5 Hacks To Upgrade Your Coffee Game

If you’re making coffee at home, chances are you’re self taught, you probably have watched some YouTube coffee videos or maybe have a nerdy coffee friend who’s been advising you on what to do or to fix what you’re doing wrong!
In this article I’m going to run through 5 coffee hacks that are guaranteed to help you improve your coffee game!

1. Buy Better Beans!

Imagine trying to make a cake with 10 year old flour, cheap off milk and emu eggs, it’s not going to be great sure you might be able to make something that looks like a cake but no matter what you do you’re cake will be as good as the ingredients you use.

Coffee is an even more extreme example of this as filter coffee coffee or espresso is literally just coffee and water.

The quickest and easiest way you can make better coffee is to start by buying better coffee beans, look for single origin coffee, experiment with lighter roasts and definitely consider buying specialty coffee (80+ Points).

2. Fresher is better

Now that you have great tasting coffee, let’s talk about how you can store those beans to keep them tasting as fresh as possible!
There are many ways to store beans but by far the most popular method and storage solution is storing your coffee beans in an Airscape coffee canister.

The Airscape is essentially a metal bucket with a plunger insert and a lid, start by placing your coffee beans into the canister and fill plunge the inset all the way down to touch the beans. This forces out all the extra air inside the canister and keeps your coffee beans in a low-oxygen environment.
This helps keep your coffee fresher for longer by removing the air, keeping your coffee beans away from light and keeping them cool, slowing down the aging process of your beans.

3. It’s Probably Not Your Dripper

New home baristas and hobbyists love collecting coffee drippers, in the last decade having a new dripper has turned into a monthly purchase and a unique talking point when making coffees for others. While there isn’t anything wrong with that, coffee drippers have a much smaller impact on the flavours you can extract from your coffee compared to everything we’re discussing in this article.

Our suggestions for a cheap pour over coffee dripper that makes great tasting coffee is the Clear Plastic HARIO V60 Dripper. It’s inexpensive, durable and doesn’t break like glass or ceramic.

If you’re against buying a plastic coffee dripper and don’t want to run the risk of having anything ending up in your coffee / you then check out the Stainless Steel HARIO V60 Dripper.

4. Upgrade Your Grinder First

In our opinion you should break up your coffee budget like this: 80% of your budget should go towards your coffee grinder, 20% to go to your beans, 10% to go towards your drippers / filters, ’Roughly’.

The reason for this is that even if you’re comparing a $25 grinder and a $2,000 grinder, both of which allow you to grind coffee fresh but the accuracy, materials used and consistency you’re able to achieve makes a world of difference to your coffee.

If you have a budget of $500, we recommend checking out grinder like the Comandante C40. For budgets of $1000 the Comandante C60 grinder and for around $2,000 check out the Option O Lagom P64 Grinders.

5. Tips to Avoid Stalling

One of the easiest ways to ruin an otherwise great pour over is by stalling the brew, where water drains too slowly or stops flowing altogether. Stalling usually comes from too fine a grind, excess fines, aggressive pouring, or poor filter prep, all of which choke the coffee bed and restrict flow.
To avoid it, start with a coarser, more uniform grind, rinse your filter thoroughly to ensure proper seating, and pour gently with controlled flow rather than blasting the bed.
Keeping agitation intentional especially during the bloom, helps release trapped gases without collapsing the bed. If you’re still experiencing stalls, reducing dose slightly or switching to a faster-flowing filter can make a noticeable difference. A clean, even drawdown isn’t about speed for its own sake, it’s about maintaining consistent extraction so clarity, sweetness, and balance come through in the cup.