ADVANCED HOOPING

 
 

Now that I’ve used the Ceado Hoop brewer for several months, I have a few tips to share with readers. Although the Hoop produces beautiful extractions more easily than any other brewer, every brewer has a few quirks to be mindful of when brewing. 

Filter Paper

Before I began offering upgraded filter paper for the Hoop, the original paper’s flow restriction and tendency to clog forced Hoop users to use a very coarse grind. Some grinders can’t grind coarse enough to prevent stalls with the original paper.

The upgraded paper allows one to use a grind setting similar to what one would use for a larger-dose pourover or a NextLevel Pulsar to produce 4:00 brews with a 22g dose. Please remember to always mount the filter in the Hoop with the rough side up. The rough side of the filter has extra surface area, which allows it to trap far more fine particles without clogging. The paper from NextLevel is the best I’ve ever tried: it has smaller holes for good clarity, with ample surface area for trapping fines and limiting clogging. These filters turn the Hoop from a finicky brewer into one of the two the best manual brewer on the market (along with the Pulsar). 

Breaking the Crust

I recommend generally avoiding agitating, swirling, stirring, or shaking the Hoop while brewing. Less agitation helps prevent clogging and uneven extractions. The one exception is if a dry crust of grounds forms at the top of the slurry when brewing fresher or darker roasts. The larger the crust, the fewer grounds that are in the intact coffee bed. At the extreme, a large crust can lead to low extractions. To break the crust, I recommend using a WDT Tool to gently stir the grounds until they submerge. 

Pouring 

While you *can* get a great  brew by pouring the water rapidly into the outer ring of the Hoop, I find overall better results from pouring slowly, moving the kettle side to side to prevent the water from swirling in one direction. I tend to pour the first 1/3 of the water slowly, and then pour the rest quickly. 

Water

I recommend pouring water just off the boil. While there are many things I could say about optimal water chemistry, the most important consideration — by far — is that the alkalinity (aka KH, bicarbonate, buffer) is at a reasonable level. I recommend alkalinity of 25—40 ppm. While hardness matters, the Hoop is not at risk of scaling, and one has a wide range of acceptable hardness levels to yield delicious coffee. Hardness of 30—90 ppm (CaCO3 equivalent) should work well, as long as there is at least a modest level of magnesium in the water. In cases of near-zero magnesium, I recommend adding 3-4 drops of Lotus Magnesium Chloride to each brew, before or after brewing. 

Level

Hoop users know that unfortunately the Hoop does not sit flat on all carafes. I recommend trying this if you want to use a glass carafe with the Hoop, or this if you want a stainless steel carafe. 

Stalled Brews

If your brew stalls, please first try grinding coarser, even if the grind setting seems unreasonable to you. If the coarsest setting on your grinder still causes brews to stall, or yields brews that are too weak, please consider these factors: 

  • Make sure you are using my upgraded filter paper and have inserted the filter rough-side-up

  • You can try a smaller dose, but I recommend not using less than 18 grams

  • Decrease or eliminate any source of agitation

  • Check that your grinder burrs are not dull or poorly aligned. Please note that just because your pourovers don’t stall easily, that doesn’t mean the burr sharpness or alignment isn’t the problem with the Hoop; it is possible your pourover brews have an exceptional amount of bypass. Most “espresso” or “Turkish” burrs will not work well with the Hoop, and are generally not appropriate for filter brewing. 

If you try all of the above and your Hoop still stalls, please drop a comment below, and I will help you troubleshoot. 

Scott Rao