Time & Temperature = 'Flavorful' Coffee
Posted by Justin Smay on
When you're brewing 'Flavorful' Coffee, two of the biggest improvements you can make are in controlling Time & Temperature. We've talked about this in previous Journal Entries, but its worth looking over again.
Brewing GREAT coffee at home - coffee that tastes like it does at the café - is difficult PRIMARILY because of the temperature that brewers like Mr Coffee & Keurig achieve.
(Coffee should be brewed around 200 Degrees Fahrenheit; Home Brewers typically max out around 185F.)
It is possible to work around these brewing limitations at home by simply using more coffee or grinding SLIGHTLY finer. This will add more surface area from which the cooler water can pull flavor, making up for the work that hotter water could have done. (This may still result in poor extraction - ie, unpleasant sourness or syrupiness on the back of the palate.)
The second variable you should watch when brewing coffee is time - how long are your Coffee & Water in contact with each other? The ideal time for a filtered drip-brewed coffee is 4 minutes and 45 seconds. (There really is no good way to speed this up without loosing flavor- see your K-Cup brew.) If your coffee is tasting a bit sour and thin or too syrupy, you might try timing your brew. If the pot finishes in less than 4 minutes and 25 seconds, try making your grind SLIGHTLY finer; if it takes more than 5 minutes 15 seconds, try a SLIGHTLY coarser grind.
The control over these two variables is very difficult with the average home-brewer. We strongly recommend using a "French" Press or Manual Pour Over Brew method to get the IDEAL flavors from your 'Flavorful' Coffee.
Check out our graphic for a look at the differences in these two methods- both can create excellent coffee, so it all comes down to personal taste.
Enjoy!
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Thank you for not over-roasting your beans, and for being a certified faire trade & organic roasting house. I love good coffee, and good coffee loves me ( my stomach & my taste buds). Fortunately I live in a state that is all about Organic & faire trade support, California. But, coffee houses need to expand the brands they carry, I would love to be able to order a cup of your beans. I purchase your coffee at Grocery Outlet in my local location in Grass Valley, Ca. I had been in the natural foods industry for a long time before I went to the organic wine industry as a distributor, and now off to my travel business. Organic coffee offerings belong on the ships as well, for the first time we have a cruise line that finally included organic wines on their ships, why not coffee.
Keep up the good work, and making Running Pump Roasting available in Grocery Outlet!
Cheers….