On a quest to brew the perfect cup of coffee? There’s several things you can keep in mind to elevate your coffee experience. Here’s our top 5 tips for bringing your coffee brewing skills to a whole new level.
1) Always use fresh beans!
Even though this tip has little to do with the coffee brewing itself, there is a reason that we listed it first. The beans that you use have a huge impact on the resulting taste of the coffee. So please, for the love of coffee: remember to use fresh beans every time you brew!
There’s nothing quite like the smell of a freshly roasted bag of coffee beans, and you can thank the roasting process for that. When green coffee beans are roasted, the beans get infused with the aroma and gases which give the coffee its flavorful and aromatic characteristics that everyone knows and loves.
However, both the aroma and the taste of coffee slowly fade over time. Just a few months after roasting, the aroma will have fully faded from coffee, and you will be left with a dull and bitter tasting cup.
This is why checking the date on your bag of beans is essential. We recommend buying beans that have been roasted within 3 weeks. It will generally work in your favor to buy less coffee more often, so that the coffee you use is always fresh.
Unfortunately we can’t use “the fresher, the better” as a rule of thumb when it comes to coffee beans. That’s because, when coffee has just been roasted, it can have an intense fullness and an overpoweringly ‘toasted’ taste that is vaguely reminiscent of hay or straw. Coffee should therefore always rest for a couple of days after roasting. We suggest drinking filter coffee 7-14 days after roasting and espresso 14-21 days after roasting.
Tip: Stay clear of coffee bags that don’t indicate a roasting date, since they are probably not freshly roasted. We’d also recommend using organic coffee– not only does it taste great, but it’s also better for you and the environment.
(PS. At ØNSK we roast coffee every week to ensure that the coffee we send out is always fresh.)
2) Grind the coffee just before brewing
To get the most out of your coffee, it is essential that the coffee is freshly ground. In fact, we recommend no more than 15 minutes between grinding and brewing coffee. This is so important because grinding coffee beans involves breaking them up into many tiny pieces. This increases the surface area of the beans, which then come into direct contact with oxygen.
When one coffee bean is ground for espresso brewing, it is broken up into around 490,000 pieces, releasing aromas which would have otherwise stayed inside the bean. That’s why grinding coffee smells great, but is not great for keeping coffee fresh.
The main villain in this scenario is oxygen: the same that causes your bike to rust and your fruit to turn soft and brown. In a way, coffee is like an apple, but rather than turning soft and brown when it is cut into pieces, it loses its sweet flavors and rich aromas, being replaced by a flat and earthy taste. In short: it is essential that you only grind your coffee beans right before brewing to get the most flavor out of the coffee.
Tip: if you want to learn more about coffee grinding, check out our complete coffee grinding guide here.
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3) Eliminate flavors that diminish coffee quality
When you brew coffee, you want to minimise any external flavors that can affect the taste of your coffee. There’s two main things to pay particular attention to when you’re brewing coffee:
- WATER – coffee consists of 90% water, so it’s important to make sure that the water you use is fresh, clean and cold.
It’s also a great investment to buy a filter jug that can filter heavy metals and calcium out from water, since these can both negatively affect the taste of coffee and wear down your coffee equipment. Especially if you live in areas where water has higher calcium content, a filter jug is essential. You can check the pH levels of your local water supply online.
(Tip: you can find a BWT water jug in our webshop that filters water and adds magnesium. Magnesium is known for its health benefits and for enhancing the flavor nuances of coffee).
- PAPER FILTERS – If you brew coffee with a paper filter using a Moccamaster or pour-over, you should rinse the filter with a little warm water before use. Paper can give a very (you guessed it) papery taste to coffee, giving it a flat, earthy taste.
4) Pay attention to your coffee:water ratio
This tip may sound relatively simple, but it can cause a lot of problems when brewing coffee.
The incorrect coffee/water ratio can make your coffee taste too bitter or watery. Making coffee is like baking a loaf of bread: it may not require many ingredients, but you need to measure the right amounts of each ingredient in order to get the recipe right.
Tip: Use a scale to weigh both coffee and water when brewing.
Of course, this only applies if you’re brewing on a Chemex or Hario where you’re in control of how much water you pour over the coffee. If you’re brewing with a filter machine or an espresso machine, you should also measure how much coffee you put in the filter compared to the amount of water that runs through the coffee.
Then, of course, the question is: how much water should be used?
Again, it’s matter of taste, and we encourage you to experiment with brewing your coffee in different ways. A good starting point and rule of thumb to keep in mind is 7g of coffee to 125ml of water (1 cup of coffee). This is a ratio that suits most brewing methods and coffee brewers very well.
5) Let the coffee bloom
Okay, we’ve saved the best for last. This trick will significantly improve the quality of your coffee with very little effort – you just need to make a “bloom pour”.
When you brew your coffee on your Moccamaster, a Chemex, a french press or something similar, instead of just pouring all the water over the coffee straight away, add just a bit of water to allow the coffee to develop its subtle flavors and aromas.
Here’s how to do a bloom pour: pour just enough water over your coffee to cover it. Then, stir with a spoon or spinner funnel so that all coffee is mixed in with the water. Leave the coffee for 20-30 seconds to “bloom”. At this point, you will notice that the coffee appears to be growing and that little bubbles are coming out of the coffee.
This lets a lot of carbon dioxide out of the coffee, which can otherwise give a sour taste and “interfere” with our coffee brewing.
That sums up our 5 quick tips for brewing a better cup of coffee. If you want to dive even further into the world of geeky coffee knowledge, then rest assured: there’s plenty left to discover! For example, you can experiment with different water types, grind coarseness and coffee/water ratios, which can give your coffee different flavors and nuances.
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