Brewing Coffee - Part 1

One of the most common questions I hear is "How much coffee should I use?"

Simple Answer:
2 level tablespoons per cup

Complex answer:
This depends on many factors..
How fresh is your coffee?
How fine is your grind?
What method are you using to brew?
How hard/soft is your water?
Not to mention the type of coffee, total amount of coffee you are making, the water temperature, how much, if any, of the water are you bypassing, and the total brew time.
And most importantly, how do you like your coffee?

We will delve deeper into these issues in the future. But for now, I'll cover the basics.
When you are brewing coffee, you are dealing with the extraction of the flavors locked in the coffee bean. Finding the perfect balance of the factors mentioned above will help to unlock the potential of your coffee.

We'll assume that you are using fresh coffee.. please not from a can!! If not- Please stop in to see me and we will get you set up with the good stuff! Basically, fresh coffee has not lost its flavor yet; stale (ground, older that a month) coffee will start to have the flavor deteriorate.

Starting with a fresh, basic, non-flavored coffee - say, Peaberry Blend - you will want to have it ground according to the method of brewing you are going to be using. Generally, cone filters use a finer grind, percolators use a coarser grind. This may require that you use slightly more or less coffee to achieve the perfect cup.

Different brewers may cause slight changes in the amount of coffee you will need, consult you manual and if is says anything other than 2 tablespoons per cup, take note.

The water is also vitally important to a good cup. Filtered water is what I recommend, not distilled. I have a lot to say about water.. no, really.. I do. I'll rant about that later, for now, just know that water that is too soft will not extract the flavors very well, and water that is too hard will ruin you machine. The water in this area needs help.. Since you probably don't have a massive sub micron filtration system like we do at the store, at least run your tap through a filter to remove some of the particles.

Taking note of all that we've covered above, here is the most important part: Your tastes. To make the coffee stronger, simply add more ground coffee to the filter and brew until the taste you enjoy is achieved. If you enjoy a weaker brew add hot water to the coffee after brewing. Increasing the water to coffee ration simply makes the coffee thin and over-extracts the grounds in the filter, causing an undesirable cup.

I hope that this helps.. check back for more in-depth posts on different aspects of brewing.

See you soon

Chris