Brewing coffee from home can be both a challenging and rewarding experience. The challenge comes from working to perfect your recipe (ask any home coffee pro, and they've definitely been there) and the reward is when you get there. Fortunately, with a little bit of guidance, it doesn't have to be a long road between the two.
We're here to put the ease into home brewing so you can begin enjoying your freshly roasted coffee as soon as possible. Follow these five steps, and you'll be there in no time!
Use Fresh Coffee
When coffee sits around, it slowly loses the aromatics that make it taste so special. It also oxidizes, creating unwanted stale flavors. No matter how good your storage (we'll get to that later), coffee consumed within a reasonable window — we recommend within three weeks of roasting as a simple guideline — will taste better and more lively than that same coffee after it has been sitting in your cupboard for eight to 11 months. But, is there such a thing as coffee that’s too freshly roasted? Why yes, yes there is!
There's one crucial step between that freshly roasted coffee and your cup, called degassing. Coffee roasting naturally causes a buildup of carbon dioxide. If you've ever wondered about that plastic one-way valve on your coffee bag, it's there to help with the release of that gas and prevent explosion. Excess gas also makes it harder for water to extract flavor from your grounds, so we recommend enjoying your coffee no sooner than four days off roast.
Choose Your Weapon
From user-friendly automatic drip coffee to precise Chemex, there's a wide range of brew methods available. Which one you choose depends on factors like how involved you're willing to be (see: the artful Chemex) to how much coffee you want to brew (this is where a reliable drip coffee maker comes in). So, we've compiled a few helpful guidelines to get you started:
AeroPress
Great for: Portable brewing of espresso to pour over-strength coffee
Serves: Single
Grind size: Medium
Brew time: 2:00 minutes
Chemex
Great for: Clean flavors
Serves: Multiple
Grind size: Medium
Brew time: 3:30 to 4:30 minutes
Coffee Maker
Great for: Consistent results
Serves: Multiple
Grind size: Medium
Brew time: Varies
Cold Brew
Great for: Smooth, low-acid coffee
Serves: Multiple
Grind size: Coarse
Brew time: 12 to 18 hours
French Press
Great For: Fuller bodied coffee
Serves: Multiple
Grind size: Medium-coarse
Brew time: 4:00 minutes
Pour Over
Great for: Clear flavors
Serves: Single
Grind size: Medium
Brew time: 3:00 to 4:00 minutes
Start with a Good Recipe
While you might not automatically think about brewing coffee in the way you would, say, baking bread, the two processes have a whole lot in common. Both are part science, part art. We've all seen the art of coffee making at a local coffee shop or in a latte rosetta. To get the science part just right (AKA dissolve coffee solids), you need to start with a good recipe. You can check ours out right here:
Adjust as Needed
Back to that art part of the equation, a recipe is just a starting point. Once you have the basic measurements and motions down, we highly recommend adjusting your recipe to your personal preferences.
One common question we receive concerns coffee strength. Some of the confusion stems from a lack of general clarity over what the term "strength" actually means.
For starters, when we use the word strength as jargon, we’re not referring to the roast level of the coffee, but rather referring to what percentage of a beverage is made up of dissolved coffee solids (as opposed to water). So if your coffee tastes too strong or weak, we recommend the following adjustments:
Problem: Too strong
Solution: Adjust your ratio to use less grounds
Problem: Too weak
Solution: Adjust your ratio to use more coffee
Store Leftover Coffee Properly
Finally, while we recommended earlier holding onto your coffee for about three weeks, there are a few simple things you can do to ensure (and in some cases extend) your coffee's freshness:
- Buy whole bean and grind it fresh if at all possible
- Store your beans in an airtight container
- Keep your beans away from sunlight and heat
- Use the freezer for longer-term storage
- When using coffee from the freezer, take out only as much as you need, moving quickly. Then put the rest back in the freezer ASAP!