Comment by JasonCEC | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JasonCEC | Hacker News Reader

Generally a good article;

I run a startup[1] for quality control in the craft beverage industry (coffee, beer, distilling), and we have over 7,000 full sensory reviews of the flavor profile from various brewing methods.

I would highly suggest that anyone interested in brewing better coffee at home (or in the office, etc), invest in the following:

1) freshly roasted coffee - flavor profile degradation begins around day ~10 in most 3rd wave light-medium roast coffees. I would suggest Intelligentsia coffee, Blue Bottle, Stumptown, or Counter Culture. These guys are the "big 4" and trying either single origin or blends from them will give you a better idea of what to look for in high quality beans.

2) a conical burr grinder. Do not use a spice grinder (whirly blade) which will shatter the bean causing large amounts of micro-fines and make your coffee bitter. Capresso makes an OK home grinder, or (if you have the patients for it) the Hario hand grinder (with a ceramic burr) is excellent (but takes a while.... though it can be used in situations lacking electricity). In our dataset, conical grinders increase the Perceived Quality of "3rd wave" beans by 1.4 standard deviations on average - there is almost no effect on burnt beans or lesser coffee.

3) a Chemex or French Press. These are both simple, elegant, and allow you to make a range of quantities depending on how much coffee you have and who's drinking. Both of these brew methods score .75 standard deviations higher in perceived quality than average with less experienced (in our dataset that means 'non-expert') tasters. The average perceived quality can be further improved by correct dosing and pouring methods.

4) a swan neck kettle. This is 80% of what you need to to perfect your pouring method. The rest is practice.

Finally, one of the best things that you can do is record and rank the coffees you consume. This will help you objectively remember what you liked and disliked about the product, and gain intuition on your preferences. My company's tools are built for professional tasters in quality control, but anyone serious about coffee could find suitable use for it. Gastrograph Review is available free on the Google play store here[2].

[1] www.Gastrograph.com [2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gastrograp...

I buy my coffee from a local chain: Dunn Bros, always within few days of roasting. Often the same day it was roasted. After having a particularly good cup of coffee there (they offer a "free" large cup of the variety of the day with every pound you purchase), I went on a quest to understand why their coffee always tasted better than mine. Finally it came down to the grind as the last variable and it totally blew my mind how different the taste was whether I bought it ground from them or with my "whirlybird" grinder.

Ground in store, made with a cheap drip brewer tastes infinitely better than ground at home with the crappy grinder and a French press. Unbelievable!

What factor was it, exactly? Is their grinder cleaned every time they use it, or is it to do with the evenness of the grind?

Brewing coffee is all about extracting good tasting stuff from ground coffee beans - some factors which affect extraction include:

  Water temperature (hotter water => more extraction)
  Grind size (finer grind => more extraction)
  Brew time (longer time => more extraction)

Overextracted coffee tends to taste bitter (or, as many people say when they're used to bad coffee, "like coffee" :)) and underextracted tends to taste sour. A bad grinder won't give you a uniform result (some will be more coarse, some will be more fine). Brewing should match up an appropriate water temperature + brew time with your grind size, but if your grind isn't uniform the coarser stuff will underextract and the finer stuff will overextract. So your coffee can end up having both sour/bitter flavor if the grind isn't even.

I think it's just what the OP said: uneven grind. The grinder I used gave a result that was fine powder with largish and small chunks in it. Their grinder was a smooth, even grind. As far as I can tell, that was the primary determinant in the taste difference.

You may be right. But there is something more important than the grind that very few people will tell you about.

Water.

I suspect the store has RO water (reverse osmosis)+(possibly with remineralisation).

RO + Remineralisation is not easy, cheap or conducive for most homes. There are a few ways around this:

a. Always start with water from the cold water tap. Lets it run for 10-30 seconds if possible.

b. Use a thermometer if you're not already using one. You should find your ideal temp. in the 195-205F range.

c. You could use bottled water. Not as cheap as tap water, way cheaper than RO.

d. Invest in a decent grinder. It does not have to be expensive. If you don't mind some hard work, look into the Hario Skerton or Hario Mini Mill. In the lower range you could find something like a Breville or a Baratza Encore. If you absolutely must you could get a Cuisinart Burr Mill (Should be about $40).

e. Since you mentioned that you often buy coffee on the same day as it was roasted. Most coffee's don't taste spectacular on the day they were roasted and need 1-7 days to de-gas. When you buy it that fresh, move it to a glass jar and leave the lid slightly open for 5-12 hours. After the close the lid. Attempt at not consuming the coffee for 1 - 2 days.

Regardless how long ago the coffee was roasted keep it in a glass jar and air tight. Oxygen and air in general kills coffee. Quick.

f. Grind 30 seconds before brewing.

A useful trick for that Cuisinart:

It has the strange and useful behavior of spraying the fine particles (the "dust") against the top of the cup, where the stick, whereas the larger, correctly-sized particles fall to the bottom. After I grind, I carefully slide my finger to remove the dust from the top/side of the cup before pouring the grounds into my brew device.

Less dust = less over-extraction = less bitter.

I wish there were a sub-$100 burr grinder that doesn't suck... but alas.

There are, they just require a little elbow greece ;) In particular, the Porlex pointed out above has dropped in price quite a bit (I bought mine for $80 on amazon a year ago - now it's only $40).

I have the same grinder recommended by devindotcom (http://www.amazon.com/Porlex-JP-30-Stainless-Coffee-Grinder/...) for work/travel and it's awesome.

Another recommendation on the brewing is the AeroPress (http://www.amazon.com/Aeropress-Coffee-and-Espresso-Maker/dp...). Pour overs are great and I love my Chemex, but if you're looking to brew a single serving - or want something which is easy to pack for travel - the AeroPress is incredibly hard to beat. It's cheap, fast, small, easy to clean, and makes it trivial to consistently brew a great cup of coffee. The Porlex grinder mentioned above happens to fit exactly inside the AeroPress too.

If you're going to do a pour over, a gooseneck kettle really helps. If you don't, it's nice to have but not a necessity. Either way this kettle might be one of the most useful appliances I have: http://www.amazon.com/Bonavita-Variable-Temperature-Electric.... It's a gooseneck kettle with digital temperature control, built-in timer, and hold function. You give it a temperature and it'll keep your water there for an hour. It's ridiculously convenient.

FWIW, I started off with a French press, which uses a coarser metal mesh to separate the grounds from the coffee. Because of this you often end up with a small amount of "coffee ground sludge" at the bottom of your French press. The remnants continue to "brew" in your cup after you remove the rest of the coffee grounds, so you might end up with more bitter, overextracted coffee if you aren't careful.

I've been waiting for a chance to ask this...I bought an AeroPress and it made really sour coffee. I tried again, used the same coffee in my drip machine, timed it carefully in the Aeropress, got the temperature exactly right, and still, the Aeropress coffee was much more sour than what I got from my old machine.

Am I doing something wrong, or do people just like sour coffee? I really hated it. I've had coffee from a French press and thought it was great.

The trick I've found with the Aeropress is to disregard the manufacturer instructions and add a lot more water than they suggest. If you look at the Aeropress championship winners, they all fill up the Aeropress with water rather than putting in just a bit of water like the directions suggest (and then diluting later).

In my experience, Aeropress yields a great cup of coffee much faster than any of the pour over techniques and drippers.

Might be the coffee itself. Some coffees are more acidic than others. Two things helped me greatly: (1). Try some milk/cream in your coffee, it helps cut the sourness. (2). If you get the chance, try the Honey Badger from Intelligentsia coffee, it has an amazing inherent sweetness, like a faint aroma of freshly made molasses.

IMO coffee should taste fine when nothing is added, even without sugar. Sugar / dairy should just be needed because of one's particular taste, not to mask anything in the coffee.

This is likely a function of your grind size. I've had this happen in the past and once I got the grind size set right, things were much better.

If what you're doing now works well in a drip coffee machine and a french press you probably want a smaller grind size. I usually do well aiming somewhere between the drip and espresso settings on my grinder.

Sour is under-extracted, bitter is over-extracted. To remedy sour coffee, grind it a little smaller or let it extract a little longer.

(Or forget about under-and-over extraction: make cold brew.)

An aeropress makes a really good cup of coffee. It does take some practice though. There are a few things you can do to fix the sourness. Sourness is usually the outcome of low temperature and under-extraction. I suspect in your case it may be more of the latter.

1. Invest in a food thermometer - if you don't already have one. I personally like brewing around 197F - 200F range.

To find your sweet spot try it at 207F and work your way down. There is a way around this (see point 3).

2. Check the grind size. If you are buying store bought coffee that is pre-ground the grain size may be too large. the Aeropress can handle much finer grinds, not quite an espresso grind, but close.

The reason this is important, is if the grind size is larger the water may not penetrate all the way and or have more heat loss than advisable.

3. Pre-infusion - Soak/wet one part ground coffee to two parts water (or enough to just about cover) for 30-45 seconds in the aeropress(see point 4) or in a separate pitcher, before you add additional water. The pitcher works well, but adds to cleaning effort.

4. If you haven't tried it already. Try the inverted technique. It's a true game changer. Here's a video to get started https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugj5OONvGZQ

Check out the Stumptown Aeropress tutorial, it's been really great. Also keep in mind the Aeropress puts out the equivalent of a double expresso so you would have to "Americano" it into coffee by a 1:1 dilution w hot water.

That Bonavita kettle is amazing. I have one as well and once you get one, you use it for everything. Being able to dial in on the temperature is great for teas or for making a miso soup at a comfortable temperature instead of scalding hot.

I use the Hario hand grinder and it is by far the best grinder for anyone that is price conscious. It is significantly less expensive that other ceramic burr grinders. The only draw back is that you must manually crank it and this takes time. That said, a single serving of coffee takes only about 2 minutes to grind so it really isn't that bad unless you are preparing a larger number of servings at once.

> The only draw back is that you must manually crank it...

I think of this as a feature.

A serious drawback though is to be careful when handling -- an errant bump of the glass globe against the ceramic burrs means (at best) a chip in the glass.

My housemate pointed out that the Hario grinder has the same threads as a mason jar, so chipped glass might not be a big deal. But damaging the burrs probably means buying a new grinder.

Yup. I found out this by accident one day. Very cool backup if you break the glass bowl (which I haven't done... yet).

I've tightened down a drill over my Hario and ground it up real fast. Not advised for grinder longevity, but perhaps a remedy for RSI.

I've been using this Porlex hand grinder for a few years now and it's been great, extremely durable and does a great reliable grind:

http://www.amazon.com/Porlex-JP-30-Stainless-Coffee-Grinder/...

I've been using a Baratza Virtuoso grinder for 2 years now. I'm really happy with it, and it probably suffices for everything up to super fine espresso grinds. ~$200 on amazon [1] -- $230 right now but watch it for a couple days [2]. Just one warning: if you live in an apartment, it produces a fairly loud low grumbling sound. I think it's fine, but if you have super thin walls up get up at the crack of dawn it's something to consider.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006MLQHRG

[2] http://camelcamelcamel.com/Baratza-Virtuoso-Conical-Coffee-G...

Once I found Stumptown House Blend, it became my espresso's staple. If you are used to Starbucks, it is certainly an eye opened about what a well roasted quality bean can produce in flavor and smoothness.

How does a Chemex or French Press compare to a Moka pot? I like the strength of my Moka pot coffee which is somewhere in between an espresso and an Americano or drip coffee.

This is why I drink tea.

After going through the hassle of 1-50 steps to make perfect coffee over and over, I relish a powerfully flavoured drink where you just pour hot water over leaves.

I've always found swan neck kettles awkward to use, but never had any issues with normal coffee pots.

Normal coffee pots splash. Coffee beans after being ground and applying hot water to them are very delicate. A goose/swan neck kettle helps keep the pouring both gentle and consistent to get even extraction. I put off getting a good kettle for way too long and I was seriously surprised how much of a difference it made.

Is there a difference when using a french press?

Perhaps not as much of a difference when using a french press, since you'll likely be doing the entire pour upfront.

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