The Kalita Wave Design
Kalita was found in 1958 in Nihonbashi, Tokyo , and this Japanese manufacturer started by producing paper coffee filters in 1958 but soon went on to produce a wide range of Japanese coffee makers and accessories. Now, the Kalita Wave line of pour-over coffee drippers is one of the most beloved tools in pour over brewing . Featuring a flat-bottomed design and proprietary filters the Kalita Wave is a manual brewer built with purpose. Its focus on producing consistent brews and even extractions through its simple but effective design makes it one of the most approachable, easy-to-use pour over devices available .
The dripper’s distinguishing features work together to create exceptional brews. Its flat-bottom build gives you a consistent brew bed that keeps water moving through your grounds evenly, the three outlet holes at the bottom are connected by a raised ridge to keep your filter from getting stuck to the brewer and restricting your flow, and the proprietary Wave filters keep most of the water and coffee away from the sides of the brewer to increase temperature stability . The Kalita Wave delivers consistently delicious pour-over coffee with its unique 20-wave filters and flat-bottom 3-hole design, ensuring even extraction and preventing bitterness .
Available in two sizes, the smaller 155 and the larger 185, you can get the right dripper for either 1-2 cups or 3-4 cups. You can also choose from three different materials: either sleek glass, beautiful and hefty ceramic, or rugged stainless steel . I suggest that you get the big size (185). This size works well even with doses down to 15 grams .
Coffee Ratio and Grind Size
RATIO: 1:16 (i.e. 25g coffee, 400g water) serves as the standard starting point, though for the Kalita Wave I enjoy a 15:1 – 16:1 ratio. The ratio of course also makes an impact. For the Kalita Wave I enjoy a 15:1 – 16:1 ratio . For beginners, the core of the recipe will give you one full 10oz cup, but once you’re comfortable you can scale up (or down), so long as you’re using around a 1 to 16 coffee to water ratio (1 gram of coffee to 16 mL of water) .
Grind size proves critical for extraction control. GRIND: Just finer than sea salt … Grind coffee, slightly finer than sea salt . More specifically, the standard approach for Kalita Wave is to grind medium, and then adjust from there. The wave does give you some ability to manipulate the grind size for a different effect, but that ability is limited by the geometry of the brewer . Finer grind means more surface area for the coffee to be extracted by the water. Start with a medium grind, and then figure out if you wish to adjust the strength of flavor (increase the flavor intensity by grinding finer) .
Usually, extraction happens faster when you use finer grounds. A finely ground coffee can produce a more bitter flavor than a coarse one . If your coffee is thin, hollow, grassy, sour, lacks sweetness, it’s not extracted enough. The most effective way to correct this is to make the grind finer and keep everything else the same . Conversely, if a brew is bitter, harsh, astringent, it’s over-extracted: next time, try coarsening up the grind .
Water Temperature and Equipment Setup
The ideal water temperature to prepare coffee is about 195–205℉ (around 91–96 ℃) . For precision brewing, heat your water to 93°C or 200°F. As always, you may want to go slightly hotter for light roasts—around 95°C or 203°F—and slightly cooler for dark roasts—around 89°C or 194°F. This is because hotter water will help extract the flavors from denser light roast beans .
Equipment preparation requires attention to detail. Place the filter in the Kalita Wave, and then place the Kalita Wave on top of the decanter. Rinse the filter with a little bit of hot water, making sure the whole filter is wet. This eliminate paper taste and preheats the Kalita Wave and the decanter . However, some competition-level baristas disagree: Erin McCarthy won the 2013 World Brewers Cup with a Kalita Wave, but he did not rinse the filter. From his interview with Kirsten Stamn: Don’t rinse the filter. Because the Wave’s filters are so thin, McCarthy says they won’t impart a papery taste to coffee if you skip the standard pre-brewing rinse .
And always preheat your wave with hot water before every brew; this will help maintain optimal brewing temperatures in the slurry (arguably 195-205 F) . Weigh 25 grams of ground coffee into Kalita and tare scale. Give it a gentle tap to flatten coffee bed .
The Brewing Process
The bloom phase initiates proper extraction. Start timer and pour enough water to just saturate coffee bed. Let bloom, or expand for 30 seconds . Pro tip: Allowing the coffee to bloom (or expand before adding more water) ensures even water dispersion and a delicious cup . The amount of your first pour is determined by multiplying your dose times two. Your first pour should be 60g of water for a 30-gram dose.
After blooming, execute controlled pours. Pouring in slow concentric circles, add enough water to raise slurry to about halfway up the side of filter. Continue adding water slowly in stages (also called pulse brewing), submerging the crust as you go and letting the slurry drop a little before adding water to bring it back to the same level . With the Kalita Wave, you want to do incremental pours every 30 seconds. The amount of water needed will vary based on what stage it is in the brewing process, while the finishing time should be between 2(m):45(s) and 3:15, depending on how much coffee is being made .
Try to add all water by 2:45-3:00. Once you’ve added 400 grams of water, give it a little stir and let drain . You’ve done it right if the coffee bed is flat after draining .
Troubleshooting and Common Issues
Timing variations occur naturally with different beans. Freshness of the coffee and grind size make the difference here in brew timing. The fresher the coffee is, the slower it brews . Typically, the main reason why coffee takes forever to brew is because of its moisture content. Fresher beans tend to have more moisture, making them less soluble. In such cases, the coffee allows less water to pass through .
Clogging presents the most common technical challenge. It also tends to clog more often. Clogging happens when the weight of saturated coffee grounds and water pull the paper filter down to the point of covering one of the drain holes. This is bound to happen if you are following a multistage pouring recipe . You can resolve this issue by pouring a few rounds on the edges to push down those grounds. The mistake that most people make is just to add water, which usually ends up down the sides .
If you are not brewing on a level surface, gravity will have an influence causing the water to flow down and out of the hole or two that are closest to earth, thus perhaps leaving you with a somewhat uneven extraction of the coffee bed . Additionally, each type of Kalita Wave has its own flow rate and personality. Notably, the glass and ceramic models drain a little bit faster than the metallic models .
Advanced Techniques and Variations
Experienced brewers can manipulate variables for specific outcomes. Once you get consistent, confident, and consistently confident, try to juggle the variables a bit: grind finer and use slightly cooler water . In the end, our favorite Kalita Wave brewing method was the one from George Howell Coffee. It offered the highest amount of sweetness, acidity, and complexity, and the timed-pulsing seemed to help with improved extraction, resulting in more fruitiness than any of the other methods. Not only did it result in the best tasting coffee, it was also quite easy to reproduce the specified parameters, especially with a flow-restricted kettle .
The Wave’s forgiving nature allows for experimentation. You can be as imprecise as simply adding your coffee, and pouring your water until done. You’ll still get one of the best cups of coffee you can make (provided you follow standard ratio guidelines) . It’s easy to use, easy to learn, exceptionally consistent, and offers a balanced brew of any coffee. Featuring three small holes on the bottom, the Kalita slightly restricts the water flow leaving the brewer and is considered to be a little more forgiving and consistent as a result .