Something we hear from customers a lot at our shop is: “Wow, that looks like a science experiment or something.” In a way, yes, it is a science, and we do a fair amount of experiments with different recipes to get the coffee to taste just the way we like it. We do our best to share our knowledge of coffee with our customers so they can take it home and conduct their own coffee experiments, exploring this amazing commodity.
Over the years, we’ve learned a few tips that can help set propel your home-brewing skills to the next level. These 5 tips are consistent with all methods of brewing coffee. Any way you slice it, all five will play an important role in how your finished cup will turn out. Making an effort in each of these five areas will undoubtedly improve your home-brewing experience.
The first tip is to have a nice, consistent grind. Having an even grind will help ensure all the flavors in each piece of ground coffee are extracted equally and at the same time. This will provide a nice balance of flavor in your final brew. If the grind is not consistent, you could end up with a bitter, undesirable cup. Smaller pieces can extract all of their good flavor before the bigger pieces ever have a chance. So, we have a few recommendations. Espresso is going to have a super fine grind, like powder almost. A standard pour-over will use a medium-fine grind, while a normal drip coffee maker will use a good medium grind. Chemex will use more of a medium-coarse grind, and a French Press will be the most coarse. If you’re thinking cold brew, that’ll be coarse also. We’d be happy to answer any questions you have about your current grinder setup and give you some recommendations for ones we dig if you’re interested. Shoot us an email!