What's the Best Material for Pour-Over Coffee Drippers? What's the Difference Between Ceramic and Resin Drippers?

Why Do Ceramic Drippers Produce Less Bitter Coffee?

As we all know, pour-over coffee offers an extensive variety of dripper choices. Beyond their diverse appearances, the material selection for drippers is incredibly rich. Different materials for drippers have varying impacts on coffee extraction. Recently, a friend discovered through comparison that coffee brewed with ceramic drippers tastes less bitter than coffee brewed with drippers of the same shape but different materials. He was quite puzzled: "All parameters are identical, so why does coffee brewed with ceramic drippers taste less bitter?"

Understanding How Filter Material Affects Extraction

To understand the answer to this question, we first need to understand how dripper material affects extraction! FrontStreet Coffee recently shared this: the reason different dripper materials produce different extraction effects is primarily because their specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity vary!

The Science Behind Thermal Properties

Thermal conductivity refers to the "speed" at which materials transfer heat between each other. Two objects in contact will eventually reach the same temperature. When thermal conductivity is higher, heat transfers faster; when thermal conductivity is lower, heat transfers slower. Specific heat capacity refers to the heat capacity of a unit mass of substance. The level of specific heat capacity determines how quickly a substance's temperature rises or falls. When specific heat capacity is higher, the substance heats up more slowly because it needs to absorb relatively more heat to change temperature, but it also dissipates heat more slowly, and vice versa.

How Heat Absorption Affects Coffee Extraction

Different materials have varying thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity, which together determine a dripper's heat absorption capacity. Without sufficient preheating, the dripper will absorb temperature from the brewing water to reach the same temperature as the water. When the dripper's thermal conductivity is higher, it absorbs temperature from the water faster. When the dripper's specific heat capacity is higher, it absorbs more temperature from the water, and vice versa!

Water temperature directly affects extraction efficiency during brewing. Higher water temperature results in higher extraction efficiency; lower water temperature results in lower extraction efficiency. This means that when a dripper has both high specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity, without preheating, it will have extremely strong heat absorption capability, "plundering" more temperature from the water to "replenish" itself!

The Impact on Flavor Profile

When water temperature drops, the extraction efficiency of the hot water decreases simultaneously, leading to a reduction in the total amount of dissolved coffee substances, resulting in flavor differences. Ceramic drippers play exactly this role - without preheating, they possess excellent heat absorption capability, which causes the water temperature to drop, and consequently, fewer substances are dissolved compared to other materials. Therefore, with completely identical parameters and brewing methods, coffee brewed with ceramic drippers tastes less bitter than coffee brewed with drippers made of other materials. However, this isn't just bitterness - in fact, all flavors are reduced, but bitterness is particularly noticeable because it's more prominent.

Best Practices for Ceramic Drippers

Therefore, when using ceramic drippers, it's best to preheat them with hot water before brewing. This ensures that the water temperature won't be affected by the ceramic dripper and drop. Additionally, preheated ceramic drippers will provide long-lasting heat retention due to their high specific heat capacity, allowing the liquid temperature in the dripper to drop more slowly. However, this is also precisely what requires attention - maintaining high temperatures continuously will relatively increase extraction efficiency, so it's best to adjust parameters appropriately according to the coffee's taste.

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