Grind the beans before brewing to preserve the aroma of the coffee
Once a coffee bean is ground into a powder, the surface area of the bean increases exponentially. While this helps the water extract the flavors of the coffee, it also makes the finer ground coffee more sensitive to oxygen, which can destroy the coffee's wonderful aroma and flavor. This is also an important reason why coffee beans are not ground into coffee powder beforehand. Grinding coffee beans into coffee powder before brewing coffee preserves their freshness and flavor.
Grinding thickness & brewing method comparison table
The function of a coffee grinder is to crush the beans into as uniform a particle as possible so that the water can extract the flavor of the coffee evenly. Inconsistent grind size means that too much flavor is extracted from the finer grains, resulting in a bitter taste, while too little flavor is extracted from the coarser grains, resulting in tartness. It is difficult for me to clearly describe what fineness is best for a particular brewing method, and it is even more difficult to clearly state the coffee grind size because each grinder is set differently. The important thing is to use the grind size vs. brewing method chart below to get an estimate when you start, and adjust to your own taste.
【Remark】Each grinder has a grinding interval suitable for a certain brewing method. You can set a commonly used one. After you get new beans, you can grind them with the usual scale, and then adjust the brewing process and flavor performance. For fine-tuning, for example, if you notice a bitter taste after brewing, you can grind it coarser; there is also "no matter how poor you are, you can't have a poor grinder", please choose the best one within your budget, and you will not regret it.
Brewing Method Determines Grind Size
The thickness of the coffee beans should be ground into, first of all, the equipment for brewing coffee should be considered. Under normal circumstances, the time required for the Espresso coffee machine to make coffee is very short, so the grinding can be finer, as fine as flour; it takes more than 1 minute to extract coffee with a siphon pot, filter paper drip, flannel drip, etc. , the coffee powder can be ground to a medium thickness; the American filter drip coffee takes a long time to make, and the grinding degree is the coarsest.
In addition, the thickness of the grind also depends on the brewing method. Because there is an ideal time for the extraction of water-soluble substances in coffee powder, if the powder is very fine and the brewing time is long, it will cause over-extraction, and the coffee may be very bitter and lose its aroma; on the contrary, if the powder is very coarse and brewed too If it is too fast, it will lead to insufficient extraction, and the coffee will be tasteless, because it is too late to dissolve the water-soluble substances in the powder. Adjust the grinding thickness according to the way of brewing each time, so that the good taste of coffee can be brought into full play.
Grind fineness according to taste
The impact of the thickness of the coffee powder on the taste is mainly reflected in the bitterness. The finer the coffee powder, the easier it is for the ingredients to separate out. The sour components in coffee are easily soluble in water, and the size of the ground coffee particles does not have much effect on it. However, the bitter components in coffee are difficult to dissolve in water. The finer the coffee powder is, the greater the total amount of bitter components dissolved in water will be, and the coffee will appear bitter. So when deciding on the fineness of the grind, taste preference should also be taken into consideration.
In addition to particle size, uniformity must also be taken care of. If the particle size is different when grinding, the flavor of the brewed coffee will also be uneven.