Roast #12: The brewing methods
brew, brew, the more you brew, the more you... brew.
Hello friends,
Welcome to the brewing guide post.
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Here, I'll share my thoughts on how to best work with the three beans. Note that you should treat what I write below as suggestions rather than a steadfast rule.
Also, note that everyone's palate is different. What tastes good to you might taste bad to me. I'm simply sharing brewing methods and brewing strategies that I found to have made coffee taste good to me.
The brewer I tested with was the plastic Hario V60 dripper and the Cafec eco-friendly cone-shaped filters.
I brewed and poured my water with a fellow kettle at a temperature of 97C.
I ground the beans with an OXO conical burr grinder. Yeah, yeah, I know; I fully intend to upgrade my grinder setup soon.
The variables I kept constant across my testing were grind size, bean dosage, and water temperature.
I like my water temperatures to be hot for better extraction. I also mainly drink light roasts, so I have yet to encounter a need to consider a low water temperature.
My V60 go-to bean-to-water ratio is 18g:250mL, resulting in a brew-to-water ratio of ~1:13.8. This tends to be lower than the usual 1:15, mainly because I like my coffees to be more strong.
I like to grind within the range of the OXO grinder's 9th tick to 10th tick mark. I believe this is medium to medium-coarse? Reflecting back, I think I could’ve gone more fine.
The variable I changed across the beans was how I poured the water. For each bean, I explored a couple of pour styles.
Ethiopia Idedo Yirgacheffe / Natural / Mixed Heirlooms:
Pour 50g of water to bloom
Pour 150g of water
Pour 50g of water
Pour Results:
This pour method resulted in a lighter brew than the others, and it helped present the fruity berry notes best.
Edit: I retried this recipe the next morning, and found it maybe a bit too light. I’ll leave my original result as is, but just a note that if you also found the above recipe to be light, try increasing the number of pours for a stronger brew (ie 50g/ 50g/ 50g/ 50g/ 50g).
Resting notes:
I found that this bean got better with more extended rest. What I experienced was that after maybe... 5-7 days of rest, the fruit flavors started to come out more. Prior to then, the flavors were just earthy flavors, somewhat bland.
Brazil / Anaerobic Natural / Red Catuai:
Pour 50g of water to bloom
Pour 100g of water
Pour 100g of water
Pour Results:
This pour method did a good job of highlighting the chocolate/almond notes. It also didn't go too deep into the bitter territory.
Brazil beans tend to have more earthy and chocolatey undertones. I added this one to give a contrast to the other two beans.
Resting notes:
I found that this bean worked better after 2-4 days of rest. It didn't need a lot.
Colombia / Anaerobic Natural / Gesha:
Pour 50g of water to bloom
Pour 150g of water
Pour 50g of water
Pour Results:
This pour method did a good job of bringing out the sweetness in the cup.
When brewing this bean, give the bloom and the coffee grounds a smell. The gesha grounds smell as if it's some spice.
Then as for the bloom, it smells very floral.
Resting notes:
I found that this bean was drinkable after a day of rest. The floral flavor overpowers grass-like flavors from not resting, which was unexpected. I found that after a week, the brew rounded out a bit better.
Post Thoughts
I reiterate that the above findings are purely based on my palette and my judgment on what tasted best. If you don't feel you taste what you think is good, adjust, iterate and test. A good post I often reference people is from @pullandpour, and I'd try some of their suggestions to tweak your brew to what you desire.
Feel free to ping me too if you are having trouble. I'll do my best to help!
The differences between the brewing methods weren't large. All the brews resulting from the different brew methods were very drinkable. Given the lack of significant differences, I wonder if the pour method was the best variable to change.
Another interesting thought was that Hoffman's method didn't come out on top for any of these beans. I'm curious if there was a bias applied where I expected more from that brewing method. I mostly felt that his brewing method was often over-extracted and ended up pulling out more bitter notes. This isn't to say that his brewing method is bad; it's just an interesting observation.
Other Brewing Tips:
Some other helpful tips that I'd like to share are:
- When you pour, start by going low, and then increase the height until you hear splattering. Then slightly decrease the pour height til the splattering is gone. Continue at this height as you've reached the optimal pouring height.
- After pouring, you should also consider swirling the brewer. Swirling the brewer does a couple of things. First, it helps agitate the brew bed to break up any channeling. Second, it helps lodge fines against the outer walls of the filter paper.
- As you pour the water, don't just aim the stream in one spot. Pour in a circular motion to ensure that agitation from the water hitting the brew bed is occurring across the entire brew bed.
- Wet the filter before pouring. Doing so will help wash away any dry paper flavors, so they don't get imparted into your brew. Doing this with hot water would also help raise the temperature of your brewer and prevent heat loss for when you do your actual pours.
Thanks for reading!