Control freaks and gooseneck kettles.
Are you a control freak?
Most people have probably seen a kettle with a wide spout located towards the top. These kettles make it way too easy to pour out water too fast or slow. But, a gooseneck kettle allows you to pour water slowly and at a controlled rate. This is important for pour-over brewing where you’re trying to evenly saturate your coffee grinds. If you have a automatic coffee maker do yourself a favor. When you throw out the filter with the grinds, notice how the grinds to the outside of the filter are less saturated. This is why pour-overs tend to make a better cup of coffee.
“When making pour overs it's incredibly helpful to be able to focus the pour on specific areas rather than splashing it all across the brew bed, and also to use the speed of the pour to manage the coffees extraction time.” says Jackson O’Brien, a technician and trainer for Peace Coffee in Minneapolis.
You don’t need a gooseneck kettle when with brewing methods that require full immersion of the coffee grounds, like French presses or Aeropresses. These grounds will be fully saturated and hang out with water for a period of time. Gooseneck kettles are primarily for brewers like a Hario V60 or a Chemex and our Fellow Pour-Over Stag Kit.
So, how does a gooseneck kettle control the flow rate of water? It's all about that slinky shape and design. “Kettles whose spouts come out from the top of the vessel are going to have vastly variable flow rates depending on how full the vessel is and the angle the person holding it pours,” O’Brien says. “Gooseneck kettles have the water exit the kettle at the bottom of the kettle, so the flow rate isn't going to be affected by how full the kettle is. In addition the fact that the tube is of a uniform diameter across the entire length means that the angle of the user's pour isn't going to affect the flow rate too much.”
But don't take our word for it. Check out the Fellow gooseneck kettle we offer, and if you are curious about pour-over coffees pair it with our Stag pour-over kit. Not for nothing, but this does make for a great gift for the coffee lover in your life!