What did you learn from your coffee brewing method today?

[Altreac]

I'm learning stuff every day honestly.
I just got into specialty coffee last September, so I put this all together since then. I enjoyed coffee before, but I hadn't studied it prior.

I'm learning to make decent coffee 3 ways. Espresso (for me as an Americano base), Aeropress and pour over.

Recently got a K-Ultra grinder which really made a big difference. It's so much easier to switch between grind sizes than with the Smart Grinder built into the Barista Pro. And its no joke apparently when people say they can taste the difference with a better grinder. It's pretty wild how much more you can detect in the cup.
Have an upgraded basket for the Breville and the Able Fine for the Aeropress.

I also started playing with 'brew water' with the Epsom salt and sodium bicarbonate concentrate solution mixture into distilled water.
We have rather hard water here.

Between the upgraded grinder and upgraded water, things have improved fairly drastically.

Overall we've just been working with 1 type of bean (a light/MEd roasted Ethiopian) , mostly cause there's only 1 brand (Canyon Creek, Smithers BC) of fresh coffee locally available, but I signed up for a coffee subscription to get by this. First few pounds should be in soon.

This is fun.

 

[mozartman]

So ----- I make myself a double cappuccino first thing every morning and have been doing so for many years. The learning curve was long and steep, but at this point I have the routine down. Only if I'm trying a strange new coffee is there any real thought going into it. But this morning, first try: I neglect to put a cup under the portafilter. Thick dark espresso pours all over my scale. @#$%. How could that happen? SMH. Second try: I'm using the last bit of milk from the carton and it turns out to be sour. This is rare as I am never anywhere near the sell by date unless I've been out of town for a while, and even then, it's unlikely. But: Cappuccino / Latte making 101: If the milk won't foam even though you're doing it properly, it is almost certainly sour. Period. This is basic. But apparently not basic enough for me. Third try: Cup in place, fresh new carton of milk. Good. But an unimpressive batting average in the Cappuccino / Latte league. Probably not a good day to shave, at least not with a straight.

 

[Heron]

I should've set the grinder a couple clicks finer for pour over.

 

[gpjoe]

Well, I've had my Aeropress for about a week or so, and got lazy this morning and used our Kuerig with a Tim Horton's K-Cup, which I used to drink 95% of the time.

So what did I learn?

Even my worst Aeropress cup is better than the Kuerig.

My problem now is what to do with two boxes of K-Cups??? (My wife drinks decaf.)

I suppose I could "de-cup" the grounds for use in my Aeropress...

...maybe that will be an upcoming "What did you learn from your coffee brewing method?" post...or a "don't try this at home" contribution.

 

[CANES]

Well, I've had my Aeropress for about a week or so, and got lazy this morning and used our Kuerig with a Tim Horton's K-Cup, which I used to drink 95% of the time.

So what did I learn?

Even my worst Aeropress cup is better than the Kuerig.

My problem now is what to do with two boxes of K-Cups??? (My wife drinks decaf.)

I suppose I could "de-cup" the grounds for use in my Aeropress...

...maybe that will be an upcoming "What did you learn from your coffee brewing method?" post...or a "don't try this at home" contribution.

Just save them. I always keep 5 or 6 around. There'll be that one morning where it's so much easier to push a button than wait on water to boil, etc. If you do open them and dump them out, know that each K cup has between 9 and 10g of coffee in them. That's basically across the board with anything not sold at the Dollar Tree.

I have been doing flash brewing/Japanese iced coffee recently. I really like it with the right ratios. A lot of the videos on how to do it on YouTube are terrible, though. They spend 5 minutes figuring out the ratios (a really good one is 30g coffee/250g ice and 275g of water for a pint glass) and then fill up their glass and add a bunch more iced to it which ruins the ratio and they're oblivious to it. They then have weak watered down iced coffee in like 10 minutes when the new ice melts some.

 

[gpjoe]

Just save them. I always keep 5 or 6 around. There'll be that one morning where it's so much easier to push a button than wait on water to boil, etc...

For sure. I'll keep a some on hand for those times.

I currently have near 100 cups, so I'm still gonna try some of the grounds in my Aeropress, just to see if I get a better result.

 

[jaro 101969]

For sure. I'll keep a some on hand for those times.

I currently have near 100 cups, so I'm still gonna try some of the grounds in my Aeropress, just to see if I get a better result.

Just remember there are NOT a lot of grounds in each individual k-cup , so you probably will wind up using several pods for a single aeropress cup.

 

[gpjoe]

Just remember there are NOT a lot of grounds in each individual k-cup , so you probably will wind up using several pods for a single aeropress cup.

That explains why it tastes so "good".

Even if I use three per brew, at least I'm not tossing em out.

 

[APBinNCA]

I learned that decaf doesn't benefit from higher, Nordic style, extraction. It just makes the coffee bitter, sometimes your taste buds are the best judge.

Yesterday, I guessed what setting to use on the grinder. I wound up with a great cup and a 1.34 TDS measurement. Why leave good alone when you can screw it up to verify that you had it right in the first place!? I changed the grind setting today and got a 1.5 TDS measurement and it's bitter! Of course I drank it, but it didn't improve as it cooled. Decaf tends to require a finer setting for pour over than expected, so guess finer anyway. You can always bypass the water once it gets close to the correct brew time. I have used way too coarse of a setting in the past and had to pour the coffee back through, not fun!

 

[Major Overkill]

Just save them. I always keep 5 or 6 around. There'll be that one morning where it's so much easier to push a button than wait on water to boil, etc.

The Major keeps a few boxes of Green Mountain Nantucket Blend k-cups hanging around specifically b/c they're his father-in-law's go-to. And, while he certainly loves the result of the Aeropress, sometimes he grinds a bunch of a particular bean, puts it in a sealed container, and uses it in a 'Perfect Pod' to make roll-your-own k-cups some days. Like @CANES says, it's so much easier some days.

-MO

 

[Major Overkill]

This AM's lesson: adding even a little bit of chocolate syrup to milk really messes w/how well it froths before you use it on coffee. Here endeth the lesson.

Well, the only way you live long is to learn along the way. Otherwise, don't expect to prosper.

-MO

 

[CANES]

I learned I needed to tweak the popular Japanese/flash brew recipes for iced coffee. In a nutshell you're pouring highly concentrated coffee over ice (weighing both ice and water) to fill the recipe and get the right extraction.

I apparently drink my iced coffee much faster than these people on YouTube, etc. I would have a full glass of ice left over after the *too strong* coffee was gone. It's a super simple fix for me. Brew the same amount of coffee- in less water- and instead of adding it over ice, pour it into water that has been super chilled in the fridge. Now you have a full cup of actual coffee that's just as cold as pouring over ice. If need be I could leave a little space in the cup and add a few ice cubes and still get the right total water ratio. Takes 5 minutes compared to cold brew coffee sitting for 12 hours.

So simple but it still took me a couple of weeks to figure it out. It is what it is.

 

[steelwindmachine]

navigating the Coffee Compass has been challenging since I'm struggling to taste the difference between bitter and sour. I'm trying to dial in a specialty Papua New Guinea and it's taking a bit more effort. Thankfully, my partner has a better defined taste and usually directs the adjustments.

 

[The Knize]

I got interrupted on Friday making a four or so cup pot of pour over coffee. I had moistened the grounds and, as I recall, had just starting pouring over water for the actual brew. I came back to it this (Monday) morning, and rather than start over as I usually would--life being too short to drink bad coffee--I went ahead with the pour over. I did heat up fresh water, not what I had in the kettle. Came out more or less fine. I was surprised. I never would have expected it to be very good after a weekend of the grounds sitting around!

I do not suggest making this a usual part of coffee making.

 

[APBinNCA]

navigating the Coffee Compass has been challenging since I'm struggling to taste the difference between bitter and sour. I'm trying to dial in a specialty Papua New Guinea and it's taking a bit more effort. Thankfully, my partner has a better defined taste and usually directs the adjustments.

Just remember that sour is generally associated with under extraction. You can try to taste for thin, lifeless flavour. With bitter, it's going to be very strong and heavy on your palate. Even though you can't measure extraction, this might give you an idea where sour and bitter are in relation to each other. Even though I have gotten strong and sour in the past, that is from experimenting with too high of a coffee to water ratio. If you stick with the standard range, it will make it much easier to detect where you are.

 

[steelwindmachine]

@APBinNCA - thank you! I usually use a 1:16 ratio, but deviated to a 15.5:1 with this Papua New Guinea because it was sour and went more coarse on my grinder. I'll be brewing more this weekend and will reassess where I'm at.

FYI - I'm brewing with a Clever Dripper via James Hoffman's method and a Baratza Vario+ grinder with steel burrs. My last grind setting was at 10D - so in the most coarse macro-adjustment range.

 

[APBinNCA]

@APBinNCA - thank you! I usually use a 1:16 ratio, but deviated to a 15.5:1 with this Papua New Guinea because it was sour and went more coarse on my grinder. I'll be brewing more this weekend and will reassess where I'm at.

FYI - I'm brewing with a Clever Dripper via James Hoffman's method and a Baratza Vario+ grinder with steel burrs. My last grind setting was at 10D - so in the most coarse macro-adjustment range.

I might be misreading, but if the coffee is sour you need to extract more from the beans. To do that, you need to grind finer. If it tastes too strong from there, you need a higher ratio(but yours is already high).

The Clever is pretty foolproof because you can treat it like a French Press(immersion brewer). Depending on the amount and grind setting, you only need to account for about 1-1.5 minutes for drawdown. If I am using it's max capacity, I am pulling the lever around the 3 minute mark, maybe 2.5. If you are grinding that course, you could leave it for 3.5-4 minutes and not worry about the total time and I bet it would improve the flavour.

 

[steelwindmachine]

@APBinNCA - For the Clever I do 425g water (15oz) to 27.4g coffee (1:15.5), brew for 2 minutes, light stir to break crust, let it sit for 30 seconds and then drain into carafe.

I'll see how it goes this weekend. Maybe I'm going in the wrong direction =\

 

[JohnG]

navigating the Coffee Compass has been challenging

Just heard of this for the first time and Googled "coffee compass".

I realized that this morning, the reason my first cup seemed a bit soft was because I was pouring too "high and fast" from the kettle.

Next time, I will pour more "low and slow" to get more extraction from the grind.

 

[steelwindmachine]

if you’re speed pouring, the. yeah you’ll get channeling that equals weak coffee.