Brewology

I wanted to share some basic knowledge of how to prepare your coffee. I have read a lot of books and articles about preparing coffee and have learned a few important things you have to consider when preparing your coffee to ensure you are getting the full experience.

Water

Let's start with the basics. Coffee is brewed with water (thanks Captain Obvious) but the quality of water greatly effects the aroma and flavors you will experience. Very hard water will effect the overall taste, as well as, overpower the flavor of the cup. If you live in an area where the water is harsh, hard, or otherwise not all that tasty, filtering water is recommended.

Brewing Method

There is literally a butt load of different ways to brew your coffee: pour over, Aeropress, French Press, cold brew, espresso machine (automatic or manual), percolator, stovetop espresso, and the list goes on. The way you choose to brew your coffee is solely dependent on, well, you. What is your taste, how much time do you have, how much money do you want to spend, or do you even really care? The two things that are the most important to understand when choosing a brewing method is not what method do I use, but rather water to ground coffee ration and ground size.

Generally speaking, ground size should directly reflect the amount of time the coffee is brewed given what every method you choose. This is not an absolute but rather a guideline. For instance, If you choose to brew coffee in a French Press, you should use coarse grounds, due to the overall time the coffee is being brewed, which is approximately 5 minutes. On the contrary, if you get espresso shots, you will notice the coffee is a very fine grind, due to the short length of time the coffee extraction process occurs (remember this is just general info). I use a burr grinder with multiple grinding options to accommodate which ever brewing method I'm in the mood for.

Lastly, water to ground coffee ratio is very important. Generally, I use anywhere between 13:1 and 15:1, depending on brewing method. What this ratio refers to is grams of water to grams of coffee. Obviously, this requires a scale, but you can get scales online for less than $10. Easiest way to calculate this is to divide the total grams of water for a coffee mug (about 400 grams) by whatever ratio you choose (I'll use 15) to give me the amount of ground coffee to use in a pour over set up. My phone calculator says 26.67 grams. The cool part is you can adjust the ratio based on your specific taste.

*I would like to note water temperature also effects the coffee brewing process as well. I generally like my water temp to be about 201F.

Coffee

The coffee you choose to purchase brings this whole experience together. Simply, if you start with bad coffee, you will only get bad coffee. Taking everything I've mentioned into consideration, even if you did everything right to prepare your bad coffee correctly, you will still get bad coffee. Conversely, if you purchase artisan coffee, where the roaster cares about the overall product, you will have a drastically different experience. Your taste buds will forever be changed. Just like the difference between cheap wine and expensive wine, or cheap beer and micro brews, the experience is drastically different. Some people just don't care and that's cool too.

It's the roasters job to think about the region, coffee variety, elevation, drying process, when it was harvested, moisture, size of green bean, temperature during roast, air flow, drum speed, overall time of the roasting process (and a bunch of other stuff), to provide you a product that will satisfy your taste buds and self.

Conclusion

To sum it up, I recommend the coffee enthusiast make a few purchases to complete their coffee experience:

Small scale to measure ground coffee
Burr grinder (or blade grinder if you are on a budget)
Pour over, Aeropress, or French Press (those are the methods I use the most)
Water kettle that measures temperature (I have an electric one)

You have control over your coffee experience once the coffee reaches your kitchen counter. Let me worry about the complicated roasting process, I'm kind of nerdy about that stuff, and purchase artisan roasted coffee.