There are many methods of brewing coffee. In this article, I will not tell you about the method by method but, my main goal is to let you find the flavor that suits your palate.
The taste is relative and coffee is also the same. It is very normal that another person does not like the shades you like. Anyway, let’s get to the point.
I assume you start with a properly preserved coffee with good water, otherwise whatever we do the taste will not be as pleasant as we would like. First of all, it’s worth knowing the variables we have. These include coffee type, amount of coffee, how fine to grind the coffee, amount of water, brewing time, and brewing method. When describing the flavor tweak, I will start based on the manual filtration method defined as Pour over / v60 / dripper. Then I try to summarize the variables and their effects for each brewing method.
Pour Over Coffee Delicacy
Coffee / Water Ratio
The coffee water ratio is variable according to the type of coffee brewing, but at another point where it is not very unknown is also variable according to the type of coffee. When you go to 3rd Generation Coffee Shops, be sure to ask about coffee water rates, each will get different responses from the other, you can even see that the same barista gives different brewing rates in two different beans.
The coffee water ratio varies between 1/16 and 1/25 in the pour-over coffee brewing method. (How much water to use for every 1 gram of coffee). This is what we call the “strongness of coffee” (which is actually its intensity) in general. If the coffee you drink comes strong to you, you can soften it by increasing the amount of water. – This was the simplest
Coffee Grinding
Sometimes the coffee you drink comes to you very strong, and when you increase the water content, it doesn’t taste like become weird, not light but something different, just like light tea. What you need to change at this point is the subtlety of grinding coffee. Let’s say the grinder we use has grinding levels in the range of 1-15. Here in general, the range of 7-9 for the filter coffee machine is also used for pour-over 5-8. This ratio is 1 for espresso, 2 for moka pot and Aeropress and 13-15 for French press
Let’s say you ground it with 7 for pour-over. You took a few sips of coffee and left a rough residue on your palate (as it was when you first drank the red wine). If you don’t like this taste, you need to coarser your grinding, which means you can use 7.5 or 8 grinding levels instead of 7. Or, after the first sips, you didn’t get enough coffee to taste, it didn’t leave any residue on your palate, you left a taste close to hot water and not coffee. This time you have to ground it finer, if it does not enough to use 6-6.5 instead of 7, you can try the range of 5-5.5.
Coffee Brewing Duration
This setting, which is completely under your control in pour-over brewing, is unfortunately not available in the filter coffee machine (except for aroma-enabled machines). If your machine has an aroma function, you only have 2-3 options.
Pour-over, of course, has a flow rate, in which you can’t intervene in. But when you add water with more flow rate than required, the water contact the coffee for much longer, which increases the transition of the flavor of the coffee to the water. However, if it is too much and accumulated in the filter, you will feel bitterness at the taste. If this is not the taste you want, reducing the water flow and pouring water into the dripper more often will be the solution.
Wetting the Filter Paper
There are a few benefits to wetting filter paper, equipment, and glass with hot water before brewing your coffee. One of them is that you’re preventing that paper taste from getting into the coffee. Another is that you heat all the equipment so that the hot water does not cool down too quickly. And by pouring the additional hot coffee into a cold glass, you are affected by the heat change and prevent the taste and heat from deteriorating.
Blooming
Blooming is a coffee brewing step that is not very careful but also important. You put your coffee in after the equipment wetting/heating process. Then you should pour enough water on it to get the coffee pieces wet and wait. About 40-45 seconds. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide gas in dry coffee will come out. You have to let them meet, coffee and water. Otherwise, the most precious first drops will flow into your glass and affect the flavor without meeting exactly with the coffee.
You can find the best flavor for your own palate by playing with the topics mentioned above (except for the last two). Now let’s take a look at the additional alternatives to the above that you can play in other brewing methods.
Syphon Coffee Brewing Tricks
The higher the water, the sooner the water will pass into the upper chamber, which will shorten the brewing time and reduce the meeting time of coffee and water. Otherwise, hot water will meet coffee for longer, which will cause a trace of bitterness in the tasting.
French Press Coffee Brewing Tricks
The brewing time from the criteria in the pour over-brewing method also applies to the French Press. Here you can think of it as a waiting time. As in the examples above, the longer the time, the more the taste will go towards a painful bitterness. Otherwise, you approach a flavor such as light tea.
Another issue in French Press is the preference for mixing. If you stir the water with the coffee, the coffee will infuse into the water more quickly, which reduces the waiting time, but this will also shorten the passage of flavors due to the water dissolution time, so you will find a different flavor. I prefer not to stir it when I’m doing French press, but on the first spill, I brutally drain the water so that there are no coffee particles stuck underneath and not wet enough.
AeroPress Coffee Brewing Tricks
Here, in addition to the pour-over criteria, the pressure you apply and the preparation time in return are the elements that affect the flavor. High pressure will bring Aeropress flavor closer to espresso, while low pressure will bring the filter closer to coffee. It’s your choice.
I’ve written the article but, what I can’t think of maybe things I’ve missed, which I’ll add to the post as I remember, and if you share your brewing experiences in the comments section, we can make more delicious coffees together. And if there are things I’ve missed, please remind me.