AuthorWE DON'T MAKE YOUR COFFEE, WE MAKE YOUR DAY Archives
November 2024
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Brewing coffee is a balancing act. Between different roasting styles, brewing techniques, and new coffee gear, it can be tricky to know what brew method is right for you. It's helpful, then, to back up and understand how coffee brewing works and how brew methods differ. Then, you can make an informed decision about which devices and methods might work best for the type of coffee you like to drink.
Here, we’ll focus on the physical and chemical processes that make up coffee brewing, starting with one of the most simple (and increasingly popular) methods: the pourover. We’ll also provide a step-by-step guide to pourover brewing, as well as gear recommendations. Pour over Method (unlike immersion brew methods, like a French press) continuously saturates the coffee grounds with fresh water for the majority of the brewing cycle. This promotes a faster, more efficient brew. On the other hand, fresh water also has a tendency to extract more from the surface layers of the grounds. So, when brewing pourover coffee promoting even extraction is key. We’ll go over how to do this below. Pouring one stream of water (rather than the showerhead of an automatic drip coffee machine) also means that the water can travel through the grounds unevenly, extracting more from one part of the coffee bed than another. The size of your coffee grind has perhaps the biggest impact on coffee flavor and strength. A grind that’s too coarse won’t allow the water to extract the flavor solids from inside the bigger particles, and your brew will taste weak and lightly sour. Too fine, and you’ll get a brew that’s astringent, bitter, and strong. The finer the grind is, the more surface area you’ve exposed for the brewing water to extract. A well-calibrated burr grinder is necessary to not only have a wide variety of grind size options but also to have a precise, even particle size to promote even extraction. This makes grind the perfect variable to focus on when trying to adjust for flavor. If you can set your other brewing variables into a consistent pattern, adjusting the grind slightly coarser or finer will tweak the flavor of your coffee. Start with something in the medium range of the grinder, which should look like raw sugar crystals, and go from there.
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