How come my coffee doesn't taste like yours?
We are often asked “how come my coffee doesn’t taste like your coffee when we get it home? – like when you go to a store and they give you free samples so you buy a 20lb bag only to discover it doesn’t taste the same? So here are our tips and tricks to getting your coffee to taste the same.
- Use filtered water. Water plays an important role in good coffee. We live in the mountains so our water isn’t tainted with a lot of the chemicals that say a major city has in theirs.
- Grind your coffee fresh with a burr grinder. The Burr grinder makes sure grind sizes are even and not burned (the blade grinder has a tendency to heat up the grinds and makes for uneven grind size) and of course grind to the particular brew method. Yes, grind size does matter and a coffee pot is right down the middle for grind sizes.
- When we do tastings, we pretty much use a coffee pot. We figure that is the preferred brew method for most coffee drinkers. Now having said that, we live at an elevation of over 8,000 feet which means that water boils at a lower temperature – one lower than the ideal temperature to extract the perfect coffee notes (195 degrees -205 degrees). So how do we fix that since most coffee pots start brewing when the water boils? It’s simple, we buy high altitude brewers that brew when the water reaches about 200 degrees F and NOT when it starts to boil at 190 degrees.
- And lastly we make sure our ratios are spot on by using a scale – take for example when we brew a full pot of 10 cups (and just an fyi those numbers are not 8 oz cups but rather 5 ounce cups), we use 90 grams of coffee.
And for those needing a refresher on ratios – all the first number says is how many parts coffee to parts water. If you want to do the math – if the ratio is 1:16 and you want to make 2 cups of coffee you will need roughly 18 grams of coffee (using our scoop that would be 2 heaping scoops). The math is simple it’s just like this à 5 ounces is equivalent to 148 ml of water so set up the problem like this
1= 16 (1 is grams of coffee and 16 parts water – the coffee pot ratio)
? = 148 (we don’t know the grams, but we do know that 5oz of water is 148g)
As everything is done in grams, I just changed the 5 oz of water to milliliters, make sense? And remember every line on the coffee pot is 5 oz of water. Make the two fractions equal making sure water is over water (16 over 148) and coffee is over coffee (1 over ?) , once that is set up you simply multiply on the diagonal (1*148) and divide by the loner – in this case the 16. This gives you an answer of 9.25 grams of coffee for each 5 oz cup or line on the coffee pot. Hence us using 90 grams for 10 cups. If you need help with the various brew method ratios, please don’t hesitate to ask us, we got you! The perfect cup of coffee shouldn’t be hampered by math!
Here are your additional ratios for other brew methods:
Drip Coffee Maker:
Ratio: Generally, 1:15 to 1:17 (coffee to water).
Example: For every 1 gram of coffee, use 15 to 17 grams (or milliliters) of water.
French Press:
Ratio: Typically, around 1:15.
Example: For every 1 gram of coffee, use 15 grams of water.
Pour-Over:
Ratio: Commonly 1:16 to 1:17.
Example: For 1 gram of coffee, use 16 to 17 grams of water.
Espresso:
Ratio: Usually 1:2 for traditional espresso.
Example: For 1 gram of coffee, use 2 grams of water.
AeroPress:
Ratio: Often varies, but a common starting point is 1:15.
Example: For every 1 gram of coffee, use 15 grams of water.
Cold Brew:
Ratio: Typically, 1:8 for immersion cold brew.
Example: For every 1 gram of coffee, use 8 grams of water.
Moka Pot:
Ratio: Usually around 1:7.
Example: For 1 gram of coffee, use 7 grams of water.
These ratios are starting points and can be adjusted based on your personal taste preferences.