There are many quality decision points on the road to producing great coffee. Preparing the beverage is the last stage, as critical as any other. Unlike wine, one can take a coffee masterpiece home and destroy it in the kitchen in seconds flat, resulting in warped and ugly expressions of that coffee's overall flavor profile.
Four keys: The four keys to getting excellent results, no matter what brewing method you use, are:
1. Water: use clear-tasting water - but not distilled. To get this you may have to buy spring water or filter your water. Tap water often has chlorine and other off-flavors while distilled water has no minerals, important for developing all the coffee's flavors.
2. Temperature: Sufficiently hot water is required to produce all the required chemical reactions: this should be no lower than 195 F and no higher than 205F. Most automatic coffeemakers do not achieve this temperature. The Technivorm, available on our website, does.
3. Grind: You want to extract only approximately 20% of the beans' soluble solids. Greater extraction leads to harsh flavors and less extraction to underdeveloped ones. Drip machines take minutes to brew, and so the grind should be fairly granular, in order to release its contents more slowly while in contact with the hot water, while espresso is produced in seconds, requiring a very fine grind. I have created a PDF file, which you can print, to match your grind for drip coffee brewing. It is the exact grind I use for my Technivorm for maximum sweetness. Personal preference may result in your wanting a slightly finer or coarser grind, but it is a good starting point. The coarser the grind the more must be used per cup.
4. Proportion of coffee to water. The rule of thumb is two tablespoons per six liquid ounces. The ridiculous thing is, however, that it is just about impossible to find a coffeemaker with “cup” markings of 6 liquid ounces.
Strength is very personal. Greater strength should be made with more coffee not with a finer grind (over-extraction). Some like “strong” coffee that would make others' teeth dissolve. Too much water to coffee results in a dilute non-descript drink, while too little water to coffee replaces the amazing marriage of mouthfeel and flavor, which our Terroir coffees can deliver when brewed just right, with harshness. Perception of strength rises dramatically as beverage temperature cools. Heat closes our taste buds, desensitizing our perception. I prefer a drip coffee which, when hot, is aromatic but may seem a bit weak. As the coffee cools it reveals itself, reaching wine-like intensity as it nears room temperature. This is the classic European drip-style coffee.
Brewing with Automatic Drip Coffeemakers: If you own an automatic drip machine, or are buying one, read on!
Measuring: Water reservoirs, depending on the brand, measure anything from 4 to 5.25 liquid ounces as a “cup!” There is no standard. So if you are looking for exactly the right scoop for YOUR machine, it will take a bit of trial and error. Terroir Coffee offers a scoop which I feel makes the perfect Technivorm cup (its “cup” is 4.25 liquid ounces) and which can be used for other machines with slight adjustments to the level of coffee put in the scoop. With it, measure a level, or slightly below, scoop of ground coffee per “cup” as specified by the water tank. Even better, measure whole bean coffee in the scoop.
Grinding: Measure the volume of beans going into your grinder. Given the greater density of beans, the amount of coffee, whether whole beans or ground, retains practically the same volume in the scoop! This way what you put in your grinder is what goes into the brew – no messy, wasted ground coffee getting stale. As mentioned earlier, I prefer a somewhat coarser grind than typically recommended as “drip” grind when making six Technivorm “cups” or more (the more coffee you are brewing the longer hot water is in contact with the grounds so, if you want absolute consistency, you must adjust to favor a slightly coarser grind). A PDF of this grind can be printed for matching.
Filters: you can use paper filters, brown or white (oxygen bleached), or metallic-coated filters, preferably inert gold. Metallic filters add a kind of body, due to allowing very fine sediment through, which clouds the cup and settles on the palate. Paper filters produce a clear beverage, emphasizing more liveliness and greater, unclouded flavor definition. Brown filters impart stronger paper flavor to the brew, according to tests we have made. The most pristine results are achieved by rinsing the paper filter before using. With my Technivorm I simply brew 4 “cups” worth of water into the filter-holder which I keep in the closed position. When all the water is in the filter holder I release it into the receptacle below. I then fill the wet rinsed filter with grounds and brew again. This is a quick and easy exercise. In blind tests it is easy to pick out the rinsed filtered coffee. Try it; you will be surprised.
Cleaning is a critical requirement of your brewer. Each time you brew coffee a film of oils extracted during the process are left on the filter cone assembly, components and the inside of the glass or thermal beaker.It is important to thoroughly rinse these surfaces in hot water and it helps to wipe them dry with a paper towel.
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