Mmmmm, coffee….that tasty cup of liquid fuel. There is nothing better than that first sip of coffee in the morning. The feeling of the warmth, the taste of the underlying flavour notes in the coffee, or the taste of your coffee creamer or Baileys (no judgment here!). The little “pick me up” that some of us feel.
But what about when that cup of joe doesn’t taste quite right? Have you ever taken that sip of coffee and thought “meh,” it’s just not tasting right. Maybe too weak, or too strong, maybe bitter, maybe sour, maybe stale tasting? Well let’s take a look at your coffee beans.
I have a few questions for you to ask yourself…and keep in mind, I am certainly no coffee expert, nor am I particularly picky with my coffee. If it tastes like coffee, it isn’t brewed too light and it isn’t super bitter, I will drink it. BUT! That being said, I do notice when coffee is brewed “well’. I appreciate being able to taste the underlying flavour notes in the different beans, and when I can’t, well, I don’t enjoy my cup of coffee as much.
So here are your questions….
- Were the coffee beans bought already ground?
- Were they bought whole and you ground them yourself?
- When did you grind them and what was the grind size?
- When were they roasted?
- Were they roasted to order? Or were they bought off the shelf already roasted?
What I have learned over the many years of enjoying coffee is this….that coffee tastes SO much better when you fresh grind your own whole beans AND you are using the correct grind size. I’m not talking about taking the entire bag and grinding it all at once, I’m saying only grinding what you are going to use that day, even that moment. Now, I realize that isn’t always convenient, especially for our Essential Services. Your time is precious and also limited, so if you grind your beans ahead of time I won’t judge. BUT! On your days off, try having your coffee with super fresh ground beans and just see if you notice a difference. And a little note on Question 5 (specific roasts will be another Coffee 101 topic) … roast-2-order beans also give you a better overall coffee experience.
Keep in mind that the longer coffee is exposed to oxygen, the quicker the flavour degrades, whole bean or ground, even quicker for ground. So keep your little magical water flavourers in an airtight container, even better in a vacuum canister.
Ok, so let’s talk about that “meh” flavour in your coffee, in coffee terms it is called over or under extraction, in other words, too much or too little of the soluble compounds in the coffee beans came out as the water passed over the grinds. What are your soluble compounds you ask? Well, they are your sugars, your acids, your oils and your bitter compounds. All the delicious flavour compounds that make out a well rounded, tasty beverage we call coffee. How does over or under extraction happen? It could be a result of your type of grind and/or your brew method. Let’s take a look at different types of grind, and how it affects the flavour of your coffee.
COURSE GROUND COFFEE
Technically there are 3 types of coarse grinds: Extra Course, Course and Medium Coarse.
Extra Coarse: if you think of what peppercorns look like when they’re ground, this is like your extra coarse ground coffee. The particles of coffee beans are larger and take more time for the extraction process. If you were to use an extra coarse grind in a pour-over, very little flavour (soluble compounds) would be extracted from the beans because the water would pass through too quickly, resulting in a very weak, under extracted, sour tasting cup of Joe. No bueno. But, what Extra Coarse Ground coffee is excellent for, is Cold Brew Coffee. In fact, if you’re making a long steeping, Cold Brew Coffee, extra coarse grind is crucial. The extraction in Cold Brew takes a good amount of time so the coarser the grind, the better the extraction and the easier it is to filter the grinds. If you made your cold brew with a finer grind, you would end up with an over extracted, way too bitter, maybe even gritty cup of coffee, yuck!
Course: A little finer than extra coarse and resembles coarse sea salt for comparison. Coarse ground coffee is often used in your French Press, your percolators and if you’re a coffee expert or connoisseur…your coffee cupping.
For French Press the extraction time is a few minutes, the grinds steep in the water before being pressed to the bottom of the chamber, separating the grounds from the liquid. Had you used a finer grind, you likely would end up with an over extracted, bitter cup of coffee.
For a Percolator, the grinds need to be coarse enough that the water can pass or filter through a few times. Smaller grinds in a percolator leads to over extraction and bitter flavour, again.
Medium Coarse: ok, so picture rough sand….this is your medium coarse coffee grind. What is it good for? Percolators, or the old school way of making coffee that my Great Aunt has been using forever (she’s 101 years old btw), which is letting your grinds steep in simmering water for a bit and then turning it off and letting the grinds settle to the bottom of the pot. After which you use a spoon to ladle out the liquid.
Then all by itself we have:
Medium: regular sand or regular sea salt, that is what we picture for medium ground coffee. Your regular grind for flat bottomed drip coffee, pour overs and Siphon brewers.
FINE GROUND COFFEE
There are also 3 types of fine grind: Medium Fine, Fine and Super Fine.
Fine: finer than sand, the middle point between what we would need for flat bottomed drip coffee, pour overs, siphon brewers and espresso. We can call this the happy medium. It will work well for all these methods of brewing coffee, but your best grind for pour overs coffee (which is my favourite).
Espresso Fine: aka the espresso grind. Consider the way table salt or sugar looks, this is your fine grind. Pre-ground coffee you buy-in stores will likely be fine grind, unless it says something different on the package. It can be used for drip coffee, pour overs but it is best for espresso so you don’t get over extracted coffee. The short extraction time (water passing through the grinds) for espresso means you need a finer grind that can allow for all the deliciousness to be extracted in the short amount of time. Coarser grinds means under extraction.
Super Fine: think powdered sugar. Unless you make or drink Turkish coffee, this is not a grind you will be using. For Turkish coffee the grinds stay in it, therefore this is the reason the grinds need to be super fine. And some coffee grinders can’t even accommodate super fine grinding, so if Turkish coffee is your thing, make sure you have a grinder that can accommodate that fine of a grind.
So there you have it, a little bit about grinds, what they are best used for, and how they may affect the flavour of your coffee. So what if you ground your coffee and you still ended up with an over or under extracted cup of coffee? Well, not all grinders are created equal, unless maybe you have an industrial one. So consider for next time when you grind your beans, maybe you grind them just a little more or a little less depending on what your outcome was the last time. Consider the temperature of your water if you made a pour over. Ideally it should be between 91º-93º C, now I don’t check the temperature, I just don’t pour the water when it’s at a boil. If you have a thermometer and you want to be specific, be my guest and check, and let me know what temperature you preferred in the comments 🙂
Happy coffee drinking…..
Adrianne