11 Ways to Brew Better Coffee at Home Drew Moody

filed under: coffee

At its heart, brewing better coffee is a straightforward task. You want to pour the proper amount of

water at the proper temperature through the properly portioned and ground coffee to extract the best

flavors out of it. Improving your morning cup may be easier than you think.

1. FIND THE RIGHT, FRESH COFFEE. If you’re going to take your home coffee experience to the next level, you’re not going to do it with

just any coffee. The most surefire way to brew great coffee at home is to start with great coffee

beans. Do some research to find the best roasters in your area and buy from a reputable company that

sources their product ethically and transparently.

Also make sure the coffee you're buying is freshly roasted. Unlike wine and some beers, coffee

doesn’t improve with age. In fact, it reacts to aging more like food: It doesn’t necessarily spoil or go

bad, but its chemical structures and flavor profile certainly deteriorate over time.

2. KEEP THE AIR OUT.

Deterioration speeds up when coffee is exposed to oxygen, roasted beans’ sworn enemy.

Oxidation contributes significantly to flavor degradation, and it doesn’t take much to render the

coffee stale. Ambient air contains 19 to 21 percent oxygen, and it only takes 70 cubic centimeters of

ambient air to make a pound of coffee stale (a one pound bag contains around 1000 cubic centimeters

of space). Airtight packages with degasser valves work for the most part, but if there is even four

percent oxygen inside the package, it’s only a matter of time until you’ve got stale coffee. So, if the

packaging doesn't have a “roasted on” date on it, don't bother buying it—you’ll have no way of

knowing how long it’s been sitting on the shelf.

3. EMBRACE WHOLE BEANS.

It's also important to buy whole bean coffee instead of pre-ground. While grinding may add a few

moments to your morning routine, it’s worth it. All of the coffee's natural flavors are locked in the

bean's essential oils, and once the coffee is ground, the oils evaporate pretty quickly. You want those

precious oils in your mug, not evaporated into your cupboard’s atmosphere.

4. DITCH THE K-CUPS.

In recent years, single serve automatic brewing systems—the Keurig K-Cup, most notably—have

risen in popularity. If you really want to up your coffee game, you’ll want to retire your Keurig.

There are a number of issues with K-Cups: Not only are they wildly expensive andterrible for the

environment (even their inventor regrets the very idea of them), they simply don’t make great coffee.

All the basic principles of good, high-quality coffee are completely ignored by these single-serving

machines.

What’s the issue? Water temperature is one. The Specialty Coffee Association of America

recommends that coffee be brewed between 198 and 202°F to achieve proper saturation and

extraction, and the industry standard is 200°, but the Keurig brews at a measly 192°F. There is also

no control over the coffee-to-water ratio—whether you want a small, medium, or large cup, the same

amount of coffee is used. This approach means a small cup will taste incredibly strong and over-

extracted while a large will be weak and watery.

5. USE A SCALE.

Scoops, measuring spoons, and eyeballing it are usually good enough to brew a passable cup of

coffee, but for a reliable and repeatable cup, knowing a coffee's precise weight is best. A scale

removes all of the guesswork and need to decode special instructions (for example, “a heaping

scoop” might actually be 14.3 grams). Coffee can vary in density depending on the bean size, origin,

variety, and roast profile, so using a scale is the best means to normalize a brew recipe. A scale is

also the best tool to enable brew ratio experimentation; whether you want to brew the industry

standard of one part coffee to 18 parts water, or really wake your taste buds up with a 1:13 ratio,

measuring doses with a scale will make your experimentation infinitely easier.

6. REFINE YOUR GRIND.

Now that you’re grinding your own beans at home, you’ll need the right grinder. A really great

conical burr grinder is easily the biggest investment when setting up your professional-level home

brewing station, but it's also the best investment you'll make. There are a number of reasons that burr

grinders outweigh their blade counterparts, but the most important differences spring from a burr

grinder’s consistency and adjustability. A blade grinder simply cannot match a burr grinder's ability

to adjust its grind from espresso (very fine) to French press (very coarse), enabling you to match your

grind to your brew method to deliver consistently ground coffee. A consistent grind can’t be

underestimated, as it’s the only way to produce consistent extraction. If money is tight, you can

always buy a manual burr grinder—they're a fraction of the cost, they’re transportable, and using one

is a great arm workout!

7. DON’T FORGET THE SECRET INGREDIENT: WATER.

The most important ingredient in a high-quality cup of coffee is also maybe the most overlooked

component. Hot water is a super solvent that extracts flavors and oils out of coffee grounds. While

these flavors and oils are crucial, they only account for 1.25 percent of what's in your morning cup.

In other words, a properly extracted cup of coffee is 98.75 percent water, so if the water you're

brewing with isn't any good, your coffee won't be either. If your tap water has any odors or tastes of

chlorine, lime, or rust, your coffee will, too. Instead, use only purified water (or as close to purified

as you can get, even if you’re just using bottled water or a Brita filter). If you’re wondering how pure

your home’s tap water is, considering picking up a TDS meter, a moderately priced gadget that

gauges water’s purity. But don’t use distilled water. Without any minerals your coffee will taste on

the blander side.

8. INVEST IN A POUROVER SETUP.

If you really want to unlock the flavor in your beans, invest in a pourover setup. Whether you go with

a Hario V60, Chemex, Kalita Wave, a Clever Dripper, or even a French press, brewing witha

pourover device gives you absolute control over nearly every aspect of the brewing process. It also

gives you the ability to experiment with water temperature, grind particle size, and water-to-coffee

ratios. Brewing your morning cup by hand also ensures a more even extraction of oils than an

automatic brewer can. After buying better coffee, taking total control of your brewing process is the

best option for taking your skills to a whole new level.

If you’re not ready to take the pourover plunge and go fully manual, the rest of these tips are just as

applicable to automatic machines: Get fresh, quality beans and brew with hot, pure water. If you

want to dip your toe into the pourover realm, you can use your automatic brewer as an improvised

pourover apparatus. Simply lift the lid, put the filter in place, pour the grounds into the filter, then

pour the water over the grounds. It’s not ideal, but it works!

9. GET HOT.

As previously mentioned, the Specialty Coffee Association of America found that the ideal water

temperature for brewing coffee is 198 to 202°F. Colder water will result in flat, underextracted coffee

while hotter water will burn the grounds and harm your cup’s flavor. A basic kitchen thermometer

will improve your cup quality by leaps and bounds.

10. PICK UP A GOOSENECK KETTLE.

This one is pretty specific for pourover users, but it comes with the territory of being a home barista.

Gooseneck kettles are absolutely not essential to brewing great coffee at home, but their narrow

spouts make precise pouring much easier and give you more control over how much water you pour

and where you pour it.

11. GIVE YOUR BEANS A GOOD HOME.

Have you been storing your coffee in the refrigerator or freezer? Get it out! Coffee should always be

stored in an opaque, airtight glass or ceramic container. While it should also be stored in a dark and

cool location, storing it inside the fridge or freezer and the constant freeze/thaw cycle when you

remove your coffee and put it back causes moisture buildup inside the package, which will then

cause it to deteriorate. Storing beans in a ceramic jar with an airtight lid on your kitchen counter or in

a cabinet will do just fine.

July 24, 2015 - 8:00am