Water

WATER

How important is water? Water make up 99% of brewed cup of coffee but is often overlooked. There are two things to remember about water: filtration and temoerature.

Temperature

If possible, avoid using tap water and use filtered or bottled spring water instead for brewing your coffee. If you use tap water, the impurities and the other ill tasting particles in the water may materialize in the Coffee, ultimately affecting its flavor.


It is recommended to heat water to approximately 93 Celcius. If the Water heated to ideal temperature, essential oils from the coffee will not be fully extracted, resulting in a weak, light and sour tasting coffee. Many home drip maschines don't achieve this temperature. This lead to coffee that doesn't taste up to their full potensial of Coffee.

Water can transform the character of a coffee. It can accentuate its acidity, or wipe it out entirely. It can increase or decrease body, change extraction. It affects the way we roast and the way we brew.

Hot water can be added to the infusion after brewing to reduce the concentration and flavor intensity of the brew, thus changing the drinking ratio. Experimentation will lead you to your own personal brewing and drinking ratios. It is always wiser to brew your coffee on the strong side and then "cut" it to taste with water. If coffee is brewed too weak, all you can do is start over.

The Brewing Itself

Understanding the extraction process will enable you to learn how to brew coffee successfully. First, the grind (aggregate size) of the coffee is crucial. The finer the grind, the more surface in relation to mass is exposed to the hot water. An un-ground coffee bean results in the least amount of surface area in relation to mass, and would be impossible to brew successfully. The tendency is to assume that the more finely coffee is ground, the better the resulting infusion will be. This is where you can destroy a good cup of coffee. If the grind is too fine, and the exposure too long, you'll get much more than you want. Over-extraction of the aggregate will dissolve too many of the undesirable compounds, generally referred to as "bitters". The trick is to get just what you want out of the coffee, and no more.

 It is of the utmost importance that you understand that the brewing time must be controlled exactly. Improper brewing time is one of the main reasons that people get different results when preparing coffee. If you shorten the extraction time, you'll fail to dissolve the essential flavor compounds that were so carefully developed during the roasting process. Again, over-extraction of will dissolve too many of the undesirable compounds. For example, alkaloids are one group of compounds that dissolve more slowly than others, and are very bitter. The challenge is to get the aggregate size and the extraction time in perfect balance.

There is an important exception to "exact brewing time". 90 percent of the solubles are extracted during the initial phase of the brewing process. It is possible to achieve your best results with a grind that's slightly on the fine side, and shortening the extraction time. For instance, when I use our ground coffee in a French press, or the brew and filter method, I use a 3 minute extraction time. Since our grinder is calibrated to grind coffee that will achieve a 4 minute extraction time in a commercial airpot brewer, for my taste, 4 minutes in the French press over-extracts with our ground coffee. By the same token, you can also use more coffee than usual in a drip brewer with a short extraction time. It's all a matter of increasing surface area, reducing extraction time, and getting less of the bitter compounds that take longer to dissolve. It comes down to experimentation, and finding your perfect brewing formula.