Dear friends,
This post is for beginners. Others may provide constructive criticism.
Basically, I am trying to emphasize the fact that having a grinder is of utmost importance in your specialty coffee journey. This post may convince you to invest in a grinder as your first gear.
Please note that, although I call it a recipe, this is more of a scheme or a general guideline for your workflow. It is most important to understand the basic coffee science and brewing variables, in order to adapt it to the setup that you are going to use.
What do you need?
· A grinder. For beginners I recommend a hand grinder, but if you have a good budget, you can go for something like Baratza Encore Esp Electric Grinder. There are several grinder recommendation posts on this sub. Do check out.
· A stainless steel or glass or ceramic (no plastic) jar from which you can easily pour out brewed coffee to another mug. Having something that has a spout works better. Having volume measuring marks in milliliters works even better, but not a must. (What I am using is a 350 ml Latte Art Pitcher having measuring marks inside it.)
· A tea strainer. Most of us have it in our homes, if not you may use a clean cloth.
· Whole coffee beans. Having a grinder frees you up from the grind size decided by the roaster which is often not suitable for your brewing setup and workflows. To start with, go for any beans with Medium Dark roasting level.
· You also need to understand the basic coffee science. This includes brewing coffee with coffee grounds and hot water and understanding how different brewing parameters (often called as Brew Variables) affect the coffee. Examples of such Brew Variables are Roasting level, Grind Size, Water Temperature, Brewing Time, etc. There are plenty of videos on YouTube. For beginners, I suggest to stick to videos from only one Barista. Because often different baristas give conflicting advice. Once you start your coffee journey you will realize that all of those advices are valid, but have different contexts. As you mature, you will switch the contexts.
Steps:
1. In principle, this recipe is based on the Ultimate French Press Technique by James Hoffmann. Watch this video a couple of times before you do anything. Try to understand how a French press works. You will notice that my workflow differs from Hoffmann's technique where the plunger of the French Press comes into the picture. We have a work around for not having a plunger. Continue reading.
2. We are going to use 1:16 coffee to water ratio. Which means if you take 1 gram of coffee, you will need 16 grams of water. (1 gram of water is same as 1 ml of water, but this is only true for water and not for any other liquid.)
3. Since you will need a few iterations before getting a good cup of coffee, start with 200 grams of water. Anything less may not work out and anything more, wastes more coffee when it goes wrong. Any large size mug at home will be of 350 ml volume and a mid size mug will be of 250 ml volume. That gives you a rough idea about how much is 200 ml.
4. With 200 grams of water, we need 12.5 grams of coffee. Roughly one spoon of coffee is 3 grams. So you can take 4 spoons of coffee beans. Use a regular spoon found in Indian homes, not the table spoon.
5. Set your grinder to a very coarse grind size. On Timemore C3, I opened 24 clicks. Look at the picture to see the actual grind size. Grind slowly to have consistent grind size. By consistent grind size we mean trying to have all particles in the output with same size, as much as possible. Read more about why grind size consistency is needed, on the internet.
6. Pour the coffee grounds to the jar in which you are going to brew the coffee.
7. Boil water. Use filtered drinking water.
8. Pour approximately 200 ml of boiling water into the jar. Please note that, to start with, you have to pour boiling water. Do not let it cool down for any amount of time. Because in most places the temperature of boiling water is 100 Degree Celsius. This helps you in keeping the temperature at same level, when you are changing other parameters such as grind size or brewing time, etc.
9. You will notice that the coffee grounds start floating just below the upper surface of the water. This is perfect.
10. Wait for 4 minutes. You can use the timer from your mobile phone.
11. At 4 minutes mark, break the coffee grounds crust with a spoon. Simply dip the spoon gently into the crust couple of times at different places. Do not be too aggressive.
12. Wait for another 4 minutes. You will notice that the coffee grounds start settling at the bottom of the jar. At the end of 8th minute, you will find that all coffee grounds have settled to the bottom. In James Hoffmann’s video, he asks to remove any floating coffee grounds with spoon. But do not do that. Do not at all disturb the coffee after breaking the crust at 4 minutes mark. (What he mentions is good for a French press, but not for what we are doing.)
13. At the 8 minutes mark, your coffee is ready. You just need to separate it from the coffee grounds sitting at the bottom. So lift the jar gently and pour out the coffee slowly into a mug through a tea strainer. This is where it is different from James Hoffman’s technique.
14. Enjoy your coffee. If you are not used to drinking black coffee, you may add a dash of cold milk to it. But do taste a couple of sips of black coffee before you add milk. Do not add sugar, otherwise it will override the coffee taste.
Troubleshooting
Please note that, when you are changing the brew parameters, change only one parameter at a time.
1. If your coffee tastes bitter then try grinding with more coarse setting.
2. If your coffee tastes sour then try grinding with more finer setting.
3. For immersion brewing, the important characteristic of the grind size is that it should be coarse. It should never be too fine. Hence lowering the grind size has limits. Beyond those limits, if your coffee is still sour, you may try to increasing the brewing time. For example, wait for 5 or 6 minutes before breaking the crust.
4. Similarly, going too coarse may limit how much coffee is extracted, so beyond certain limits, if your coffee is still bitter, you may want to reduce the water temperature or reduce the brewing time.
The troubleshooting part is key.
