The Simple Trick to Dialing In Great Coffee - Anytime, Anywhere, with Any Equipment
There are innumerable resources out there for learning about the wild and wonderful world of coffee. While this is exciting, it can also be pretty daunting to know where to begin. I have a simple trick I use when dialing in a new coffee, well covered by others in the industry in some detail. Here I will break it down to a simple, self-reflective question about the coffee you just brewed. It’s still hot and your insatiable need for your morning fix is at its peak. You take a sip, then consider this question as the taste lingers:
Is it Juicy?
An odd question no doubt, but really think about that as you’re tasting. Is it thirst quenching, maybe even refreshing, with a taste that beautifully lingers long after you take your sip?
Odds are that this is not your go-to experience when brewing a coffee, oftentimes it may end up tasting bitter or dry or even sour. Sometimes it’s better than others, and you don’t always know why.
If you learn this simple trick about extraction, you can apply it in any context and need no extra tools but your own palate. This will surely delight your friend who is struggling to get their coffee to taste like it does at the cool shop where they bought those fancy beans. You’ll have what you need to help them and be christened the local coffee hero. And all you need to know is it’s really, really simple.
AN IDEAL EXTRACTION
When a coffee is ideally extracted, it can be sweet, aromatic, lively, balanced, and, oh yes JUICY “on the finish.” Diving into that, as you are finishing a drink of this magical brew it has that sensation in a most defined way. This is your ideal extraction - you have gotten the most you are going to get out of it and you’re ready to go start your own shop, sharing this magical skill you’ve acquired. So how do you get it there every time?
It starts with Grind, the biggest and most important variable in any coffee extraction. The finer the ground particle, the greater the surface area relative to its mass. What that means is it extracts more quickly or rapidly than a coarser grind. The Finer the Grind the less Time you will need, the less Agitation will be required, the lower Temperature you can use. It just brews Faster, no matter the circumstance.
OVER-EXTRACTION
Understanding this, when your coffee grind is too fine, the coffee will start to take on an astringent, mouth-drying effect. We all know this sensation, like when black tea steeps too long. You immediately need a glass of water and that old (and now debunked) idea that coffee is dehydrating is starting to make some sense. Well this just means that the coffee was either extracted too quickly or water bypassed some of the finer ground particles, over-extracting the ones it came into contact with.
DIALING “BACK”
Here’s the thing, this can be a useful tool when dialing in a coffee. If you grind a littler finer and get to that point of a mouth drying sensation as you sip your finished brew, just start slowly coarsening the grind on subsequent brews. The drying sensation will start to fade and the coffee will start to taste sweeter. When that little bit of dryness goes away completely then you are golden. It will now be juicy, sweet, lively, have exceptional aromatics and will impress any seasoned barista.
You have now fully extracted the coffee for the brew method you are using without going into over-extraction. This will literally work in any brew method, from Espresso to Pour Overs, Siphons to Cold Brews. Each brew style will have different characteristics based on potential percentage of extraction or strength, but the Principles of Extraction apply to all of them. Go coarser from a “dry” tasting coffee until it tastes Juicy.
UNDER-EXTRACTION
If, on the other hand, you are experiencing a brew that is very sour, or flat in nature - just lacking in any real flavor - you are UNDER extracting your coffee. Sometimes this can be pleasant, as brews may possibly have some delicate nuances, but more likely they will not feel ideal. That is when going finer in your grind to get to your desired result is the effective route. There are a lot of ranges of extraction that are tasty, so it’s easier to start over-extracted and work your way backwards than it is go from Under to Ideal.
CONCLUSION: TRUST YOUR PALATE
Either way, with no tool other than your own palate, you are now able to use any brew equipment, beans, or various water sources and make your coffee instantly taste better knowing this one simple trick. Make it taste Juicy.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This particular post is about the effect of Grind on levels of Astringency. Any means of over-extraction, from excessive agitation to too long of brew times will also lead to dry or astringent sensations. No variable has a bigger impact than Grind, hence its inclusion here. It is also possible to both Over and Under-Extract a coffee simultaneously, but we’ll leave that for another time!
