Peter Schlumbohm invented a lot of things, but he was absolutely fanatical about refrigeration systems. His pursuit of refrigeration and how to improve it through chemical, mechanical and engineering processes occupied most of his life’s work.
Which led to the invention of a coffee maker.
That coffee maker is the Chemex Coffee Brewer. You see, while Schlumbohm was obsessed with refrigeration, he did invent a lot of things, and one of them was the Chemex coffee maker, which he initially designed in 1939. It was improved in 1940 and improved again in 1941 when it finally was manufactured and sold.
The Chemex is the second oldest, continually sold pour over coffee system after the Melitta system. It’s quite different from the Melitta — or the Hario system — when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it all, as we will do in this How To on the Chemex Brewer. We will dive deep into this history later on, but we want to show you how to use this brewer first!
For this how to, we’re using Bonavita’s budget-friendly 1.0 Litre Stovetop Gooseneck Kettle ($25) with Baratza’s entry level Encore White Grinder ($140). While we show photos of a vintage (1950s!) Chemex 10 Cup brewer (with hammered glass), for the How To, we’re using the much more budget-friendly 8 Cups Glass Handle Chemex ($45). Of course, we’re using the unique Chemex Square Filter papers as our filtering method. And we’ve chosen an amazing coffee from Batdorf Coffee, their Ethiopian Sidamo Guji, which sadly is very seasonal and no longer available this year (it was beautiful).
For this How To, you will need:
- a Chemex Brewer (we’re using an 8 cup glass handle model for this demonstration)
- good, freshly roasted coffee
- a quality grinder
- a scale — even a budget scale like the $16 one we’re using here
- a pour over kettle
- a timer (your smartphone will do)
- optionally, a chopstick or a stir stick. The chopstick is a trick some use by placing it in the Chemex before brewing, so it creates a barrier to the filter paper, preventing it from sticking to the Chemex’s pour chute.
Mark has certified as a Canadian, USA, and World Barista Championship Judge in both sensory and technical fields, as well as working as an instructor in coffee and espresso training. He started CoffeeGeek in 2001.
