MARTIN WÖLFL, SIBARIST CHAMPION tips & tricks!
Martin is the two times Austrian Brewers Cup Champion 2021 and 2022.We are especially happy to met him in Milano, as soon as we knew each other and we discussed about his brewing setup (the CONE filters in combination with the Graycano dripper). After we started thinking all together with the Graycano team, how to improve our filters to increase the brewing performance by exchanging impressions and prototypes until we found the perfect filter for the Graycano dripper.
Martin brewed with the CONE SPECIAL EDITION to win the Austrian Brewers Cup Championship and to compete in the World Brewers Cup Championships. For this reason we are especially happy to share this Sibarist Champion interview with you, where you can know more about Martin, the techniques and some extra amazing tips. We hope you enjoy the lecture and findings.
Thank you Martin, for your collaboration, trust in our products and to share your tips and tricks to our community, you’ll be always a Sibarist Champion!
It will be great to have a brief personal description (background and motivations):
My name is Martin Wölfl, and I am from Lower Austria. I was studying economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business when I found my passion for coffee in a marketing job for a bigger roastery in Germany. I started to visit specialty coffee shops in Vienna, read many books, visited cuppings and workshops and went deeper and deeper into the science of coffee.
Once, my girlfriend Anna asked me why I didn’t entertain the idea of becoming a professional barista. After this conversation I couldn’t stop thinking about it and finally started as a barista. Filter coffee was always a love story for me, because with this kind of coffee brewing, I always felt most connected to the origin and the producers where the coffee is from. When you are brewing filtercoffee you can change and influence the way how the coffee finally tastes with so many variables.
So I started to compete at the Brewers Cup in Austria in 2019. After placing third and second, I finally won the Brewers Cup in 2021 and 2022. So Iam really happy that I can share my passion on the Worlds Stage in Athen again. I was working as a barista and barista trainer for 4,5 years at a specialty coffee shop and coffee lab in Vienna, called Balthasar and jumped afterwards for 2 years into a Austrian bakery and roastery called Öfferl. At this place I was running and building up the roastery, trained the baristas, sourced the coffees and did the coffee marketing. In April 2023 I will start a new project here in Vienna – so keep your eyes open, Iam really looking forward to do the next steps.
How did you know about the Sibarist filters and why to decide to be used in combination with the Graycano dripper?
When it comes to brewing filtercoffee I always try to learn as much as possible about each variable and give my very best to get the best out of the coffee. The brewing water is a good example for that. Iam living in Lower Austria where the water is very hard and the coffee tastes terrible with that – so I started to learn about water and ended up with mixing my own brewing water at home. But filterpaper was not on my list for a long time. One day my friend Stefan from Kaffeeothek sended me some Sibarist filters and messaged me that I should test them. I was overwhelmed how much my brewing changed with Sibarist filters and started to play around more with it. The brewing was so fast. I found out that I can grind a way finer than I usually would and extract more out of the coffee without any overextraction. The filters also helped me to bring more balance, clarity and transparency to the cup. These are also advantages I found while using the Graycano coffee dripper and the idea to combine this set up was born. This set up helped me to get an extraction rate of 20-21% without overextracting the coffee and that worked very well with my comp coffee. I just love this fully bodied, sweet and complex cups of coffees.
Your experience or comments during the process to create the edition?
The idea to create an new Graycano special filter edition was born while I was testing the CONE together with the Graycano at my first brewing trainings for the World Brewers Cup. The regular CONE didn’t fit that well at the Graycano and there have have been some gaps between parts of the filter and the dripper walls. So it was quite hard to brew constantly and to control the flow rate. Furthermore I also had some bypass I couldn’t control that well. I met Joaquim and Lambert at the World of Coffee in Milan and then we directly started to exchange thoughts and feedbacks with Felix and Nicole from Graycano.
What are the main improvements / differences between the regular CONE and the Graycano special edition in your opinion? Cup results?
One of the improvements we did is a slightly different angle of the filter shape. Once folded the new special edition just perfectly lays over the Lava Ribs of the Graycano. So there will no longer be any bypass or uneven extraction due to the filters. We also cuted the size of the filter paper to ensure a closer pour of the water for a more precise and controlled pour over.
Could you describe the coffee you used at the Worlds Brewers Cup?
The coffee I used was a really unique one with a taste I have never had before in my life. The coffee has been from El Salvador from Finca Juana. Finca Juana is located in the region of Santa Ana at 1.729m. There is an interesting story behind that coffee because the variety of that coffee is unknown. The story says that a rich farmer from El Salvador went hunting in Kenia and brought back seeds to EL Salvador in 1940. In 1950 the farmer ripped out the variety and Juanas husband took a chance of the discarded plants and planted the trees on Finca Juana. Since than the coffee trees are growing wild and without any fertilizer. That means that the trees are older than 75 years and still productive. But no one has ever investigated the DNA from these seeds. Unfortunately Juana passed away in 2022 and now her daughter Rosangel Sandoval will run the farm. I had the chance to visit Finca Juana in December 2022 and this was a special moment for me. After all the feedback I got from the World Championship I wanted to bring this feedback back to the farm and help to improve the quality even more.
Can you explain us the recipe you used?
As I mentioned before, my main goal was to bring as much as possible of this intense sweetness and complex body to the cup. So I was aiming for a 20% extraction rate with around 1.55TDS. So here is my recipe:
18g (21 clicks at the Comandante) – 270ml
Water: 118ppm Aquacode
Start with 93° water
00:00 – 00:40 => 60ml Blooming (intense circle pours)
00:40 – 01:20 => brew up to 120ml (intense circle pours)
01:20 – 02:05 => brew up to 170ml (intense circle pours)
02:05 – 02:23 => 88° water and a slow central pour up to 270ml
What the Sibarist filters can add to your brew?
Due to the fast filters you can grind a way finer and raise the extraction rate without overextracting the coffee. So you definitely get more out of the coffee, what I really love. As the filters don´t have any influence on how fast the water is running through the filter, the grind setting and the brewing technique of the barista has an even more impact on the final result. And so the filters give you a way more variables you can play around with.
Any other comment that you could consider that could be useful for coffee lovers, fans, people with the aim to improve recipes and reach for the best extraction?
Brewing with sibarist filter paper totally changed the way how I was brewing filter coffee. You have so many more variables you can play with and you definitely have to rethink your grindsetting and brewing time. It’s a lot of fun and I guarantee that you will find so many new faces of you coffee you have never tasted before. So enjoy this experience.
Watch Martin during the 2022 World Brewers Cup Championship:
