From a professional point of view: how to brew coffee with stable quality?

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The trendy elements of the cafe: tattoos, leisurely atmosphere and creative flower patterns all explain why some people say that coffee is an art rather than a science, but there are corresponding rules behind these arts. When you give your guests hundreds of cups of coffee a day, follow this rule to create the key: stability.

When someone likes your coffee, they will want to drink it again, they will want to drink the same taste as last time, and almost exactly the same. Here are seven rules to maintain the similar quality of coffee (after all, people can't stay the same all the time).

The pattern of the flower can change, but the quality of the flavor must be maintained.

1

Pay attention to your filter cup

The filter cup of the cooking handle represents specialized technology, especially the VST filter cup or the IMS filter cup. Each design has its own reason, and the guidelines provided by the manufacturer are also an important reference point.

Different sizes of filter cups depend on the amount of coffee the barista wants to use, and you should fill the coffee powder according to the amount recommended by the filter cup model. If it's VST20, use 20 grams of coffee powder, even if you want to use 21 grams of coffee powder, or if you see someone on the Internet sharing the coffee brewed with 19 grams of powder is great, or in any case, follow the recommended amount of powder to extract coffee. If you want to increase or decrease the amount of your coffee powder, change the filter cup to fill it.

Fill coffee powder according to the size of the filter cup

2

The scale is your best partner.

The author has heard some people say that the amount of powder and brewed coffee should not be mixed together, we only need to look at the taste, but the author disagrees. Do we say that the scale is a superfluous tool when making a cake? Not really. And the same applies to coffee.

Even the top bean grinder cannot grind the same amount of powder every time, especially when the knife head starts to overheat, we will drop the measured coffee powder into the filter cup before the handle, we will also measure the amount of coffee liquid extracted, when you use the scale, you will be surprised that there are so many variables in the extraction process, and using the scale will not add much time to the workflow.

The scale is the key to stable cooking.

three

Cooking formula, formula, formula!

Although many people can bake good coffee by themselves, there is often a slight difference in each bag of cooked beans, and it is impossible to have time when the shop is very busy, just to correct the flavor of each single bean.

Imagine that the coffee shop is full of people, and you are using coffee beans that were baked seven days ago, and the coffee is really good. But now that you have finished using this bag of beans, you must open a packet of coffee beans that were baked two days ago. You know this move will be risky. Of course, some good drinkers will always criticize that the coffee you make is different from yesterday, even if they always order coffee with milk, and these people will not just complain in front of you, they will also post on IG and FB, telling all their friends … .

For us, the solution is to adjust the formula, and we record the average effect of each different bean, often at 1:2 (for example, 20 grams of coffee powder extract 40 grams of espresso). When we use a cup of coffee with high acidity, we lengthen the extraction time (20 grams of powder extract 50 grams of espresso). Although this is not a perfect method, it can be used in emergencies. After that, when there are fewer guests, we will adjust and correct the cooking method of the newly opened bag of beans.

Correcting the cooking formula is very time-consuming, so record your cooking formula for a rainy day.

four

Pay attention to the formula beans

I know what you're thinking. The reason why people like formula beans is their stability. They are also classic models that have been supplied all the year round. Unlike single beans, formula beans can maintain flavor stability throughout the year. But if the formula beans change every day, it is not so simple.

Remember that formula beans are made of single coffee. These single beans come from different producing areas and different growing environments, and they may be different varieties. And this means that these coffee beans have different densities. For this reason, the weight of the liquid extracted from the formula bean will be more different from that of the single bean.

We will have a bean grinder dedicated to grinding square beans to give play to the flavor of the beans and keep the beans in a neutral state (not affected by other bean powder), but we will still use scales to create stability. Before opening the shop every morning, we will adjust the formula beans and paste a note on the bean grinder to mark the amount of coffee powder, coffee liquid and extraction time, depending on the date and remaining quantity of the same batch of roasted coffee beans. We will confirm the parameters during each extraction to ensure that we provide coffee of stable quality.

We must make more efforts to produce stable formula beans.

five

It is difficult to achieve a stable quality of hand-brewed coffee.

Some things are difficult to achieve stability, and hand flushing is one of them, the taste will be affected by how much water you flush, the length of cooking time, the method of water injection, and so on. The author has always had doubts about hand flushing: when hot water touches the coffee powder at the top, the bottom powder will come into contact with slightly cooled water. Scott Rao mentioned that the method of hand flushing often tends to flush out the smell of stinky acid, because the extraction process often leads to low water temperature.

Because of these factors, it will be very difficult for baristas to maintain stability during hand brewing, not to mention making several pots of coffee at the same time! Scott Rao takes off the hand coffee at his store, and for most people, it is not the first choice to order. We like hand-brewed coffee, and so do baristas, but the most important thing is that guests also like hand-brewed coffee.

So how do we prevent instability? We even use the formula more strictly and use scales and timers to assist. We can try to reduce the time when injecting water (reducing the cause of cooking). Using a flow-limited hand flushing pot can be a useful aid.

But most importantly, we not only pursue the stability of the quality of hand-brewed coffee, but also take into account the elements of good flavor: clean, bright flavor, and longer brewing time to have more interaction with customers.

The beauty of hand-made coffee.

six

Don't underestimate the influence of water.

Most of the substance in coffee is water, so find the coffee shop that works best for you. The authors suggest that when testing roasted sample beans, try to use the same water as when you are in business. But if you can't do that, try to use the best filtering system for the coffee maker.

When it comes to hand flushing, try some mineral water until we find the one that works best for you. We bought some five-liter mineral water, which can brew eight pots of Chemex coffee (including the amount of water used for filter paper), which doesn't cost much per bottle.

You have to be obsessed with water.

seven

Teamwork is the key

We respect baristas in the boutique coffee industry, from the champion of the World Barista Competition to the role of coffee lecturer, who have a profound knowledge of coffee.

However, we don't just want to accept the expertise provided by a single barista, but the service brought by a whole team of professionals, some of whom are responsible for keeping the bar clean, others are responsible for checkout, serving customers, and making delicious coffee. The whole team, including newcomers, should know what they are working for and how to do better.

Because when we work as a team, we can provide more stable and good quality coffee every time.

The above rules may seem boring or rigorous, but they are the key to making stable and good coffee, and it is much easier to provide a good cup of coffee.

Original source: https://www.perfectdailygrind.com/2016/11/serve-consistently-good-coffee-cafe/