Coffee is an art. People dedicate their lives to coffee and experiencing, exploring, and mastering the art of coffee and the endless flavors and aromas of coffee.
Making coffee is not a difficult thing. Simply add some coffee, add some water, turn on the brewer, and wait. Heck, you can even heat some water and add some instant coffee. But making the perfect coffee, on the other hand, is an art. And this requires both knowledge and experience.
If you love coffee and want to improve the quality and taste of the coffee you make at home, you have come to the right place.
In this post, we share our best tips and the most important things to consider to make really good coffee at home.
How to make really good coffee at home
First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge the fact that there are endless coffee variations and methods of making coffee. Here, we will focus on brewing coffee, but many of the tips shared in this article also apply to other ways of making it. Being able to brew really good coffee with your coffee maker is the foundation and most crucial skill and experience for any coffee lover. When you have mastered the art of making good coffee using a coffee maker, you can move on to experiment with and explore other brewing methods.
It starts with the water
The majority of a cup of coffee consists of water. In fact, 98 to 99%. With that said, the water you use is of utmost importance. Always use fresh, clean, and cold water. Soft water is better than hard. The reason is that soft water flows slowly through the coffee and extracts more aromas from the ground coffee. If you have hard water you can compensate for this with a larger amount of coffee or a dark roasted coffee.
Assuming you use tap water, allow the water to flow for a few seconds before filling your container. By doing this, you get water that contains a lot of oxygen and thus frees the tastes and aromas in the ground coffee better. Water that was tapped a long time ago will have little oxygen, which will make the coffee lose parts of its aromas during brewing.
Coffee is a fresh product
Remember that coffee beans and ground coffee are fresh products and therefore get worse with time. Coffee tends to lose its flavors and aromas over time already within a few days of opening the sealed package. In fact, even an opened bag of whole beans loses flavor and aroma within a week or two. This is why it is important to keep all kinds of coffee in the original packaging and keep it airtight. If you prefer, you can also keep it in a jar or similar with a lid that keeps the container airtight. It is actually a good idea to keep your coffee in the fridge to preserve aromas and slow down aging. There is a debate about whether or not you should keep your coffee stored in the fridge, but
The reason you want to minimize the coffee’s contact with air is that the acid in the air otherwise breaks down the coffee’s aromas.
Dosage and brewing time
Both the dosage of coffee and the brewing time play crucial roles in how your coffee tastes. For beginners, the dosage of coffee tends to be quite tricky. Which ratio is perfect between coffee and water? The more complex answer is that it depends, However, as a starting point, a liter of water requires about 12 ironed tablespoons to get the taste to its best.
The dosage depends on a number of factors, with the most important being your own preference, but also the type of beans.
There are plenty of coffee blends to choose from, from dark and strong to round and aromatic. But regardless of which is your favorite type, you should be careful about dosing when brewing. Plastic coffee measurements are available in most grocery stores.
Some people prefer very strong and bold coffee, whilst others like to drink less concentrated coffee that doesn’t taste as strong.
The key here is to experiment and try in order to find your perfect water-to-coffee ratio. And of course, keep in mind that if you use different types of coffee, that ratio may be different.
When you have figured out the dosage of coffee, it is time to figure out the brewing time and water temperature. These are both extremely important for the taste. This will also depend on other factors such as which coffee brewer you are using. A good brewer brews for about 5-6 minutes. If you brew the coffee for too long, the water extract extracts bitter substances from the coffee and the taste gets worse. Therefore, for the best taste, don’t let the coffee brew for too long, and drink it shortly after it is done. Preferably do not leave the coffee on heating. Even after half an hour, the taste and aroma of the coffee have deteriorated.
For the best taste, the water temperature should be between 92 ° C and 96 ° C, just below the boiling point. Check the temperature of the coffee from your coffee maker to ensure it is up to temperature. If it brews too cold coffee, it is better to boil water and pour it through a filter instead.
Before drinking, stir the coffee. The most powerful and most delicious coffee is brewed first and settles into the bottom of the jug.
Take care of your coffee maker
For delicious coffee at all times, it is important to take care of your coffee maker. When you brew coffee, there will always be a little coffee left in the brewer. When you then go to brew the next cup of coffee, perhaps the next day, the residues of this will end up in your coffee. It goes without saying that this is something that will affect the taste of your coffee negatively.
Therefore, make sure this is emptied so that the taste of the next round of coffee won’t taste bad. It is also important to rinse out the brewer at regular intervals. This is often a step that is (unfortunately) neglected, and it has a negative effect on the taste of your coffee.s.
Also, water contains lime, and when brewing, this will get stuck in the coffee maker over time. Therefore, make sure to lime off the coffee maker regularly. A tip is to brew coffee without actually adding any coffee to allow the system to clean. But there are also coffeemaker cleaners made specifically for the job.
Use the right coffee filter
Did you know that the coffee filter you use can also have an effect on the taste? The wrong coffee filter can ruin the taste. Avoid brown filters as they often have a negative effect on the coffee’s taste. Some perceive the taste as bitter, others feel that the coffee has a woody taste. Instead, use white oxygen bleached paper filters, they are environmentally friendly and do not emit any flavor during brewing.
Ground your own beans
For optimal taste, it is always the best to ground your own beans. That way, you can be sure that you get freshly ground beans. When the beans are ground, aromas are released from the bean. And therefore, pre-ground beans will naturally not be as fresh as vibrant.
To do this, buy whole coffee beans and a coffee grinder. How fine you should grind the beans depends on what type of brewer you have.
- Coarsely ground: the coffee is about as coarse as raw sugar, which fits well into a pressure brewer.
- Medium: about as coarse as powdered sugar and suitable for percolators and ordinary coffee makers
- Finely ground: the degree of grinding is as fine as icing sugar, which is suitable for espresso machines and mocha brewers.
