If you are a true coffee lover, you need to know how to brew better coffee. Yes -- there is more to making coffee than just hitting a button. Take this scenario for example --
The alarm goes off and you stumble out of bed. Shuffling your feet, you make your way to the kitchen in hopes of finding your coffee already brewing thanks to the automatic timer on your drip coffee maker. Yes --this is the way that most people make coffee these days. If you want to brew better coffee -- these are the steps you should be taking.
Making coffee in the morning is more than just throwing some grounds in the pot and waiting for the timer to go off telling you that it's done.
If you start practising some basic steps when making your coffee, you will never ever make your coffee any other way again. Get ready to learn how to brew better coffee in 5 easy steps!
Brew Better Coffee in 5 Easy Steps
#1 High-Quality Fresh Coffee
The very first thing you need to start with is high quality, fresh coffee beans, roasted to a medium roast. Don't choose dark roast beans as those tend to have a bitter taste when ground and used for coffee.
All of the coffee's natural flavours are in the essential oils of the beans, and once the coffee is ground, the oils start to evaporate quickly, so it's vital you keep it fresh.
Your best option is to purchase speciality coffee beans. Most good roasters will have a stamped date on the package of coffee beans that you purchase that tells you exactly when it was roasted, making it even fresher. You can click here to check out past roasters we have partnered with.
#2 Use Filtered Water
If you really want to make the best coffee ever, consider switching out the water you currently use to filtered water.
The most underestimated ingredient in a good cup of coffee is the water! A cup of coffee is 98 percent water, so if the water you're brewing with isn't good, your coffee will taste awful.
Take tap water for instance. If it has any odours or tastes such as chlorine, lime or rust, this will add that particular flavour to your coffee as well and who wants to drink coffee that tastes like rust? Not me or you I am sure.
Use only purified, filtered water (or as close to purified as you can get). But never use distilled water. Without any minerals, your coffee will taste blander. You can either by purified water at the supermarket, or you can purchase jugs online that will purify your tap water for you through a specific filter that is inserted into the jug.#3 Freshly Ground Coffee is a Must
Ground coffee that you purchase at the grocery store is not a fresh option when making a great cup of coffee. Those tend to go stale after a couple of weeks even if it is sealed. And there is no telling how long that coffee has been on the supermarket shelf.
Coffee starts to lose its flavour within 30 minutes of being ground. When you are ready to make coffee, only grind the number of beans you are going to need for your coffee. This will ensure that you create the ultimate cup of flavour.
#4 Try the Different Brewing Methods
If you're still using a drip coffee maker to make your daily coffee please stop doing that. Making coffee is like using that fancy DSLR camera. If you stay in automatic mode and never really learn the ins and out, you will never understand how wonderful the other modes are.
Yes, making coffee in a drip coffee maker is easy and convenient, but if you truly love coffee, you are going to want to take some pride in the way you make your coffee.
I promise you that you will thank me for introducing you to other methods of making great coffee. It's a lot more fun and will allow your creative coffee juices to flow.
If you're looking to try a new brew method we recommend looking into one or more of the following:
- AeroPress
- French Press
- Pour over
- Siphon
- Espresso
Most automatic drip machines don't reach the optimal brewing temperature. The ideal brewing temperature for coffee is between 90.5 96.1 C /195 and 205 F. High-end models usually offer a manual temperature adjustment, whereas the cheaper ones don't.
#5 Water Temperature/Warming Your Cup
Have you ever had a cup of coffee poured for you, and as you prepare yourself for that delicious hot sip, you wind up disappointed instead with a lukewarm liquid on your palette?
Most of that comes from having a cold cup. When you brew coffee, it comes out piping hot. But if you're pouring it into a mug that's at room temperature, you're going to be immediately cooling your hot coffee.
If you really want to up your coffee game and make a great cup of coffee, start by preheating your cup in the morning. The closer you bring the mug's temperature to the temperature of the coffee before you pour it, the less heat you'll lose from your brew.
You can also preheat your water in a kettle on the stove. The reason for this is because water will cool down some as it is released from the hopper into the carafe. As I have said before, the ultimate brewing temperature is between 90.5 96.1 C /195 and 205 F.
Make sure you do not exceed 205 degrees, as it can burn the coffee.
