WHY NOT BUY PRE-GROUND COFFEE?
You can guarantee the freshness of your coffee by grinding it up right before you make it. Take note that the taste of a coffee bean can be influenced by external elements. Because it comes from a vegetable and not a manufactured item, it is difficult to maintain the same flavor and characteristics for an extended period.
When the beans are cooked, carbon dioxide is released which facilitates the release of the oils, contributing to the distinct smell and aiding in the improvement of the taste. Floral and fruity notes come primarily from this process.
If you have a French press or an espresso machine, you have likely realized that it doesn’t make the best coffee from the pre-ground coffee from a bag. If you don’t have very much experience with preparing coffee by hand, you’re going to pick up a valuable skill soon.
Different coffee brewers need differently sized coffee grounds. There is no one-size-fits-all.
Coffee brewers come in different shapes and sizes. Some allow water to drain quickly, some slowly. Some brewers use pressure to extract the coffee from the water, while others allow the two to steep together for a period of time.
A Brewer that has the ideal granulation will brew coffee that has great taste and an even taste. Choosing the wrong grind size for coffee can lead to a disastrous kitchen situation, or just a mediocre cup of joe.
No matter the type of coffee maker, one invariable holds true: if the coffee grounds are more finely-ground, the brewing will be faster; if they are coarser, the brewing will take longer. The objective is to reach an ideal amount when preparing a beverage so that neither too much nor too little is made.
It may require experimenting over a few cups of coffee to determine how to combine the right size of ground coffee with your coffee brewer, but the result will be an amazingly proportioned drink. I understand that you are interested in what I have to say, so let’s begin.
The Challenge Of Communication
It is regretful that the terminology used to discuss the consistency of grind size is imprecise. Most people don’t have a tool that precisely tells how big one coffee ground is, so we need to guess.
- Coarse coffee grounds resemble thick kosher salt or pearl sugar. Each particle is distinct, and shapes can easily be seen.
- Medium coffee grounds more closely resemble coarse sand. The grounds are somewhat rough, but it can be difficult to see their shape.
- Fine coffee grounds are about the size of table salt. The texture is pretty smooth and consistent.
- Super Fine coffee grounds will remind you of a soft sandy beach where your feet feel like they’re stepping on clouds because the sand is so fine.
There is no concrete standard for classification here, and there is a wide variety of combinations between two overarching groups. As an example, envisage ‘medium-fine’ as a kind of coffee grind that’s slightly smaller than the standard medium.
The French Press: Coarse
In the French press technique, you put together the coffee and water in a pot and let them sit together for a while. After that, you filter the brewed beverage, leaving behind the grounds. In the coffee world, we call this immersion brewing.
Most immersion brewers thrive with a coarse grind setting. It is necessary to soak the coffee beans in liquid for a while before they can be drained due to how long it takes the water to seep into their deeper layers, so a French press is the most suitable method for this.
This brewer has a metal mesh filter that acts as a barrier between the grounds and the brewed coffee when it is pressed. If the coarseness of your coffee was set to medium or fine, it could prevent the filter from allowing coffee to pass through, creating difficulty while plunging and leading to a chaotic outcome.
Pour Over Brewers: Medium(ish)
It is difficult to provide a single definite response due to the various kinds of pour over brewers in existence. It is likely that your pour over brewer will be successful at an average degree.
The fineness of the coffee grounds used in pour over brewers is important in order to create some amount of resistance and impede the flow of water passing through.
If the grind is too coarse, and the water is not being able to absorb the flavor components out of the grounds, then the resulting coffee is going to be weak and sour. If the grind is too fine, the water will have difficulty flowing through it and the result will be a slow drain time, leading to an undesirably bitter and weak taste in the coffee.
Our very own JavaPresse Pour Over Cone is constructed with stainless steel and finely perforated. These openings do not permit the liquid to escape rapidly, thus a grind setting between medium and coarse (rather than medium or finer) evens out the coffee by avoiding overextraction thanks to the increased contact duration.
The Chemexworks in a similar way. A very thick paper filter is employed, and this limits the amount of water that can pass through a single opening. If you use a medium-coarse grind and allow the water and coffee to be in contact for a longer period of time, it will help to ensure you get a well-rounded cup.
The Hario V60 possesses an expansive cavity at the base of the cone, and a slim paper filter is employed, which impedes the flow to a certain degree, yet not significantly. A moderate coarseness level can contribute to a balanced beverage by slowing down the draining process and preventing the coffee from being brewed for too short a period of time.
Most typical auto drip coffee machines require a grind setting in the range of medium-fine to fine, which is what most pre-ground coffee is. But bigger drip brewers which are typically seen in businesses tend to use a setting of medium-coarse as the filter contains a lot of coffee, which can limit the flow.
If this appears intimidating to you, just keep in mind the basic rule for pour-over brewing: coarser coffee grounds should be used for a slower pouring rate, and finer grounds for a faster one.
Immersion Cold Brew: Coarse
Creating coffee via cold brewing in a French press (or any other container) is an immersion technique and follows the same idea of grind size as the French press: finer grounds mean a quicker brew process.
Much like the French press, if you use either fine or medium grounds with the cold brew concentrate, it will cause a very slow pour, meaning it can be a very tedious process.
By using a coarse grind setting, you can let the cold brew sit for at least 12 hours before filtering it out with minimal effort. This results in a full-bodied, harmonious cup that can be easily manipulated.
Drip Cold Brew: Medium-Fine
Cold brew coffee which is made with a drip method is similar to coffee brewed in a ‘pour over’ style and is best made with a medium-fine grind of the coffee beans.
Since the water is trickling slowly, as cold water doesn’t make coffee swiftly, a finer coffee grind size can even out the extraction procedure by reducing the draining rate.
If the grind of the coffee was too course, then the water would not be able to steep properly and would simply go straight through without making any coffee. Grounds that are too finely ground would prevent the water from seeping away, resulting in a nasty tasting beverage. Gross!
Aeropress: Fine to Coarse
The Aeropress is a funny thing. You can utilize this for making french press coffee with a rough grind, create an intense shot with a fine setting, or settle on the most common option: a grind somewhere in the middle.
The guide that is pictured uses a grind that is of medium fineness and the coffee needs to steep for two minutes before it is strained. Some guides encourage a fine grind for 1 minute. Some encourage a medium-coarse for 3 minutes.
No matter which instructions you decide to follow, keep in mind that finer coffee grinds will brew faster than ones that are more coarse.
Please, do not attempt to go to extremely small pieces. You will not be able to strain the coffee that has been brewed out of the coffee grounds, thus forcing you to begin the process again.