Brewing coffee at home doesn't need to be difficult, and with the right techniques your home brew can be just as delicious as the coffees served in our caffes. Follow these simple tips, and you'll be on your way to improving your home brewed coffee!
1. Use Fresh, Whole Bean Coffee
A big part of what makes coffee smell and taste so complex and delicious is the presence of aromatic compounds in roasted coffee beans. Immediately after roasting, these compounds begin to escape from the bean in a process called degassing — taking a lot of flavor with them! After 8 days, up to 70% of those compounds will be gone. As time goes on, you lose more flavor, and are left with stale tasting coffee. Grinding coffee will make this process happen faster; exposing more surface area of the bean makes it easier for the compounds to escape.
2. Use A Scale
Many of us have heard of the simple rule of using 2 tablespoons of coffee for every 6oz of water. And while that recipe (or similar recipes) can definitely be used to brew coffee, they lack the precision to take your brewing to the next level. Different coffees and blends can have a wide difference between been size and density, so a tablespoon of one coffee might actually weigh significantly less than a tablespoon of another coffee. Using a scale lets you measure by weight (instead of volume), which helps make sure that no matter what coffee you’re using, you know exactly how much of it is going into you cup.
3. Use The Right Amount of Coffee
The amount of coffee you use in relation to the amount of water you brew with is what determines how strong or weak a cup of coffee will be. The more coffee you use, the stronger the cup; the less coffee you use, the weaker the cup.
So how do you know how much coffee to use? The best way to think about it is as a ratio between the amount of coffee used to the amount of water used.
For our Italia Blend, we use a ratio of about 1:12 (35 grams of coffee to 400 grams of water) to help accentuate its chocolate sweetness and silky body.
For our Single Origins, we recommend using a ratio of 1:14, which helps to highlight the more delicate flavors and acidity.
4. Use Filtered Water
Did you know that about 98.5% of brewed coffee is just water? This means that the quality and taste of water plays a huge role in how your brewed coffee tastes. If the water you’re using tastes bad or has any strange odors, your coffee will too. Using purified water is one of the best things you can do for your morning cup. Tap water is usually pure enough to use for brewing; in many places, however, you may want to use water that has been through home filtration (like a Brita filter) or even bottled water.
A note on bottled water: make sure it's not distilled water. Yes, distilled water is technically the purest water. But it's a little too pure. Coffee actually needs some minerality and impurities to brew properly and taste delicious.
5. Experiment!
Part of the fun of brewing coffee is experimenting with different brewing methods and different coffees! You may regularly brew your coffee with a Bee House Dripper and love the taste, but have you tried brewing with an AeroPress or a French Press?
Maybe you’re a big fan our Brazillica for its caramel and floral notes, but have you tried brewing one of our others and comparing the results? What about using a few extra grams of coffee for your morning cup and tasting the difference?
There are tons of ways to experiment with coffee. Each one will give you a little more insight into how you enjoy your coffee and how you can enjoy it even more.
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