High-end specialty coffee equipment company Weber Workshops has introduced an innovative manual coffee brewing device called the Bird (styled by the company as BIRD, as in “brewed in reverse direction”).
Revealed on social media in the final days of 2023, the Bird combines elements of pourover brewing, full-immersion brewing and espresso within a physical format reminiscent of a French press.
The innovative brewer’s price of $360 further distinguishes it from most existing manual brewing devices.
The filter in the Bird starts off at the bottom of the chamber. Coffee is added on top, followed by water. At the bottom of a threaded steel drive shaft, a propeller-like agitator called the “claw” descends and spins to stir the slurry to the user’s liking.
The claw then connects to the top of the brewing pod (filter apparatus), allowing the user to pull the filter up from the bottom of the chamber, collecting and carrying the coffee grounds on its way. The user fully removes the pod, grounds and all, to end brewing.
A key feature of the device is its use of vacuum pressure, adding espresso-like variables to a platform that already combines pourover and French-press-like variables. Water is forced through the coffee bed by the upward motion of the pod in a vacuum. Users can experiment with a broad range of grounds sizes, down to espresso fineness.
The inability of water to avoid passage through the coffee qualifies the Bird as the latest entrant to the growing field of “no bypass” brewers.
Weber Workshops Director of Customer Experience Andrew Pernicano told Daily Coffee News it takes approximately six to seven revolutions of the wing nut on the lid to raise the pod to the top of the vessel — a process that can take 30 seconds or more, depending on preferences.
“When it comes to how fast or slow to retract the pod, that will come down to dose and grind size, as well as the intended recipe,” Pernicano told DCN. “Certainly, a very fine grind and large dose will provide more resistance to the pull, requiring more effort or time to wind the wing nut. On the other hand, a coarser grind and/or lower dose will provide less resistance.”
Additionally, the amount of agitation throughout the brewing process will provide different levels of resistance during the pressurized brew phase, with more floating/agitated grounds resulting in less pressure, and more settled grounds providing increased pressure.
These and other variables encourage experimentation and the potential for vastly different brewing recipes.
“We believe it’s early days yet to call what is too little or too much in terms of agitation during the brew, and this will depend somewhat on what the recipe aims to achieve,” said Pernicano. “Is it a quick 2-minute brew with a very fine grind, or a much longer 8-10 minute steep with coarsely ground coffee? The brewer has the option to follow tried and true recipes shared for immersion brews as well as take part in writing the playbook of what’s now been made possible.”
The “brewing pod” filter assembly is made from stainless steel with silicone flanges. Outside the borosilicate glass pitcher is an anodized aluminum handle and lid, atop which spins a solid brass wingnut and crown. It is designed to accommodate brew ratios of 20 to 35 grams of ground coffee mixed with a maximum of 400 grams (14.1 ounces) of water.
The brewer comes with abaca paper filters made by Japan’s Cafec as an alternative to the included stainless steel filter.
The announcement of the Bird capped a busy year for Weber Workshops. In addition to launching its premium WDT tool called the Moonraker, 2023 also saw the company roll out additional sizes of its Unibasket espresso filter basket, a bottomless portafilter called the Buck, and the “Mk. II” evolution of the Key electric grinder.
Weber Workshops is planning to show off the Bird brewer at numerous upcoming industry events, including the SCA Expo in Chicago in April. Brewers will be available for purchase via the company’s website in two limited drops this month, with its broader release coming later this year.
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Howard Bryman Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
