Chasing an Elusive Taste

[Freebirth]

I'm fairly happy with the coffee I make. I like to experiment with new techniques, beans, and mixtures. But something has been nagging at me for several months. It started when I was having breakfast with my family at a chain restaurant called First Watch. Their coffee had a very bright fruitiness that I had never tasted in coffee before. It had virtually no bitterness at all. Very smooth and drinkable. They brought it out in a stainless steel pitcher, so I'm not sure how it was actually brewed. I drank a few cups and really enjoyed it. I wondered why it tasted the way it did, but I didn't dwell on it.

Fast-forward a few months and I'm in Monterey, California stopping at a grocery store for a restroom break. On the way out I feel like patronizing the place so I grab a cup of coffee (again from a stainless thermos-ey thing). I take a drink and there's that flavor again. Conveniently, the store sold bags of this particular brand/roast of coffee (Pete's if you're wondering) so I bought a bag hoping to recreate that taste. Well I can make a cup I like with it but I can't get that taste for the life of me.

Any tips for brightening a brew? Bringing out the fruity component? Cutting any and all bitterness?

Maybe you guys will know the right questions to ask me, if I'm not asking the right questions of you.

 

[Mick]

How are you making your coffee at home?

What are you using to brew it?

Are you grinding beans or using ground coffee?

 

[StillShaving]

Do you know what kind of coffee it was that you were drinking? The African origin coffees are generally the most fruity tasting but that is not a hard rule, it is a by product of how the coffee was processed. You could have very well been drinking a Brazilian coffee, as the strong African ones can taste a little too different to many coffee drinkers.

To get that taste you have to start with the right bean. Which you have already found, but note that a month or so after the roast date the fruitiness will begin to diminish (some will say after 1-2 weeks, but I think you will still find it quite enjoyable). Of course you should grind the beans right before you brew, otherwise a lot of the fruitiness with evaporate.

 

[Freebirth]

I mostly do french press, but occasionally do mokka pot. I grind right before brewing with a hand burr grinder. I tried the first time the night I bought the beans. I don't know if grind size, brew temp, or brew time could get me the desired taste. I can't imagine either of the places I found the taste do anything terribly complicated to brew, since they brew such large quantities.

 

[Mick]

French press and moka are filterless. More than likely the business had a commercial drip machine of some sort (probably a bunn) which would run things through a paper filter. This will remove all of the "fines" and some of the oils. This makes it taste different when coffee is brewed in a paper filter.

Do you filter your water, or modify it in any way? Are you on a well? City water supply? Have you tested your water for minerals?

 

[StillShaving]

Agree the water quality and paper filtering are two big variables that may be affecting the taste.

When using your french press I might also recommend making a few big changes in your normal routine to see how that affects the taste and if it moves it in the right direction. Big changes like reducing the steeping time, for instance if you are steeping for 4 minutes reduce it down to 3 minutes, and/or making the grind more coarse while keeping the brewing time the same. Along side that change could vary the water temperature. I am not saying that these big changes will make the coffee taste great, but hopefully will give you a better idea of whether you have been steeping the coffee too long, or brewing it with too hot or too cold water.

 

[lwt210]

Try a pinch of sea salt in the grinds prior to brewing.

I started doing this some time ago. Very smooth coffee. Just a pinch though.....don't get carried away.

 

[Freebirth]

Well, I might be on to something thanks to some of the direction I got here. I decided to go with a drip machine (just some normal consumer brand) to that I could rule out some variables and because it was likely made that way when I had it before. The main variable I adjusted was the coffee to water ratio. What I found was that when I upped the amount of coffee relative to the water, the taste got closer to that 'elusive taste' I was looking for. I also went the other way and tried lowering the amount of coffee to water. That taste went away, and not only was it a thinner taste, it was also more bitter.

Is it a matter of extraction? Do the grounds over extract and go bitter when the ratio is skewed toward more water?

 

[Mick]

This is a good read on bitter coffee. Might point you in the right direction.

http://www.coffeeresearch.org/science/bittermain.htm

 

[StillShaving]

One thing to note is that many generic auto-drip machines don't get the water hot enough for ideal extraction so it may be difficult to achieve the same taste you found earlier in the commercial setting. But you should certainly keeping experimenting to find what works best.

The ratios between amount of water, coffee, grind size, and temperature do have an effect. I don't have a solid theory on why you got a more bitter taste the first time if the only difference was using less coffee, though having less coffee would mean that each particle is exposed to more water to further saturate it and thus have a better chance to extract the more of the bitter compounds. In theory (or more likely at the margins) one can use a little less coffee for the same amount of water if the grind size is reduced, but then one risks over extracting the coffee and bringing out more bitter compounds if the steeping time is not also reduced. It is a balance.

 

[StillShaving]

I was bored making coffee on labor day, so I used an old auto-drip coffee basket as a manual pour-over.

• On the first attempt I used a medium grind. A grind that I expected would work pretty well. I did use water which was too hot and gave very little care about the pour or how it was made. I ended up with a bitter cup of coffee that was not worth drinking, much worse than I expected.
• On the second attempt I used about the same amount of coffee but a coarser grind. Two maybe three clicks coarser on the KitchenAid grinder. This time the water was a cooler and I let it pre-infuse before brewing. The second cup was smooth but too weak. So another failed attempt but still much better than the first.

I share the story to highlight that I got some big swings in flavor, especially between being bitter and smooth, just by changing a few variables.

 

[Alacrity59]

Probably, as with shaving, it might be better to change one variable at a time.

 

[Mick]

Probably, as with shaving, it might be better to change one variable at a time.

Ah but with coffee you can change variables without even knowing it.

Waiting a few extra seconds before starting to pour out of a just turned off kettle might drop the temp enough to change the flavor, reboiling the water during brewing (between pours) might get your second pour too hot.

Changing the setting on your grinder will always be delayed in the hopper as the throat has to empty the last of the previous setting before the next setting comes trough. tossing out ground coffee is hard to do at the price it cost for good stuff so one pot may be different from another just because you switched settings and are using a few grams of the old grind with the new stuff.

If you wait a day (or even over night) the coffee in the grinder throat that was previously ground will start to sour so your first grind out might be different than your next ground out.

Best thing to do is not think about it and just get it close enough to get to the.... "ah... that's some fine coffee" level, then, like with shaving, do it over and over again exactly the same way

 

[StillShaving]

Ah but with coffee you can change variables without even knowing it.

Waiting a few extra seconds before starting to pour out of a just turned off kettle might drop the temp enough to change the flavor, reboiling the water during brewing (between pours) might get your second pour too hot.

Changing the setting on your grinder will always be delayed in the hopper as the throat has to empty the last of the previous setting before the next setting comes trough. tossing out ground coffee is hard to do at the price it cost for good stuff so one pot may be different from another just because you switched settings and are using a few grams of the old grind with the new stuff.

If you wait a day (or even over night) the coffee in the grinder throat that was previously ground will start to sour so your first grind out might be different than your next ground out.

Best thing to do is not think about it and just get it close enough to get to the.... "ah... that's some fine coffee" level, then, like with shaving, do it over and over again exactly the same way

So true. Repeatability is the most difficult aspect of making coffee, as even the coffee changes a little each day.

Like the DFS mantra that many learn to strive for in their shave routine, I have learned to strive for mighty fine coffee. There is a higher level of taste and satisfaction that can be achieved, but it is not worth obsessing over all the time.

 

[Mick]

So true. Repeatability is the most difficult aspect of making coffee, as even the coffee changes a little each day.

Like the DFS mantra that many learn to strive for in their shave routine, I have learned to strive for mighty fine coffee. There is a higher level of taste and satisfaction that can be achieved, but it is not worth obsessing over all the time.

I've tried to remove the BIG variables (brew time, tamp pressure, and coffee throw weight)

This is why I went with a semi auto espresso machine. I always have exactly the same amount of water coming through each time I press the single or double button. It never changes as it measures the water as it comes through to the brew head and is always spot on volume wise.

I also took out the throw weight variable by going to weight based grinders and for my "old standard" I weigh the beans and put them through the grinder until it is empty. This last method is close but not as exact as the grinders that weigh the coffee AFTER it is ground.

Using a "clicker" tamper that snaps like a torque wrench when you get to 30 psi pressure.

I buy only enough coffee that I can use within a 1 week period and I buy it roasted on the day of purchase.

Even with these variables out of the equation there is still user fallibility. Forgetting to flush the HX and realizing it when you see steam coming out of the portafilter before the water starts (awful feeling). Pre-infusing too much or to little.

And this is just for espresso.......

Pour over and press have their own eccentricities you need to work with. Change the grind a little finer or a little coarser (brewing too fast or too slow)? Stir or not stir? Fast pour or slow? Inside pour or wash the filter? Pre-infuse or dump it in?

Oye....

Now where did I put that jar of Taster's Choice?!?!?!?!