A Guide To Coffee at Home by Heart & Graft

Twin Peaks creator David Lynch once said “bad coffee is better than no coffee at all”, but why engage in the travails of queuing for farmed-out blanduccinos when speciality stardom is attainable at home? Combining Q Grader precision with DIY innovation, Sean Fowler and James Guard of Heart & Graft are mercifully on hand to offer pearls of caffeinated wisdom to the enthusiastic – but occasionally aimless – home-brewer; read our profile of the duo from our new Pioneer Profiles series.

Invest in good equipment

SF: I think you can make coffee shop quality coffee at home. It’s really affordable, though maybe not for espresso, unless you’re paying thousands for a machine. Aeropress is the most hassle-free way, it’s got more clarity than the French press as it’s not sat steeping for as long.

JG: While simplicity isn’t necessarily a barrier to coffee-success, skimping on the essentials is a complete lose-lose situation. Spend money on the grinder and get a good one! If you’ve got really great coffee you need a good grinder and a set of digital scales to be able to adjust different variables.

Aim for A-grade beans

SF: Once equipped with a suitable grinder and a set of scales, it’s time for ‘great speciality grade coffee’, without which it just isn’t going to work. There’s not really an easier bean to work with per se, part of the joy is discovering new. Perhaps start with an origin you are familiar with – I like Colombian when I'm out so I try to replicate that at home. Then spread your little coffee wings and screw the trends!

Grind your own

JG: You’ll always get a better, fresher coffee if you grind it yourself. If someone grinds it for you, you'll need to use it within a week. Manage your expectations, and you can still get some really nice coffee.

Take things slow

SF: For budding home-brewers it’s all about grinding fresh and adjusting variables accurately and one at a time. Don’t change too many things at once; read guides and find stuff you think might work, then when you’re experimenting only change one variable at a time or you’ll get really lost.

If in doubt, improvise!

JG: At a party where there wasn’t any coffee, I threw a few scoops of coffee into a cocktail shaker, added hot water, left it for a few minutes and poured it through a clean J cloth as a strainer. The taste? No comment. 

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