Another recommendation on the brewing is the AeroPress (http://www.amazon.com/Aeropress-Coffee-and-Espresso-Maker/dp...). Pour overs are great and I love my Chemex, but if you're looking to brew a single serving - or want something which is easy to pack for travel - the AeroPress is incredibly hard to beat. It's cheap, fast, small, easy to clean, and makes it trivial to consistently brew a great cup of coffee. The Porlex grinder mentioned above happens to fit exactly inside the AeroPress too.
If you're going to do a pour over, a gooseneck kettle really helps. If you don't, it's nice to have but not a necessity. Either way this kettle might be one of the most useful appliances I have: http://www.amazon.com/Bonavita-Variable-Temperature-Electric.... It's a gooseneck kettle with digital temperature control, built-in timer, and hold function. You give it a temperature and it'll keep your water there for an hour. It's ridiculously convenient.
FWIW, I started off with a French press, which uses a coarser metal mesh to separate the grounds from the coffee. Because of this you often end up with a small amount of "coffee ground sludge" at the bottom of your French press. The remnants continue to "brew" in your cup after you remove the rest of the coffee grounds, so you might end up with more bitter, overextracted coffee if you aren't careful.
I've been waiting for a chance to ask this...I bought an AeroPress and it made really sour coffee. I tried again, used the same coffee in my drip machine, timed it carefully in the Aeropress, got the temperature exactly right, and still, the Aeropress coffee was much more sour than what I got from my old machine.
Am I doing something wrong, or do people just like sour coffee? I really hated it. I've had coffee from a French press and thought it was great.
An aeropress makes a really good cup of coffee. It does take some practice though. There are a few things you can do to fix the sourness. Sourness is usually the outcome of low temperature and under-extraction. I suspect in your case it may be more of the latter.
1. Invest in a food thermometer - if you don't already have one. I personally like brewing around 197F - 200F range.
To find your sweet spot try it at 207F and work your way down. There is a way around this (see point 3).
2. Check the grind size. If you are buying store bought coffee that is pre-ground the grain size may be too large. the Aeropress can handle much finer grinds, not quite an espresso grind, but close.
The reason this is important, is if the grind size is larger the water may not penetrate all the way and or have more heat loss than advisable.
3. Pre-infusion - Soak/wet one part ground coffee to two parts water (or enough to just about cover) for 30-45 seconds in the aeropress(see point 4) or in a separate pitcher, before you add additional water. The pitcher works well, but adds to cleaning effort.
The trick I've found with the Aeropress is to disregard the manufacturer instructions and add a lot more water than they suggest. If you look at the Aeropress championship winners, they all fill up the Aeropress with water rather than putting in just a bit of water like the directions suggest (and then diluting later).
In my experience, Aeropress yields a great cup of coffee much faster than any of the pour over techniques and drippers.
This is likely a function of your grind size. I've had this happen in the past and once I got the grind size set right, things were much better.
If what you're doing now works well in a drip coffee machine and a french press you probably want a smaller grind size. I usually do well aiming somewhere between the drip and espresso settings on my grinder.
Might be the coffee itself. Some coffees are more acidic than others. Two things helped me greatly: (1). Try some milk/cream in your coffee, it helps cut the sourness. (2). If you get the chance, try the Honey Badger from Intelligentsia coffee, it has an amazing inherent sweetness, like a faint aroma of freshly made molasses.
IMO coffee should taste fine when nothing is added, even without sugar. Sugar / dairy should just be needed because of one's particular taste, not to mask anything in the coffee.
Check out the Stumptown Aeropress tutorial, it's been really great. Also keep in mind the Aeropress puts out the equivalent of a double expresso so you would have to "Americano" it into coffee by a 1:1 dilution w hot water.
That Bonavita kettle is amazing. I have one as well and once you get one, you use it for everything. Being able to dial in on the temperature is great for teas or for making a miso soup at a comfortable temperature instead of scalding hot.
Another recommendation on the brewing is the AeroPress (http://www.amazon.com/Aeropress-Coffee-and-Espresso-Maker/dp...). Pour overs are great and I love my Chemex, but if you're looking to brew a single serving - or want something which is easy to pack for travel - the AeroPress is incredibly hard to beat. It's cheap, fast, small, easy to clean, and makes it trivial to consistently brew a great cup of coffee. The Porlex grinder mentioned above happens to fit exactly inside the AeroPress too.
If you're going to do a pour over, a gooseneck kettle really helps. If you don't, it's nice to have but not a necessity. Either way this kettle might be one of the most useful appliances I have: http://www.amazon.com/Bonavita-Variable-Temperature-Electric.... It's a gooseneck kettle with digital temperature control, built-in timer, and hold function. You give it a temperature and it'll keep your water there for an hour. It's ridiculously convenient.
FWIW, I started off with a French press, which uses a coarser metal mesh to separate the grounds from the coffee. Because of this you often end up with a small amount of "coffee ground sludge" at the bottom of your French press. The remnants continue to "brew" in your cup after you remove the rest of the coffee grounds, so you might end up with more bitter, overextracted coffee if you aren't careful.