Making Great Coffee At Home
Do you wonder why you can’t make great coffee at home like you have at a good resturaunt? If so, you aren’t alone. I used to wonder the same thing and I talk to a lot of folks who have the same problem. It really shouldn’t be that hard.
After all, we’re talking about 2 whole ingredients here – and one of them is water. Sadly, a lot of people suck at making coffee. They know they do but they just live with it. The truth is, brewing great coffee doesn’t take much longer than brewing awful coffee. It doesn’t have to cost any more and it really doesn’t involve any extra effort. Now I’m talking about your basic pot of automatic drip coffee here so there is no special equipment or fancy machines required. You see? There’s really no excuse to settle for bad coffee.
OK. Here are 3 very quick tips for making great coffee at home. If you aren’t doing any of these things start doing them all and I guarantee you’ll not only notice the difference, you’ll actually love the coffee you brew at home. I’ll list them in order of importance, meaning that if you only make one of these changes, those higher on the list will make the most difference.
1) Start using the right amount of coffee: You should use a minimum of 1 tablespoon for every cup. That means 10 tablespoons for 10 cups. Some experts even suggest 2 tablespoons per cup, but that’s a little strong for me with most roasts. I don’t know why but I find that people will often follow the 1:1 recipe until they get to a certain number of cups and then stop. Anyway, if you aren’t following this rule and you hate your coffee, making this adjustment will have more of a positive impact than anything else you can do. Try it.
2) Grind your own beans: It takes like 10 seconds, 15 at the most so just try it. Coffee flavor begins to deteriorate immediately after it is ground. When coffee is ground, the oils are released and they begin to dissipate. Whole roasted coffee retains full freshness for a week or more after roasting. And don’t think you can make up for it by keeping your ground coffee in the freezer or refrigerator. You can’t. A cheap blade grinder is all you need for the average coffee maker. Pulse that baby until you get a medium grind and see what happens.
3) Use filtered water: I have one of those filter pitchers that you fill up and keep in the fridge and it works great, especially on those days when the tap water tastes “off” for some reason. Any wrong flavor in the water will show up in your coffee.
Now from here you can experiment with different brewing methods, beans and roasts to develop your own favorite combinations, but first use these 3 simple steps because you will notice an immediate difference that you might find darn near perfect. Besides, further experimentation with beans, roasts, blends, etc. really require that you get these basics in place further.