I review countless home products, but rarely does a product stay in my mind like the Acaia Pearl S coffee scale. As Tom's Guide's resident coffee scales expert, I'm always sourcing, testing, and reviewing them, so I've rifled through proverbial stacks of coffee scales.
But none quite build foundations and start living rent-free in my head like the Acaia Pearl S. Yes, it's expensive, and, yes, I'll likely never own one. But now I've used the Pearl S, my at-home cafe is ruined.
Let me explain.
Make the mode of your coffee routine
You don't need to just study the Brewguide app for recipe instructions. You also need to study the Pearl S's user manual.
There are seven modes (one of which you have to manually download from a different Acaia app): weighing, dual display (timer), pour-over auto, espresso, portafilter, flowrate, and the manual-download flowrate practice.
The pour-over auto mode is fantastic: as soon as the scale detects liquid, it'll start timing, and stops when you stop pouring. In a similar vein, the espresso mode automatically tares your mug weight, detects pre-infusion time, and automatically starts the timer.
Every day's a learning day
Never would I have expected to learn coffee brewing recipes from a literal digital scale. However, I love to be surprised.
The Pearl S scale companion app is Acaia's proprietary Brewguide. It seems to have some pretty rough user reviews on the App Store, but I absolutely ate this app up during testing. I'm not sure what version of the app these users have, but it's certainly not the same as mine.
Not only can you peruse a library of recipes in the Brewguide app, you can also create your own. So if you work at a roastery or cafe, you can write bespoke recipes for your customers, or even just for yourself.
You can pick from V60, Kalita, Chemex, AeroPress, and more in the app. When you download the recipe to the scale, it teaches you step-by-step how to brew in real-time. Even if you consider yourself an experienced V60 brewer, there are 'expert' level recipes, so don't disregard this as a beginner-only feature.
Here you can see me using the 'beginner' level V60 recipe (even though I do consider myself at least an intermediate V60 user, I needed to test out all three levels of recipe during my review). If you look to the bottom inch of the scale, you'll see the instructions written across the pad.
Making coffee is a breeze — and actually entertaining — with the Pearl S. I love an interactive product, and if it's an interactive scale? Sign me up.
Not Valedictorian, though...
The Pearl Model S is not waterproof or water-resistant. While a small amount of water that is spilled on top will deflect, we do not recommend exposing it to any liquid.
Acaia
As much as I love the Acaia Pearl S's built-in teaching facilities, it's not all roses. For $220, I'd expect a pretty robust, indestructible product that will live as long as I do. (Alright, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but you know what I mean.)
However, Acaia has confirmed to me that the Pearl S is not waterproof. It won't melt if it gets wet à la The Wicked Witch of the West, but it might love you and leave you.
Now, I don't expect every coffee scale to be water-resistant. It is nice when they are, but for a premium, top-of-the-range scale, I do expect it to last many many years.
I know the Pearl S is designed for pour-over, which means it won't necessarily be getting wet anyway, but I would like the reassurance that if my clumsy self was to knock over my Chemex, my beautiful coffee scale would survive the incident.
So why is my home cafe ruined? Because now I've used the best, I can't go back. But $220 is a lot more than I have to spend on a coffee scale — even if it's the best one.
Because, despite the lack of waterproofing, I can't pretend that this isn't the best scale I've ever used. I can't go back to using anything else now. When I deliver the Pearl S back to Acaia, I'll have a little tear in my eye.
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