Brewing Techniques for Different Types of Coffee
One of the best ways to upgrade your at-home coffee experience is to learn different techniques for brewing coffee. Here’s an in-depth guide to help you brew a better cup at home.
Flavor Extraction
Flavor extraction is fundamental to the best cup of coffee, but it can be challenging to understand. To make it more approachable, consider flavor extraction like a martial arts master trying to break boards.
Imagine three boards stacked together with one person ready to punch through them. Typically, one strong punch would clear through the stack, but what if the rules said you want to break through the first two boards, but you lose if you break the last? Instead of raw uncontrolled strength, it would focus more on finesse and control. That’s a bit like the layers of flavor extraction where we are looking to break through the first two layers of flavor without disturbing the third.
Layer 1 - The CO2 Layer
The first “board” of flavor extraction is easy to break through and is called the CO2 layer. After the roasting process, coffee holds onto excess carbon dioxide (CO2), which makes it taste bad. If you only drink the first layer, you’ll miss the natural taste of your beans, and the coffee will taste heavy.
Layer 2 - The Flavor Layer
The second “board” of flavor extraction is the strongest of the three and can be difficult to break. However, it is where the flavorful acids that make coffee taste fruity, sweet, nutty, or chocolatey can be extracted. The perfect cup of flavor extraction breaks through this layer and pulls out those unique, rich flavors.
Layer 3 - The Bitter Layer
The final “board” of flavor extraction is just as easy to break as the first, but punching through it will cause your coffee to taste bitter, astringent, and leathery. This one layer is punchy and strong, making it easy to overpower (and ruin) the wealth of rich flavors established in the previous layers.
Dark roasts gain a bad reputation because of this layer. For dark roasts, this “board” becomes paper thin, and it takes only a mild touch to break, making it very easy to ruin a brew and have an acidic, bitter cup of coffee.
Your goal should never be to extract as much as possible; that would be like punching through all three “boards” and would result in a bitter brew. Instead, aim for an even extraction that punches through only two of the layers, allowing your coffee to achieve a rich, full flavor.
How do you get an even extraction?
Brewing coffee is an art. Each roast acts differently, and a prized process that creates a flavorful, rich cup of light roast will destroy a cup of dark roast. To help you discover what works best for your favorite roast, here are a few steps to optimize your extraction process.
Bloom Your Coffee Grounds
Blooming your coffee grounds is when you initially add hot water to your grounds. This removes excess CO2 and releases excess gasses. Additionally, it hydrates the grounds, allowing solubles to be dissolved into the coffee itself.
Skipping blooming or not blooming enough will lead to a cup tasting watery and under-extracted.
Small Modifications Make Large Changes
Finding the best way to brew coffee is an experiment to determine what combinations of variables work best for you. Too often, people become upset or frustrated with their coffee and decide to change everything at once. By changing everything at once, it’s impossible to know what changes helped or did not improve their cup of coffee.
If you want to optimize your process, start with a recipe that works with many types of coffee and change one aspect of it at a time. A great resource to refer to is Barista Hustle’s Coffee Compass.
Use The Right Grind Size
The size of your grind might be ruining your drink. Even the best machines and tools cannot counteract a bad grind.
If your coffee is passing through a filter (everything except a French press), your grind size drastically matters because it affects the permeability of the coffee bed. If the ground is too fine, your grounds will clog the filter, leading to acrid, bitter, and generally unpleasant flavors to come out. If the ground is too coarse, the coffee will be so permeable that the water will not be in contact long enough, resulting in a thin, watery, sour drink.
Brewing Techniques
Your brewing technique plays a major role in getting the best cup of coffee. We’ll cover general best practices for each technique and tips for optimizing them for light and dark roasts.
Pour Over
A pour-over is the most general form of brewing. In this method, hot water is poured over a bed of coffee grounds, and coffee is drawn through a filter by gravity.
To get the best brew from a pour-over, you need to nail down a good brew ratio, which is measured by coffee grounds, to water by weight. For example, a 1:18 ratio would mean you use 1 gram of coffee for every 18 grams of water. This would make a very small cup of coffee, but you can increase that ratio to as large as you need. A good starting point is 16 grams of coffee grounds to 288 grams of water.
Pour Over Light Roast
For a light roast, you can keep the same ratio, but the temperature of your water should be different. Lighter roasted coffees are best brewed with water at 195-200F. If your pour-over does not have a temperature control option, bring your water to a boil, take it off the heat for 10-15 seconds, and then brew with it.
Be careful when pouring water into a light roast. If the water flow is splashy or sputtery, you can directly impact the solubles dissolved. Aim for a laminar flow, where the water flows smoothly. This will help the water penetrate the bed of coffee easily, causing more solubles to dissolve.
Pour Over Dark Roast
Dark roasts can quickly become bitter if you over-extract them. To avoid this, brew with slightly cooler water (180F). This can help you extract the flavor from the coffee without extracting the bitter acid.
Consider using a coarser grind size to allow for an “osmotic flow.” This is when water flows at a constant rate through the coffee. To achieve this, water is only poured over the direct center of the coffee bed, not saturating the entire bed. This will help reduce CO2 and deliver a more concentrated liquid coffee.
Batch Brew
Batch brewing is similar to a pour-over. The fundamentals are the same: hot water is poured over the grounds. The biggest difference is how that happens. Batch brewing is electronic and typically brews larger volumes of coffee.
Unless you are paying for top-of-the-line machines, you typically don’t have much control over the pour style or flow rate of a batch brewer. You typically have preprogrammed water amounts measured in cups of coffee rather than actual measurements like liters or grams.
It can be difficult to brew an excellent coffee from a batch brewer, but it’s not impossible. There are some variables that are beyond your control if you use a batch brewer because you cannot modify or alter the physical electronics of the machine.
However, not everything is set in stone, and it’s still possible to improve your brewing techniques while using a batch brewer.
The Perfect Brew Ratio
One element you cannot modify is the amount of water your brewer uses. The brewer always uses a predetermined amount, and the first step to making an excellent cup of coffee is to research and see exactly how much water is used. Once you’ve determined the amount of water used, you can modify the amount of coffee grounds you use, trying to find the perfect brew ratio.
Some coffees will offer you an ideal ratio, like 1:17. What this means is that for every one part of the grounds, there should be 17 parts water. 2 grams of coffee grounds ideally needs 34 grams of water.
With these two measurements in place, you can then find the ideal amount of grounds you should use in your batch brewer. If your brewer uses 1,000 grams of water and you have a ratio of 1:17, all you have to do is divide 1,000 by 17. This gives you 58.824 grams of coffee you should use per brewing. While that ratio is ideal, it’s not the law. It’s perfectly okay to round up and use 59 or 60 grams per brewing.
Remember, the perfect brew ratio depends on the roast you use. Your perfect brew ratio for one roast may taste watery and weak for another.
Temperature
The most common batch brewers do not have water temperature settings. If you do have the option to modify the temperature, remember to adjust it for the roast you are using. Light roasts should be at a higher temperature (195 F), and dark roasts should be at a lower temperature (180 F).
If you do not have control over the water temperature, you can adjust your grind to make up the difference. A coarser grind will lessen the compounds that get extracted, which makes it safer to brew a dark roast with hotter water without getting a bitter cup.
AeroPress
AeroPress is a bit different because rather than relying on gravity to draw water through the beans and filter, it forces the water through using a small amount of pressure. This results in a more concentrated coffee with a heavier body.
Inverted AeroPress
An inverted AeroPress refers to how you flip the entire AeroPress to brew coffee. First, you assemble the press upside down without a filter. Then, you pour hot water over the coffee, let it steep, stir, put the filter on, and flip the entire brewer right side up before plunging it into the cup.
The inverted AeroPress tends to have a heavier precieved body with less perceived flavors than the regular method.
Regular AeroPress
The regular AeroPress keeps everything right side up and functions much like a pour-over bloom. After enough time, you insert a plunger and force the water through to finish the brewing process.
The regular AeroPress tends to have more complex flavors but provides more of a tea-like body.
Temperatures
Like before, lower temperatures for dark roasts, and higher temperatures for light roasts still apply for an aeropress.
If you are following this and your dark roasts are still coming out bitter, coarsen your grind size to lessen the extraction of solubles. This will help you avoid over-extraction and get a rich, full-flavored cup.
Brew Ratio
The best brew ratios for an AeroPress are similar to the brew ratio you would use for a pour-over. 1:15 to 1:18 is ideal for most roasts, but you should experiment to find the best ratio that works for you.
Plunging
The most common error novice baristas make with an AeroPress is rushing the plunger. When plunging, go significantly slower than you initially expect. To ensure constant, even pressure throughout the duration, it can take anywhere between 30 seconds and 1 minute.
French Press
The French Press is one of the oldest full-immersion brewers on the market. It is the perfect brewer for dark roasts. If you continually get over-extracted, bitter dark roasts, we strongly recommend trying a French Press so you can finally enjoy the perfect cup of coffee.
Dark Roasts
Dark roasts are often marketed as “French Roast” or “Full City Roast” and pair perfectly with the French Press. Because dark roasts are easily extracted, it’s best to grind them very coarsely. This will lead to an outstanding mouthfeel and aftertaste, usually with less acidity and a single prominent tasting note.
Light Roasts
Consider grinding finer than you would for other brewing techniques. Because coffee doesn’t have to pass through and clog a paper filter, a fine grind can be used without hurting the flavor profile of your coffee.
Brewing Ratio
Generally, a French press works best with a brewing ratio that focuses on less coffee and more water. Your ratio may go as high as 1:18 or higher!
Best Practices
When brewing, pour water onto your coffee grounds, making sure that all the coffee gets wet without having to stir or mix it. The coffee will float to the top and create a crust. This is perfectly normal. Leave it this way for three to four minutes.
Gently stir the coffee, and allow the crust to sink to the bottom. Allow the coffee to steep for an additional five to seven minutes. During this time, gently remove any extra dregs or foam that has appeared at the top.
Finally, gently and slowly plunge the coffee. Take your time, and do not rush this step. The faster and harder you plunge, the more grounds will get into your cup. You want to drink your coffee, not chew it.
Espresso
Espresso has the steepest learning curve to master as it has the most diverse range of variables that can affect the final brew.
Espresso machines push pressurized water through a coffee puck. Some machines have automatic pumps that generate the needed pressure, while others have the barista create the pressure by pulling down a lever. The most important aspect of espresso pulling is how you prepare the puck.
The Puck Grind
Espresso requires a very specific fine grind. A fine grind that works for a pour-over, will be too coarse for an espresso puck. If your coffee is too coarse the water pressure will be forced through too quickly. This will lead your espresso to be watery and under extracted. A grind that is too fine and the water won’t be able to push through the puck, which will cause the final brew to taste bitter (and also potentially damage your espresso machine by putting too heavy a load on it).
The Puck Bed
Because water is being forced through the coffee, you have to distribute the coffee equally to ensure the water travels smoothly through the puck. If one side has significantly less water than the other, you’ll have an uneven extraction. One side of the puck will be under-extracted, and the other will be over-extracted, leaving you with the worst of both worlds: a sour (under-extracted) and bitter (over-extracted) espresso.
A puck rake helps break up clumps in coffee grounds and ensures that everything has settled evenly. These rakes started as wine corks with needles in them, but they have since progressed to being a bit more formal. They all do the same job: They break up the coffee grounds and ensure that the puck is balanced and even.
Stay away from buying a wedge distributor. This tool only distributes coffee on the surface, slightly compacting it. It’s the espresso version of sweeping the dust under your rug. While it looks great on the surface, it doesn’t actually solve the problem.
Tamping the Puck
It does not matter how much money you spend on tools, toys, and extra features—if you cannot tamp well and with enough force, your distribution will be in vain.
You need 30 pounds of equal pressure is the ideal amount of pressure needed for tamping the puck. Don’t worry, everyone should be able to reach this limit if you have the right technique. Start by holding the tamper like a doorknob. Make sure the tamper, your wrist, and elbow are all in a straight line that moves together up and down. If you do it this way, you will easily apply the force needed to compact the coffee.
Some people argue that you need to “polish” the puck after you tamp by spinning the tamper while it is on the puck. This makes the puck look fancy, but it doesn’t meaningfully improve the taste of your espresso, and you run the risk of adding unwanted air channels that will damage your pull.
Espresso Recipe
Espresso ratios are different from pour-over ratios. The first number is the dose of coffee grounds, while the second number is the output of espresso yield. The smallest shots can be as small as 1:1.5 (20g coffee to 30g yield) and can be as large as 1:3 (20g coffee to 60g espresso yield).
We cannot recommend how much coffee to use in your basket because there is such a wide range of manufacturers and machines. Each holds different amounts of coffee, and over- or underfilling the basket will result in a poor pull. For best results, try to stick to the coffee dose the basket is meant for.
Using the Machine
If your machine has preprogrammed options, try not to use them. While they can be helpful for a quick result, they limit how you interact with your coffee and usually result in mediocre brews.
Consider buying a scale with a built-in timer and using your machine manually. Start the timer as you start to pull the shot. Always take note of how long it takes for a pull (ideally that should be around 25-30 seconds).
Taste Everything
Just like a good chef tastes everything that they plate to ensure their customer is getting the best food possible, the best barista tastes every single shot you pull. Even if you think it’ll taste horrible, still taste it. It’s not uncommon for accidental mistakes and errors leading to you finding the best shot of espresso you’ve ever had.
Espresso for a Cappuccino or Latte
Because of the milk in cappuccino and lattes, consider pulling your espresso with a ratio below a 1:2 range. The extra acidity will help it cut through and still have rich flavors without tasting water down or diluted.
Brewing the Perfect Coffee Takes Time to Master
Brewing coffee is as much an art as it is a science. By mastering key concepts like flavor extraction and experimenting with variables, you can consistently achieve better results. Whether you prefer the clarity of pour-over, the convenience of batch brewing, the versatility of AeroPress, the richness of French Press, or the precision of espresso, there’s a method to suit your tastes. Take the time to refine your technique, and enjoy the rewards in every cup.