How to brew barista-quality coffee at home

Love it or loathe it, coffee culture has peaked in Ireland.

Regardless of where in the country you are, you won't be far from a coffee shop that's ready to serve you a perfect cup of joe. Ever thought about how you could replicate barista-quality coffee at home? 

To find out how to make the perfect coffee at home, we turned to the experts. Cloud Picker Café opened on Pearse Street last year and the team there have been serving up quality brews ever since. We enlisted barista Dustin Khan and Arvind Khedun, head of coffee at Cloud Picker and Irish Barista Champion, to demonstrate the V60 brewing method for us, which is an easy, fun and satisfying way to create barista-quality coffee at home.

READ MORE: Cloud Picker Café is ready to take Dublin by storm

How to make the perfect cup of coffee

To start off, you'll need a couple of things in order to get brewing:

• Hario V60 dripper
• Hario V60 filter papers
• A coffee cup, or larger server for multiple cups
• Measuring scales
• Timer
• Hand or electric grinder
• Gooseneck kettle 
• Coffee 

Method:

1. Place a filter paper into the V60 dripper and place it on top of your cup or server. Rinse the filter with hot water and discard the water when filtered. This helps to warm your cup while removing any papery taste from the filter.
2. Grind 15g of coffee and place it into the filter. The coffee should be medium-coarse, coarser than espresso so as to allow the water to fall through the coffee more easily.
3. Even out the grounds in the V60 by lightly tapping it. Slowly pour in 50g of hot water at around 90-96ºC. If you don't have a temperature-controlled kettle, simply wait two minutes after your kettle has boiled and the water should have cooled to the required range. 
4. Give the grounds a gentle stir to ensure they're all wet and then wait for the water to filter through the coffee for 15-30 seconds. This waiting period creates a bloom on top of the coffee and gives time for the gases in the coffee to escape. 
5. Continue pouring in more water until your cup weighs in at 250g. Pour the water slowly in a circular motion, from the outside towards the centre, to help ensure all the grounds are evenly filtered. Make sure to keep the pour fairly soft and even so you don't disturb the grounds too much.
6. Give the coffee grounds one final, gentle swirl to give the ensure that they have all been evenly filtered.
7. When the coffee has finished dripping through, give the coffee in your cup or server a quick swirl then serve. 

TIP: If you're making two cups, double the amount of grounds and water.

READ MORE: Award-winning barista Daniel Horbat on his life in coffee

Check out how the team at Cloud Picker make the perfect cup of coffee in the video below.

This method of making coffee ensures that your cup is bright and balanced, showcasing the very best of the beans you have used. If you don't have a V60, you can use a French press, but we think that the V60 will truly help you perfect your coffee game. 

Head to cloud cloudpicker.ie to find the Hario V60 equipment or for more tips and tricks. 

READ MORE: Clever ways to cook with coffee