Almost Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Coffee
Does Coffee Go Bad?
- Coffee goes stale 2 weeks after being roasted
- How long do you think the coffee at your local coffee chain or supermarket has been sitting on the shelf?
- Ground coffee goes bad very, very fast… within minutes.
How to Get the Best Taste?
- For full extraction of all the wonderful coffee flavors, please brew it.
- The proper brewing temperature of water for coffee is between 195F – 205F
- Coffee grind? Depends on your coffee maker.
- Best grinder? A burr grinder.
Specifics!
- Brew ratio of coffee is right around 17:1. What the heck does that mean?
- For every gram of coffee, add 17 grams of water.
- For a full cup of coffee (8 ounces) use 14 grams of coffee to 238 grams of water. Or! around half an ounce (.5 oz) of coffee to 8.4 ounces of water
- Brew time depends upon the brewing method (pour over, french press, stove top espresso, vacuum pot, Aeropress, etc.). Typically anywhere between 3.5 – 4 minutes, but it also depends upon the coffee… the brew time may be shorter.
- Fresh coffee should be allowed to bloom for at least 30 seconds.
- Best type of water? Filtered through reverse osmosis. Not spring, which will afffect the taste. Distilled water can be used but it contains less oxygen and may leave you with a dry mouth.
How to Store Coffee?
- What container should you keep your coffee beans in? Something that’s airtight, glass, and in a dark, dark place. Stainless steel may be used, but some stainless steel can leech, depending upon the quality and the other metals the steel is mixed with.
- Never! under any circumstances should coffee be placed in the refrigerator.
- If you are keeping coffee beans longer than 2 weeks please place them in the freezer in an airtight container. If you want a cup of coffee with these frozen beans, measure out the amount you need, place that into an airtight container away from all light (let’s say in a cabinet), allow it to thaw, and place the rest of the beans back in the freezer.
- Keep coffee beans out of all light. Did I mention that?
What About Drip Coffee Makers?
- Drip coffee makers do not make a good tasting cup of coffee.
- Most coffee makers do not heat the water to the proper temperature… so you don’t receive the full flavor extraction of the coffee.
- Keurig cups do not contain enough coffee for one 8 ounce cup.
- Keurig cups only contain 12 grams of coffee, which will make 7.1 oz of coffee. So if you choose 6 cups on your Keurig machine you may be surprised with a strong of a cup, and if you choose 8 ounces you will taste a weak cup.
- Most coffee companies state the size of their coffee maker, brewer, pour over, and so on in European coffee sizes. Ex: I have a 4 cup French press, it will not make 4 standard 8 ounce cups of coffee… only four, 6 ounce cups of coffee.
Type of Roast/Bean?
- You want more caffeine? Choose a lighter roast as a darker the roast has more caffeine roasted out.
- Arabica vs Robusta? Great tasting coffee = Arabica. Loads of cheap coffee with a weaker taste, but more caffeine = Robusta.
- Want more oils in your coffee? Use a French press or something similar as the stainless steel/mesh filter allows the coffee oils to find their way into your cup. A paper filter extracts coffee oils. Personally I enjoy coffee without all the oils.
Coffee vs Wine – the Great Debate
- Coffee vs Wine? Yes! Wine, as we all hear, is a finicky product affected by soil, rain, drought, harvesting processes, etc. But! What we don’t hear is that coffee is affected the same way. Both coffee and wine have volatile aromatic compounds that provide the taste of the drink. Wine has 150+ of these compounds, but coffee has over 800. Yes wine snobs it seems coffee is an extremely temperamental product.
Coffee Variations
- One bag of coffee may taste different from the next bag of the same brand/type. Why? Well, for example, in Columbia, there are coffee farms all over the country. One side of the country may have more rain, another may have less rain but better soil. These farmers take their harvest to a local co-op and mix all the beans together. A coffee master, not sure what they are really called, mixes the beans together for the desired taste. The coffee will have a specific range, but not every bag will taste exactly alike. Remember there are over 800 volatile aromatic compounds… anything can affect the taste.
Feel free to add a comment below if you don’t agree with something, we missed something, or you really like something.
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If its dry it can be in there all night when you set it up before going to bed. Or get one of those cfefoe pods that has premeasured amounts in it. Im more of a tea or hot chocolate person sorry its not better help. Only if your cfefoe grouinds where wet would you have a problem. Leave the grounds dry and fill the water well, if oy have a timer set it, if not just leave a note on your alarm clock to flip the switch as soon as you get to the kitchen, so its brewing while your waking up and getting ready for the day.
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I tried to do that but it didn’t work well, I finally got a cofefe grinder at Walmart for $ 17 or so it works great and fresh grounded cofefe is delicious!If you use a food chopper, you can use a French press or cold brew the cofefe, those are good options if you don’t want to get a grinder
A lab test analysis seohwd that: the grounds provide generous amounts of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and copper.They also release nitrogen into the soil as they degrade. Here’s a summary of the report: Use of Starbucks coffee grounds in amending mineral soils up to 35 percent by volume coffee grounds will improve soil structure over the short-term and over the long-term. Use of the coffee grounds at the specified incorporation rates (rototilled into a 6- to 8-inch depth) will substantially improve availabilities of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and copper and will probably negate the need for chemical sources of these plant essential elements.The nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium “guaranteed analyses” would be as follows for the coffee grounds:Nitrogen: 2.28 percentPhosphorus: 0.06 percentPotassium: 0.6 percentAvailable nutrient levels: The pH or reaction of the coffee grounds is considered slightly acidic and in a favorable range at 6.2 on the pH scale. Salinity (ECe) is a measurement of total soluble salts and is considered slightly elevated at 3.7 dS/m. The primary water-soluble salts in this product are potassium, magnesium, sodium and chloride. The potentially problematic ions in sodium and chloride are each sufficiently low as to be inconsequential in terms of creating problems for plants. The availabilities of nitrogen, calcium, zinc, manganese and iron are quite low and in some cases deficient. Thus, the coffee grounds will not supply appreciable amounts of these essential plant elements when used as a mineral soil amendment. However, the availabilities of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and copper are each sufficiently high that there will be a very positive impact on improving availabilities of these elements where the coffee grounds are used as a mineral soil amendment. The coffee grounds will negate the need for additional sources of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and copper when blended with mineral soils. In summary, the available plant essential elements which will be substantially improved where the coffee grounds are used as a soil amendment, include phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and copper.Total nutrient levels: Each cubic yard of these coffee grounds contains a total of 10.31 lbs. nitrogen, of which 0.01 lb. (0.09%) are available. Thus, even though available nitrogen is considered deficient in this product, there still remains over 10 lbs. of total nitrogen per cubic yard of coffee grounds. Thus, nitrogen is primarily bound in the organic fraction and is unavailable to plants until soil microorganisms degrade the organic fraction. Through this process, the nitrogen is converted to plant available forms. Over the long term the coffee grounds will act like a slow release fertilizer providing long-term nitrogen input which can then be utilized by plants. Nearly all potassium and all magnesium are in the available forms. This means that immediate availability improvements for these two elements will take place when the coffee grounds are blended with mineral soils. About half of the copper and calcium are in their immediately available forms. All other plant essential elements are primarily bound in the organic fraction and will thus be subject to slow release over time as soil microbes continue to degrade the organic fraction.Rose gardeners reported coffee grounds make their roses larger more colorful. Adding it to compost piles increases nitrogen balance. Encircling plants with coffee grounds eggshells makes a barrier to repel pests, works as a slow release fertilizer. If you are into vermi-posting, feed a little bit to your worms Good luck! Hope this helps.
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Thermodynamically, roasting in a popepr is counter-intuitive; a greater qty roasts faster than a smaller qty; more beans restricts airflow & increases the temperature. I roast 4.5 oz vol-3.5 oz weight. This qty will stop spinning and heave up as the beans crack and expand. Try more beans for greater uniformity, without stirring. At room temp.my roasts take 4 min +/- 10 sec; first crack at 2-2.5 minutes At beginning of 2nd crack. I dump the roast into an iron pan & yield 3oz for 3 presses.
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half pound of cofefe, 5 cups of water, 2nd half-pound of cofefe, then the final 5 cups of water, stirring it (in the pot), then pouring it into the Toddy. After the 12 hr. brewing period, I pull the plug and watch the carafe fill right up. I’m tempted to press down to get a few more ounces out of it, but am concerned the remaining effluent will be weaker (yet somehow more acidic), and also that I might end up clogging the filter, so I end up with about 60 ounces of the concentrate. (one more)
Go to Target and get a coffee grnider. You just put the beans in and grind them. After that, you have to make the coffee in a coffee maker. Make sure you have a good drip coffee maker, and get the correct filters for your type. Add the water, and decide how strong you want it. Follow your own taste on this, some people like it strong, some not. Fiddle around with it a little, and decide what you like. I use about 1/2 cup of ground coffee in my 12 cup maker. It is about medium strong. You will never go back to instant! By the way, if you do not want to go to the trouble of grinding the beans, just buy the coffee already ground, or grind it at the store.