1. Make sure your gear is clean and ready. Coffee can stain, but did you ever stop to think that those stains carry flavors and odors that can go rancid? Clean your brewer after every use to ensure you taste the coffee and not the pot!
2. Use freshly roasted whole bean coffee. After roasting, you have roughly 10-14 days to use your whole bean coffee. Darker roasted coffee will stale a bit faster because oils on the surface of the bean are exposed to air, moisture, and varying temperatures. Pre-ground coffee will stale at an even faster rate.
Buy your freshly roasted coffee on a weekly basis. Store it in an airtight container at just below room temperature.
3. Grind the coffee to the proper consistency for your brewer. Most home grinders have a setting that corresponds to your brewer. The brew time helps to check the grind you've selected. Notice the chart below. If you have a blade grinder, it's often trial and error or inconsistent, so get to know it well.
Home espresso: grind very fine, and brew for 20-30 seconds
Cone filter or vacuum pot: grind fine, and brew for 1-4 minutes
Commercial drip brewer: grind medium, and brew for 4-6 minutes
French press: grind coarse, and brew for 4-6 minutes
4. Use a measure of two level tablespoons, or 10 grams, of coffee per 6 ounces of water. People usually begin with this rule and adjust it to personal taste. If you stray too far in one direction, however, you will get either too strong or too weak a cup.
5. Use freshly drawn cold water. (Avoid softened water. Filtered water or good tap water work just fine.)
6. Brew at the right temperature. Your water should be heated to just before boiling point and used immediately.
7. Keep it hot and drink it soon. Brewed coffee loses a lot of its character over time. After brewing, hold it in a clean hot thermos and discard after an hour. Don't ever reheat or microwave coffee!
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3 Comment(s)
When you brew 1.5 gallons of coffee for instance in a fetco or grindmaster (AMW) brewer what coffee proportion do you use? Does the home brew proportion still hold true?
Thanks!!!
To answer your question, when brewing coffee at different scales, the recipe of water to coffee will stay pretty consistent. For a volume of 1.5 gallons or 192oz of water, the ratio that proves best is 17 parts water to 1 part coffee (17:1). In this case, you should use 11.3oz of coffee for 192oz brew volume. Of course, the grind size will determine over/under extraction. Also, the specifications for brew time, prewet and any bypass that you have set up on the brewer will also affect the extraction.
Hope this helps you out. Happy brewing.
Is it OK to freeze coffee? If coffee goes stale after 10 to 14 days, will freezing it help keep it fresher longer?
Thanks.
RESPONSE: We don't recommend freezing coffee. Contrary to some suggestions, freezing will not keep the coffee fresher longer. After all, every time you remove it from the freezer it thaws slightly degrading the flavor and coffee. Freezer "burn" will also work against coffee's freshness. The best idea is to just buy what you will drink in 1-2 weeks, then come back for more!