Flow Control The Pulsar brewer offers complete control over agitation and flow rate, and makes it easy to retain water during the blooming phase.	Diffused Pouring Start a controlled brew with a uniform wetting of the grounds with the carefully designed dispersion cap.	High Versatility The valve and the "no bypass" brewer design provide an unlimited number of possible combinations of immersion and percolation.	No Water Bypass Eliminate the unknown amount of water bypassing the coffee bed (Easily control the strength with brew ratio)
Heat Retention The combination of thermal stable plastic and dispersion cap give this brewer the advantage of higher slurry temps.	Tea Brewing The ideal dripper for steep & release tea brewing. Gong-fu tea brewing is a traditional Chinese method of making tea.	Steep-and-Release Perfect for simple brews 'steep-and-release' brews.	Made in the USA All parts manufactured in the United States of America!

Suggested Recipes

Pulsar | Batch Brew | 1:17 Mostly Percolation / Balanced Extraction Dose: 40g Water: Brew 580g Beverage Size: 600g Grind: 1000 – 1,300 microns Instructions Rinse filter, close valve, add dispersion cap, and tare scale. Start: Add approx 120g | Add coffee (WWDT) 0:30 – 1:00: Open valve. Next: Pour in the center of the cap in multiple pours, keeping the brew water column between 200-300ml, pouring until the total is 620g (accounting for dose). TBT: 4:30 – 5:30 (depending on valve/grind) End: Remove brewer, tare scale and add 100g dilute to brew.

Pulsar | Steep & Flush | 1:17 Faster Brews / Higher Body / Balanced Extraction Dose: 20g Water: Brew 340g Beverage Size: 295g Grind: 600 – 800 microns Instructions Rinse filter, close valve, add dispersion cap, and tare scale. Start: Add approx 100g | Add coffee (WWDT) Next: Add water up to 190g 1:30 – 2:00: Open valve. (Partially?) Next: Cool kettle 10º – 15º (F) Pour in the center of the cap in multiple pours, keeping the brew water column between 3 and 1 centimeter above the bed, pouring until the total is 360g (accounting for dose). TBT: 3:30 – 4:30 (depends on valve/grind)

Pulsar | Dry Filter | 18/305 Mostly diffusion / Larger bloom / Higher Sweetness Dose: 18g Water: Brew 305g Beverage Size: 260g Grind: 800 – 1,000 microns Instructions Dry Filter, Close Valve, Add Coffee Start: Bloom with 100g (WWDT) 1:00: Open valve. 1:30: Pour up to 200g. When the brewing water is about a centimeter above the bed, pouring until the total is 305g. TBT: 4:00 – 5:00 (depending on coffee)

Pulsar | Basic Recipe | 1:17 Mostly diffusion, Higher clarity / Higher acidity Dose: 20g Water: Brew 340g Beverage Size: 295g Grind: 800 – 1,000 microns Instructions Dry Filter, Close Valve, Add Coffee Start: Bloom with 60g (WWDT) 0:30 – 1:00: Open valve. Next: Pour in the center of the cap in multiple pours, keeping the brew water column between 3 and 1 centimeter above the bed, pouring until the total is 340g. TBT: 4:00 – 5:00 (depending on coffee/grind)

Basic Tips

• A level countertop/scale greatly helps with uniform water flow through the dispersion cap.
• Wet/rinse filter before inserting barrel.
• When inserting barrel, make sure it seats firmly/completely down against the filter/filter support!
• A light swirl is a easy way to level the coffee bed before brewing. A uniform level bed is important!
• When pouring, a faster center pour works good with the first/bloom pour. On successive, and/or slower pours, keep kettle spout moving in a circular pattern for even water distribution.
• For easy barrel removal hold onto base, and twist and pull up on the barrel, or gently rock barrel back and forth while pulling up
• When discarding grounds, gently squeeze base to prevent filter support from falling out with the spent coffee.

Advanced Tips

Compared to a conventional cone-dripper, the LVL-10 may be more difficult to conceptualize but easier in execution. Hang with us here for a bit…

• Grinding size, and quality, is an important determinant to how we approach this no bypass brewer and what the resulting coffee is like. We believe that the brewing ratio should be a greater factor in the grind size than overall time. (Lower ratio = Finer grind) But time is still important! And longer is usually better than shorter. Five min plus brews are usually the most balanced.
• We would like to see a more universal language when talking about grind size. Fine, Medium and Course are so abstract and subjective that they’re not very helpful terms. We realize that grind size is only part of the equation, but we feel it’s advantageous to refer to size in microns (1,000 microns = 1mm). This is still somewhat a guestimate but at least it’s referencing a known unit of measurement.
• For some low fines burr sets and/or low RPM “Monolith type” grinders where the water still flows fast at 350 - 400 micron sizes, we’ve found that swirling the dry coffee on the wet filter may help to slow the flow, at least initially.
• For more acidic brew, pulse pour keeping the water column lower in the brewer. This slows the brew down and exposes the coffee to cleaner (More solvent) water.
• Agitation with a glass rod, or chopstick, works good if swirling the slurry slows the flow too much. We believe that swirling the slurry moves more fines down to the filter level. Some grinds/coffees work well, or better, without agitation though.
• Low doses (ie 18g) seem to work better with our low dilute / no dilute recipes, and a finer grind. This can also give the highest Extraction Yield %, if that’s a preference.
• If you have a refractometer and can get TDS measurements, our EY% calculation is: TDS x Beverage / Dose = EY% (Actually weighing the final beverage is the most accurate)
• Even though it may sound like it in some of our sharing, we don’t advocate for pushing EY% to the limit. The brews that balance early extraction / time / dilute generally taste the best and are in the 21 - 23 % range. We’ve gotten really good tasting results with 1:16 finished ratios and EY’s over 25% using a 1:13 brew ratio.
• Experiment broadly! Some very easy to extract coffees (anaerobic/natural/decaf) like a 1:10 brewing ratio with a lot of dilute. Other coffees do well with high brew ratios of 1:20 and long contact times.

Brewing Suggestions

While we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we are exploring a new coffee brewing concept. We invite you join us in our No Bypass Brewing journey!

Fortunately, there are many great coffees available to us, but are we getting the best out of them we can? Too often, improper brewing ruins what could have otherwise been excellent coffee. We’d like to offer some suggestions that hopefully help us in this quest for awesome coffee!

Grinding

A great grinder will transform your coffee experience from the inside out. More importance should be placed on your grinder than on the brewing equipment. Quality grinding equipment with sharp aligned burrs, will reward you with coffee that is both flavorful and delicious.

The grind size of the coffee is crucial. The finer the grind, the more surface area is exposed to the brew water. The size of the grind largely determines how quickly / easily the extraction happens. If the grind is too fine you’ll over-extract the brew (Bitter, strong, unpleasant) or too large you’ll under-extract (Sour, salty, thin) or a poor quality grind with too wide a particle distribution and there will be both of these mixed and very little clarity of flavor.

Water

Water can make or break your best attempts at great coffee. Because the minerals in water are essential to the extraction process, an easy solution is to use a product like:https://thirdwavewater.com mixed with either distilled or RO water. SCA says that a TDS of 100-120 ppm is ideal. Water TDS meters are a cheap and easy method to track total TDS, but not the actual mineral composition. If you don’t know what the mineral content / TDS of your water is, buying bottled spring water is usually the easiest path to great coffee.

Waters to avoid: Softened (It usually has too much alkalinity/carbonated hardness), Distilled water (No mineral content) Municipal water that contains Chlorine, RO while not ideal (Too low mineral/TDS) can still be an okay brewing water if you grind courser or increase the dose.

Or another great option is to use a product like: https://lotuscoffeeproducts.com/ Their system of remineralization allows you to tailor a water recipe specifically for a coffee/roast. Currently our favorite water recipe is pointed more towards Calcium and Potassium
– 5 drops Calcium
– 2 drops Magnesium
– 4 drops Potassium
– 2 drops Sodium

This would be about at 70GH/30KH for a 450ml amount

Water Temperature

The temperature of the brewing water is very important. There’s a strong correlation between the roasted density of the beans and the brewing temp, a light roasted coffee will generally be denser and need hotter water to extract properly. Hotter = sweeter / Cooler = more acidic, all else being equal. We would recommend starting with a water temp of 202F (94C). It’s also worth experimenting with 160F (71C) bloom water. This seems to help retain the aromatics and volatiles and up the cup profile.

Coffee to Water Ratio

The proportion of coffee used in relation to the amount of water, constitutes the brewing ratio. The industry standard brewing ratio is 1:16 (one part coffee to 16 parts water) but the efficient No Bypass Brewer is redefining this standard. We recommend starting with a ratio of 1:17. The most widely accepted way to measure these ratios are by weight in grams. A good gram scale that’s accurate to 0.1g /3kg is easy to find and buy. One thing to be aware of is that Decaf and most natural process coffees may be best with a brew ratio of 1:13 and a dilute ratio of 1:4.

Brewing Process & Time

There are two basic brewing methods, diffusion and immersion. Diffusion (Also called percolation) means water is flowing around and through the aggregate of ground coffee. Immersion means the ground coffee is soaked (or steeped) in the brew water.

Time is often mistakenly thought of as an important variable in the brewing process but contact time is the result of grind size, water temp/quality & brew ratio, all of which influence the resulting cup. We believe too much emphasis is placed on contact time and more consideration should be given to the grind size / brew ratio relationship. (For example, when using an automatic coffee maker that doesn’t allow control of water delivery, grind size / brew ratio becomes a great way to control extraction.)

It’s important to remember that in a normal brew 80 – 85 percent of the solubles are likely extracted during the first minute of the brewing process. This can help guide our brewing parameters and choices as we chase maximum extraction without over-extraction.

Sometimes it just comes down to experimentation, and finding your perfect brewing formula with your personal equipment.

How we got started

When two roasters read the same article online and start brainstorming … Discoveries are made!

A very in-depth coffee blogger, Jonathan Gagne, is publishing a book The Physics of FILTER COFFEE. On Dec 9 2020 Jonathon published a blog titled ‘Brewing with the Fellow Stagg [X] Dripper’ In this article Jonathon describes the problem of bypass in the common cone drippers. This set us to thinking and experimenting. What we found surprised us, and yet was so compelling that the NextLevel brewer was born.

Through much trial and error we have arrived at what we feel is a very thought out and efficient brewing method. We believe this brewer could become the versatile / go-to / daily driver for a large segment of the coffee enthusiasts who are brew manually. We believe this is the future of coffee brewing and want to share this brewing method with as many as possible.