5 Factors for a Better Brew, An Introduction

 

Brewing coffee is a very complex process involving many variables. Even the foremost coffee experts in the world don't understand the entire process 100%. It can be overwhelming to keep track of every tiny detail, and frustrating if something goes wrong. But delicious hand-brewed coffee doesn't have to be difficult if you work smart.

Instead of stressing over every single detail in the process, we recommend "boiling it down" to the five most important factors that have the greatest effect on the brew: Ratio, Water, Turbulence, Time, and Grind Size.

 

Ratio:

Ratio describes how much ground coffee you use and how much water you use with it. Commonly, a simple ratio like 1:17 (one part coffee to 17 parts water) is used for filter coffee. In everyday life, it's sometimes easier to use more practical measurements, and we simplify this ratio to 60 grams per liter of coffee for filter brews.
This ratio has a significant effect on your coffee but is easy to set in advance so you can focus on other variables while brewing.

 

Water:

Water makes up at least 98% of finished brewed coffee, so it's important to take it seriously. It is simply impossible to make good coffee from bad water. However, we are lucky in Norway, and most of us have relatively good water straight from the tap. Common household water filters are a cheap and easy way to improve the quality of brewing water for those who may have challenges with water quality.

More important for most people in Norway is the temperature of the water you brew with. The interest organization Norsk Kaffeinformasjon (Norwegian Coffee Information) recommends using water with a temperature of 92-96°C.

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A great tool for this is a kettle with temperature control, but it's not at all necessary to brew good coffee. Just boil the water and remove it from the heat source. After about 30 seconds, your water should be in the ideal temperature range!

 

Turbulence:

This term describes how your water and coffee particles interact. A gentle, slow stream of water creates low turbulence, while a powerful pour creates high turbulence. Different brewing methods will require different levels of turbulence, including physical stirring of the coffee bed in some cases. As a general rule, it's best to keep turbulence quite low to make brewing repeatable, and also to prevent too many of the very finest particles from swirling around and sinking to the bottom where they can form a clog that prevents water from passing through the coffee bed quickly enough.

 

Time:

Brewing coffee involves a process called extraction: Water comes into contact with coffee and "draws out" or extracts material from the coffee particles. This process requires contact between water and coffee, but also requires time. The longer these two are in contact, the more will be extracted from the coffee particles - generally speaking. You can control the contact time, to some extent, by pouring slower or faster. The degree of turbulence you create can also affect the time as described above. However, it is the grind size that has the greatest effect on the time they are in contact with water and on the coffee's flavor in general.

 

 

 

Grind Size:

Grind size is our last variable here, but it is one of the most important for your brew. When coffee is ground into smaller pieces, there is a larger surface area for water to extract substances from the coffee. This means that - generally speaking - a finer grind size creates a larger surface area and allows for more extraction. Conversely, coarser grinding reduces the exposed surface and leads to less extraction. Different brewing methods require different grind sizes - from very fine particles for espresso to quite coarse for French press - depending on how you perform the different brewing methods. For this reason, grind size is one of the first and most important variables that should be set when brewing coffee. First, set this and the ratio, then evaluate the result. There are some things you can check to determine if the grind size needs to be adjusted:

Taste: If your coffee tastes bitter, intense, etc., it is probably over-extracted, which can be corrected by adjusting the grind slightly coarser. If your coffee tastes weak, sour, salty, and generally bland, it is probably under-extracted. Adjusting the grind size finer will, in this case, extract more of the flavor residing in the coffee.

Time: If the coffee takes longer than expected to brew, or perhaps the coffee bed is "clogged" and won't let water through at all, then the grind size is probably too fine. If the brew finishes too quickly, the grind may be too coarse.

For a more thorough review of the different factors and how they affect your coffee brew, you should follow our upcoming posts.

And remember, no one can give you the definitive answer on how YOU should brew YOUR coffee! There is no definitive answer. It is not our goal to give you the definitive answer either, but we want to provide good tips and help along the way.

By Alexander Choppin, adapted for Norwegian by Rune Åldstedt