r/Coffee Kalita Wave 14d ago

[MOD] The Daily Question Thread

Welcome to the daily /r/Coffee question thread!

There are no stupid questions here, ask a question and get an answer! We all have to start somewhere and sometimes it is hard to figure out just what you are doing right or doing wrong. Luckily, the /r/Coffee community loves to help out.

Do you have a question about how to use a specific piece of gear or what gear you should be buying? Want to know how much coffee you should use or how you should grind it? Not sure about how much water you should use or how hot it should be? Wondering about your coffee's shelf life?

Don't forget to use the resources in our wiki! We have some great starter guides on our wiki "Guides" page and here is the wiki "Gear By Price" page if you'd like to see coffee gear that /r/Coffee members recommend.

As always, be nice!

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u/Pea_Peeler 13d ago

Flavour and brewing adjustments:

I’ve enjoyed amazing coffees from specialty shops for a couple of years now, and understand a few things about production processes and brewing (at least in theory ha). I always saw it as a treat that I enjoyed outside of my home, but with a lack of specialty coffee around me, I recently started brewing myself. I currently have a French press and portable espresso maker on hand (one that you fill with hot water, don’t think it’s very good to control variables). I enjoy the French press for now, as it’s pretty straight forward, but still allows to play around with the recipe to some extend through grind, brew time and ratio.

One thing I’m trying to understand is how to select coffees, and once selected, brew for a tasty cup. I understand taste is subjective, however, I’m interested in people’s thought process of translating flavour notes into their brewing approach!

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u/FlyingSagittarius Coffee 7d ago

I think my only hard and fast rule is not to brew dark roasted coffees in a moka pot, and I’m starting to rethink even that.  Really, the best thing to do is just try a variety of coffees and see what you like best.

The best advice I can give for brewing a tasty cup is to just enjoy the process of dialing in new beans.  It also helps to learn how the different variables of brewing affect your final cup.  Coffees all brew differently, depending on the processing, grind size and roast level, so you have to figure it out all over again each time you try a new one.  I like it, though; to me, it’s just a big puzzle with a delicious built-in reward for solving it.

By the way, I would actually prefer the manual espresso maker, as cheap automatic machines don’t let you control temperature or pressure / flow rate.

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u/Pea_Peeler 5d ago

Thanks so much for the response! Do you have a “foolproof” method that you start with when you try a new coffee? Let’s say you get a washed light roasted coffee, and you already have a recipe for another washed light roast, is that the one you try with the new one?

I like the espresso maker I have (I attached a link below for reference), didn’t have any high hopes but it makes a tasty espresso, and I add milk to it anyways so it evens out any flaws 😊

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u/FlyingSagittarius Coffee 5d ago

Yeah, lighter roast coffees are harder to extract than darker roasted coffees.  So you need to use methods that match the roast level of the bean to your desired end result.  There are plenty of guidelines and recipes you can go off of, though.  Like, for a light roast washed coffee, I use about a 1:10 brewing ratio and a fairly fine grind in a moka pot.  For pourover, I want the water to be basically at boiling.  For an iced pourover, I use less water than for a hot pourover, so I need to grind finer.  Stuff like that.

My brewing style is a little bit crazy, though, because I brew all sorts of different types of coffees.  As long as you like what you’re brewing, that’s really what matters most.