If you’re the kind who enjoys drinking a good cup of coffee on a daily basis, you probably already know that you can brew great coffee at home for much less than what you pay at cafes. Sure, buying outside coffee can be a nice treat every once in a while, but nothing beats a pipin’ hot cup of fresh coffee right as you wake up!
You might be a little nervous about making your own coffee at home, but coffee connoisseurs and enthusiasts alike have agreed that brewing a cup of coffeehouse-quality coffee at home is as simple as ABC, and you don’t even need expensive equipment! Read on to find out the 6 easy tips and tricks that will help you nail down better at-home coffee brewing!
When it comes to brewing coffee at home, fresh, whole beans are the way to go! Coffee is a perishable item and reaches its peak flavour just a few days after it’s been roasted, and a month after that, it tends to go stale.
You’ll never know how long the coffee at your local supermarket has been sitting on the shelves for, so if you’re purchasing pre-ground coffee from the store, you’re already missing out on its peak flavour. What you can do instead is purchase whole bean coffee from your local coffee roaster while it’s still fresh (maybe a week or two off roast) and use up the coffee bag within a month’s time!
Buying fresh, whole beans will make a huge difference in the overall quality of your final brew.
If you’re buying fresh whole bean coffee, it’s best to transfer your coffee into a glass jar to keep it as fresh as possible for as long as you can.
Pick a jar that matches the size of your coffee bag; for instance, a quarter-sized jar is just nice for storing a twelve-ounce bag of coffee.
Coffee experts agree that coffee starts to lose its flavour as early as 30 minutes after it’s been ground!
To enjoy your coffee at its freshest, it’s best to grind your beans just before you’re ready to brew.
A great grinder is an important asset in coffee-brewing and will greatly improve the taste of your coffee at home! The particle size of your ground coffee is what determines how quickly the flavours from your beans are extracted, so the finer the particles, the quicker the flavours are extracted.
For starters, you can try out with a hand mill grinder for your coffee-grinding needs before moving on to an automatic burr grinder.
Instead of using a scoop or a spoon to determine the amount of coffee to use, you can use a coffee weighing scale to brew better coffee. This is the preferred method among coffee experts because volume varies from coffee to coffee, especially on different roast levels.
To master the perfect cup of joe, be sure to use the same ratio of coffee to water every single time you brew. A common ratio used in coffee shops is one part coffee to 15 parts water, but this is up to preference and can be tweaked based on how strong you like your coffee.
Last but not least, “the Bloom.” This step is known as the pre-infusion step and requires you to prep your coffee for extraction by slowly pouring hot water over the grounds to release any remaining carbon dioxide that was left from the roasting process. This is a crucial step that many automatic coffee makers tend to skip, leading to a weaker brew—if left unreleased, the remaining carbon dioxide can repel the water from the grounds, producing under-extracted coffee.
Making better coffee at home is an intimate process—it’s all about knowing every step and eliminating as many variables as you can. With the right techniques, you’ll be skipping your trip to the local brewery in no time!
At The Hub Coffee Roasters, we source only top-quality beans from around the world, because everyone deserves to taste a good cup of coffee. To learn more about why we do what we do, visit us as thehuboug.com and let us remind you why you love coffee.
