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Polished Immersion Brewing
Later in 2015, Intelligentsia Coffee’s Sarah Anderson developed this process in her 2015 US Brewers Cup winning routine. She steeped the coarsely ground coffee for 4-5 minutes in French Press carafes and skimmed the crust, as Prince did. After this, the coffee was run through cone filter brewers with a slow pour to ensure that most grounds were left behind. This “polished immersion brewing” consistently produced bright and award-winning coffees. Here’s a link to a 2015 article from Coffee Daily Coffee News describing Anderson’s technique.
Polished immersion brewing is similar to what is achieved with the Clever Dripper, which first appeared in the early 2000s. These are wedge-shaped brewers with a stopper mechanism that allows it to behave both as an immersion brewer and a pour over. All the brewing water is added and the coffee is allowed to steep. When this is done, the brewer is placed on top of a carafe and the draw down begins. This brewer does not allow for the ground skimming done in Anderson’s method, but it the two processes are obviously cut from the same cloth.
The Brewing Process
I do a version of polished immersion brewing that is a bit more in line with the Clever Dripper. I don’t skim the grounds from the top of the carafe, and I use a grind closer to that of a standard pour over. Additionally, I typically steep the grounds for only 2 minutes in the carafe and then transfer to a cone for filtering. The goal is a 3.5 – 4 minute total brew time.
I like to use this method if I’m struggling to dial in a coffee. For example, if I have a juice bomb Kenya that I don’t think is living up to its potential, I’ll do a polished immersion brew just to see if some flaw in my technique is standing in the way of the coffee’s brightness. This is also a great strategy for checking the potential of individual aspects of more complex coffees. Have a Rwanda that’s giving you plenty of cola and spice flavors, but you wonder if there is more dark berry to be had in the cup? A polished immersion brew is a reliable and quick way to check it out.
Here’s my usual process: