Making Great Coffee
FIRST, FIND YOUR GRIND
To preserve freshness, we sell whole coffee beans. We highly recommend that you wait to grind the beans until you are ready to make a batch of coffee, and only grind what you need for that batch. This will ensure maximum freshness and flavor and it also allows you to customize your coffee experience.
We recommend using a burr grinder as opposed to a blade grinder as this will ensure the most consistent grind consistency which in turn helps ensure a superior result. High end commercial burr grinders can cost many hundreds of dollars, but you can find very nice grinders in the $35 to $150 range which can do a fantastic job.
Solid and reasonable options include the manual grind Hario Skerton at $35, The Cuisanart DBM-8 at $50, the Capresso Infinity at $99, and the Baratza Encore at $139. Any of these products give you the opportunity to find the perfect grind consistency to suit your taste.
DRIP COFFEE
Most folks use a good old drip coffee maker at home, and with the right grind consistency and a great coffee, there is no reason you can’t experience a great result. Here are some tips to help you get the most from the good old auto drip:
- Use approx. 1 tablespoon of coffee per cup as measured on your coffee maker as a starting point, and use more or less in subsequent batches to suit your taste.
- Use filtered or otherwise high quality water for best results, especially if you are on city water
- Make at least 6 cups per brew batch unless your maker has a setting that allows for smaller batches
- Let the brew cycle finish completely (coffee stops dripping) before serving.
FRENCH PRESS
This is a great way to make a truly distinctive cup of coffee at home, and it only takes a few minutes to make a batch that will serve 3-4 people. You control grind size, water temperature, and extraction time to get the most out of your favorite coffee. In this method the coffee grounds are immersed directly in the water for several minutes and then you plunge a mesh filter to strain the grounds from the brewed coffee before serving. With no paper filter involved in the brewing process, the result is a rich cup of coffee that has oils and flavors intact.
Below is a good starting point process for making french press in a typical 32 oz press pot:
Set your water to boil. A temperature controlled kettle is ideal and a goose neck spout makes things easier. Coffee should be brewed within a temperature range of 195-205 degrees F.
- Grind 8 tablespoons (56 grams) of coffee at a coarse setting – too fine will prevent proper brew extraction.
- Put ground coffee into empty press pot
- Use ~ 200 degree F water if you have a temperature controlled kettle. Or, once water reaches a boil, remove it from heat and allow it to rest for 20-30 seconds
- Fill the pot up about 1/3 of the way – watch as the coffee blooms for approx 30 seconds
- Fill the pot up to about the 2/3 level, then use a spoon or other flat object to gently push the bloomed coffee down into the hot water to ensure that all grounds are evenly submerged
- Fill the pot up to the full line
- Place plunger top on pot, and push down on the handle so that the plunger just touches the top of the brew, and then lightly bump the plunger down just a tad more.
- Set a timer for 4 minutes as a starting point for extraction time.
- When timer is done, slowly push the plunger down to strain the grounds to the bottom of the pot — this should take about 30 seconds
- Pour and enjoy your amazing cup of coffee!
- If the coffee is not strong enough, or if you find it to be too strong, try extending or reducing your extraction time in 30 seconds increments until you find the perfect outcome.
POUR OVER
The pour over brewing method produces an exceptionally clean and full flavored cup of coffee. We like to use the iconic Chemex brewer, but this method can be adapted to similar pour over products from Hario, Bodum, and others. Like French Press, this method allows you to adjust grind consistency, water temperature, extraction time, etc. Unlike French Press, pour over uses a filter, which ensures a very clean and lower acid cup.
Here is a starting point set of instructions you can use to get a great cup of coffee using Pour Over:
- Set water to boil. A temperature controlled kettle is ideal and a goose neck spout is a must have. Coffee should brewed within a temperature range of 195-205 degrees F.
- Grind coffee just a little courser than you would for a cone shaped auto drip brewer – a consistency similar to fine sand
- Grind 35 grams of coffee for a smaller 2 cup batch or 42 grams of coffee for a larger 2 cup batch.
- Place filter in brewer and rinse with hot water to clean out paper particles and warm the brewer
- Pour rinse water out of brewer
- Place ground coffee into brew filter and shake to settle the grinds down into a consistent bed
- If you are using a temperature controlled water kettle, bring water temp up to ~ 200 degrees
- If you are using a boil kettle, remove from heat after boil wait 20-30 seconds before pouring water
- Place brewer with coffee in filter on a metric scale that can measure in grams, and reset the scale to zero
- Gently Pour 60-70 grams/ml of water over grounds, and wait 30-45 seconds for the coffee to fully bloom
- Once bloom is complete, pour more water, fairly quickly, until the scale reads ~ 250 grams
- Let water drain after the first pour until dry spots begin to appear in the grind bed
- Continue to add water in 50-100 gram increments, focusing on darker/drier spots and allowing for noticeable water drain between pours without letting the grinds become significantly exposed
- For the smaller, 35 gram coffee batch, stop adding water once you reach 560 grams of water weight. For the larger 42 gram batch, stop adding water at 680 grams of water weight.
- Allow the water to drain until it has become a very slow drip, and then remove the filter and coffee from the brewer.
- Give the brewer a quick swirl to aerate the coffee just before pouring
- You should aim for a total brew time of 4-5 minutes. Adjust grind consistency finer for a longer brew time or courser for a shorter time to suit your preferred taste. If you want to tweak your brew extraction even more, adjust water temperature up to increase or down to decrease extraction. Dark Roast beans usually brew well in the lower range (195-200 degrees F) and lighter roasted beans brew best in the higher range (200-205 degrees F).