden doodle Nava.