To be fair I am planning on putting them back at some point.
I'm working on a core 18-key layout that I can expand anywhere up to 34 keys, so I have a consistent layout that I can use on some of the unibody split keyboards that are usually in that range of keys.
I ordered this on a whim and got a cheap set of keycaps off Amazon for it, but now that I have it put together (plastic switch plate, tape modded, gateron cap golden yellows, double o-ringed keycaps) it is sounding and feeling really good. The keycaps were a cheap but they are bright and fun. I might make it my "throw in a bag and take into the office" keyboard.
I think once you accept that standard keyboards are laid out as they are just by convention and nothing else, and that moving to a new layout will take a bit of time, the prospect of having a keyboard where everything is exactly where you want it to be becomes quite thrilling. This is actually my first bit of real typing using Colemak DH. It is excruciatingly slow to touch type but I didn't know it at all two weeks ago. In two more weeks time I'll have my first split keyboard in my hands. So it's definately doable...
Here is a better angle as requested:
I can only compare it to the Chemex, which is a bit of a different beast. I find that I can get a great balance of extraction and flavour out of the brew because I can immerse. For my work coffee I have settled into a medium grind of 18g coffee + 54g water, gentle pour for bloom, followed by a full pour (to 300g) at 30 seconds with the switch up so that the brew immerses, then switch down at 2 minutes to let the brew drain through the settled grounds. Then I vary the grind to sort any extraction issues with the particular beans I have.
I'm not sure if glass v plastic will make a difference like the ceramic does. I prewash my filters with boiling water which will heat up the Switch but I'm not sure how effective that will be.
PS: I changed the title of this post to be super specific because "Hario Switch" might have gotten some unintentional crossover from the Gaming community 😁
I got a Hario Switch a few weeks ago and, honestly, I wasn't sure where it was going to fit in between my Chemex on the one side for large, slow brews and my Aeropress on the other for quick, single dose fixes. But the Switch has fast become my favourite coffee brewer.
I have not seen much mention of it so I thought I would give it a shout out on here to see if there were any fans and techniques to be shared.
I opted for the 03 off the bat so I had plenty of room for immersion and, having used it now, I don't really see how the smaller size would work satisfactorily so - if you are curious - definitely get the 03.
Spending the money on the grinder first is such a wise choice - followed obviously by spending the money on the beans themselves - and you can't go wrong with an aeropress. It's also ridiculously portable, especially if you measure out your beans beforehand into little single dose containers...
I make my cold brew in a plastic and glass contraption that produces a drip onto a reservoir into a bed of grounds that has a metal filter on the bottom. I can't say I have ever noticed a metallic taste to the coffee. I put an aeropress filter on top of the grounds to help the moisture distribute. I suppose you could do the same at the bottom to avoid direct contact between the grounds and the metal in the filter, if it was a concern that some kind of reaction might take place (that wouldn't otherwise take place in the presence of ~0C water + dissolvables).
I totally agree. This community has been really lovely and the whole reddit blow up happened just at the time I had started noodling with different brewing methods again so it was a happy coincidence. Thanks everybody!
When you are drilling new keys but you absolutely do not want to look at the layout map that shows the keys you are supposed to know already.
Oh brill. I've found a place down the road that has some single origin medium roasted and I've ordered some to try. Thank you for the suggestion!
PS: bit late on the brew setup thing 🤓
Don't anybody say "drink tea" by the way.
I am doing some experiments with my neglected chemex trying to reproduce a look and a taste from a coffee shop in town a number of years ago. The taste was light and tea-like with lots of flowery and fruity high notes and not too much body weighing it down, so not much caramel or chocolate kind of notes, that sort of thing. The look - far less important - was also quite light and clear.
I tend to have light roasted beans in the house from one or two local roasters. What I have tried so far is increasing the grind size to be fairly coarse and increasing the dose of coffee a bit to compensate, and limiting the fussiness of the pours. The nice thing about chemex is the filters are nice and thick so I'm hoping the brew won't just fly through coarser grinds and I should have more flexibility. Here is what I did today:
. 40g coarse ground coffee
. Made a little divit because that's a lot for a flat bed
. kettle heated to 80C
. 80g pre-pour for the bloom
. 30s pour to 340g
. 3m 30s pour to 600g gently
. Brew finished at around the 6m mark
I got lovely notes but the brew was still really well extracted with plenty of body. Don't get me wrong it was a really good cup of coffee but not what I was after. I possibly need different beans but I would like to see what I can do differently with what I have usually got. I'm going to try bringing the dose back down to something below 60g per litre next.
Is there anything different I could be doing with the brew itself? I'm talking about notes and stuff like that but I far from being an expert particularly when it comes to tasting! I kind of know where I want to get to but not how to get there.
Oh. My. God.
Somebody asked so I thought I would post a link to the Google Sheet I drew up for my Ferris Sweep layout:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l2nOnsPRKFaykuBirOujkDo7srL1JX_3IZWA8OosrcY/edit?usp=sharing
I'm sure there are far better tools out there but it will do in a pinch.
So I should be getting a ~~Piantor~~Ferris Sweep* from Beekeeb in a number of weeks and I thought I would get a head start and plan my layout - or at least one version of it, influenced heavily by Ben Vallack's video about avoiding press-and-hold mechanics.
Still plenty of fiddling to do. I want to move the WASD-style cursor keys in L3 onto my first three fingers for sure. In fact I've already changed it and made room for insert and added shift as a home key mod on the right. God this is addictive.
*ETA: I am, of course, talking about a Ferris Sweep with two thumb keys as depicted in the drawings not a Piantor, which I was also considering. I guess I was swayed by the alliteration.
Somewhere in the middle? More of late night realisation than anything else.