How to drink hand brewed coffee

Coffee is a drink that many people like to drink. Drinking coffee in moderation can also help improve your health. There are many kinds of coffee, and hand-brewed coffee is a drink that has become increasingly popular in recent years. Of course, if you want to make delicious hand-brewed coffee, you need to master certain skills. Next, I will introduce to you how to make hand-brewed coffee!

1. The amount of coffee powder

When you start brewing coffee, you should start by thinking about how much powder to use. This depends on how much coffee liquid you want to present. The powder layers composed of different powder amounts have different resistance to water flow. If the powder amount is too little, the powder layer is too thin and it is difficult to control the water flow. I personally recommend using more than 15g of powder for brewing. For 1-2 servings, use 15-25g, and for 3-4 servings, use 25-40g. Of course, the more powder you use, the longer it will take for hot water to pass through the coffee powder layer when hand-brewed coffee, which is what we will talk about in the fourth point, that is, the longer contact time.

Of course, after determining the amount of coffee powder, the next thing to determine is the amount of water used for brewing, which is what we often call the "powder-water ratio". If you prefer a strong flavor, you can use a high powder-water ratio, such as 1:12 (1g of powder is brewed with 12g of water. If you use 15g of powder, you need to add 180g of water); if you like a light taste, you can use 1:18; for regular brewing, you can use 1:15. Of course, different beans are suitable for different powder-water ratios. You can try different ratios to find your favorite one.

2. Grinding Coarseness

Friends who have taken the SCA grinding and extraction course know that the coarseness of the grind is a very critical variable in brewing coffee. Using the wrong grind size to brew coffee will make your coffee "bitter as hell" or "as bland as water." Different bean grinders have different grinding ranges suitable for hand brewed coffee. When you get a bag of beans, first grind a little using the grinding scale recommended by the grinder and feel the coarseness of the grind with your hands. The medium fineness is suitable for hand brewing. You can also compare it with fine sugar and then try brewing a handful. If the water goes in slowly and the brew tastes bitter, you can adjust it to a coarser level. vice versa. Remember this: the finer the grind, the more soluble substances will be extracted when hot water passes through the coffee grounds. In fact, when brewing coffee, you only need to dissolve 18-22% of the soluble substances in the coffee beans. Dissolving too much will easily cause "over-extraction", which will easily produce a bitter and unpleasant texture.

3. Brewing water temperature

Different water temperatures have different abilities and speeds to dissolve substances in coffee powder. Too high a water temperature (such as 100-degree boiling water) can easily make the brewed coffee taste obviously bitter, while too low a water temperature (such as below 80) can easily make the coffee "as bland as water". The appropriate water temperature for brewing coffee is between 85-95℃. It is recommended that for a new bean, you can use 92℃ water temperature to brew it, and then adjust it according to the flavor and taste of the brewed coffee. High-altitude extra-hard beans and lightly/medium-roasted beans can be brewed with 95°C water to bring out the good flavor of the extra-hard beans; and for deeply roasted low-altitude beans, it is easy to brew them rich and charming by using 88°C water.

4. Brewing time

The brewing time here refers to the time from the formal water injection (the formal contact between water and powder) to the complete end of the brewing process (moving the filter cup from the sharing pot). It generally goes through the steaming and exhaust stage and the first water injection, the second water injection, the third water injection or one water injection to the bottom, and the time ranges from 1 minute to 3 minutes. Of course, there is also the fast brewing school, which can brew a pot of coffee by hand in about 30 seconds. By slowly pouring water and extending the contact time between water and coffee powder, it is also helpful to improve the extraction rate of coffee.