Whether it’s for your shift as a barista or your home use, quality coffee calls for proper barista tools. Investing in good barista tools is essential as you want to highlight your coffee and also prevent bad decisions, frustrations and therefore a waste of money.
Best barista tools for home
So, today, I’m going to review some of the essentials barista tools that anyone needs to have in his arsenal to brew wonderful coffee with consistency in mind.
1 – Brewista Ratio Scale
Whether you’re a beginner or a skilled barista you must have a good scale. If you don’t have enough money on your pocket but you still want something robust and consistent, you should consider adding to your barista tools box the Brewista Ratio Scale. It’s not your average scale as it also calculates the brew ratio for you.
I usually brew using a coffee to water ratio of 1:16,5 which means I need to add 16,5 grams of coffee for every gram of water. We can also divide 1000 (1 litre of water) by 16,5. That would give you 60,60 grams of coffee for 1000 grams of water.
Back to the setting, there’s the ratio button that allows choosing the range of the ratio you desire that goes from 1:14 up to 1:20.
After grinding your coffee, you put the desired amount of coffee on the scale and, according to the ratio you have selected, the scale will tell you how many grams of water you need to pour.
So, this scale has a good value for being a low budget gear (it’s on sale just for over 60 pounds) as:
– by setting the ratio you want, it can help you to maintain consistency during any shift;
– thanks to that, you can offer different brewing method as any of them will go for their brew ratio.
I know you are a big fan of the Fellow Stagg kettle. But don’t you know about the plug-in kettle one? A good kettle is part of any barista tools: it is a crucial thing to consider as setting and keeping the same temperature of hot water is key to ensure consistency brew after brew.
Consider buying only an electric one, as you need the same temperature during the entire extraction process (bear in mind that with a kettle without plug there are at least 4-5 degrees of difference from when you start your brew to when you end. To make it easier: a lower temperature than desired and you are going to under extract achieving a poorer cup. On the other hand, a higher temperature and you are going to over-extract, burning the coffee and extracting bitter notes.
3 – Kalita Wave dripper
I have recently written down an article (that you can have a look on this link) about the pros of using a Kalita dripper. Anyway, if you aim for consistency, that’s the best thing you can opt for, for your hand brew selection at home or the coffee shop. This coffee tool is paramount to improve the quality of a coffee shop as it ensures the same result each time no matter the barista (given that the same recipe is going to be used).
4 – Barista Hustle pitcher
Assuming you are not competing on the next latte art competition, you need something that allows you to pour good patterns. As affordable as consistent, that’s the pitcher that should join your barista tools. This milk pitcher ensures symmetric pour (better for rosettas on my opinion) and long service life as it’s hard enough to prevent most of the scratches and impacts.
It’s available in 400ml and 600ml and two colours, the Space Black and the Polished Steel. It’s currently on sale for £27 shipping excluded.
5 – BT WEDGE Distribution Tool
I know they are quite expensive but a good tool is mandatory to avoid/limit the channelling phenomenon. They are a great friend as they will stay for all their entire life at your service. So, why not investing in a proper one? With this coffee tools, you will improve drastically the quality of your coffee drinks, by perfectly distributing the coffee and eliminating any coffee retention.
The tool is available in 58.3mm and in 58.5mm too. It’s available in several colours such as walnut, cherry, white oak, ash and matte stainless steel and hard maple. The distributor is on sale for £129.
6 – Comandante Hand grinder or WIlfa Uniform
I reviewed in the past both the Comandante hand grinder and the Wilfa Uniform so you can have a look on here.
I’ll let you check over there as they have already been reviewed and doesn’t need any additions.
Simply put, they are the best coffee tools in their category. The Wilfa Uniform can be placed also in a coffee shop that doesn’t brew a good amount of pour-over per day, avoiding so to invest a large sum of money on an EK43 grinder.
7 – BWT or bottle of water for home use
BWT stands for a high system of water treatment. The company delivers thousands of coffee shops around the world with their services but it can be also installed for home use as it’s not expensive at all. Their Magnesium Mineralized Water is known to be one of the best on the market.
How does it work? A technician simply comes to you and find the perfect water solution according to the water hardness that is present in your living area. Regardless the water, the principle is very simple: calcium and other particles are filtered out while the addition of magnesium balances your tap water make it richer of the mineral content you need to extract tasty coffee.
Alternatively, a good water bottle is a right way to extract good coffee.
In London, it’s recommended to use the still water Waitrose Essentials from Waitrose, the Tesco Ashbeck from Tesco or the Volvic one.
TO SUM UP
What you need to make great coffee is good coffee tools: good grinder, the right scale, a brewing method and a kettle. And of course, a speciality coffee.
It would be nice to have some feedback from you. Hope you enjoyed the article.
I am an Italian coffee lover that pushed for the love of this “amazing drug” decided to come to London to study about coffee and its different extraction procedures and tastes.
