A summary of beginner's questions and answers to the basic knowledge of coffee making

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Can rookies with zero basics of coffee be on SCA? How much does it cost? How long is the study cycle?

There have always been a lot of beginner friends.

Come and ask us some basic questions about coffee.

This time we sorted out 29 questions.

Summarize and answer

Q1 what is individual coffee?

Answer: single product coffee refers to the coffee made by coffee beans from a single origin, also known as boutique coffee.

How do you classify Q2 coffee?

Answer: the difference between individual coffee and blended coffee is that single coffee is made from single coffee beans, and blended coffee is made from a variety of beans. The difference between the general single product and espresso lies in the practice, one is extracted directly by hot water, the other is extracted by steam plus pressure.

Q3 black coffee is not a single coffee?

A: black coffee refers to coffee without any sugar or cream. But the single product is black coffee, but black coffee is not necessarily a single product, some blended coffee is also suitable for hand-brewing and siphon, because it is almost the same as a single product, so sometimes we say it is good to make a single product.

Q4 what is fancy coffee?

A: fancy coffee is what you usually see as cappuccino, latte, mocha.

Coffee made with Espresso as the base, milk bubbles made from milk through steam, and other additives such as cream and syrup. The reason why the base of fancy coffee uses mixed beans is to make the taste more balanced and rich.

Is the coffee made by Q5 American drip filter American coffee?

A: American coffee is made of Espresso and water, and the principle of the American drip filter coffee machine we buy is similar to that of hand brewing, and it is not the same as real American coffee.

What kind of utensils are suitable for brewing Q6 coffee?

Answer: hand punch, French pressure kettle, siphon kettle, smart cup, love music pressure can be.

Q7 beginner, choose hand mill or electric mill?

The price of the entry-level hand mill is very cheap, and the editor suggests that if you are not sure that you will like coffee, just try not to invest too much first, you can upgrade if you like it. Therefore, the entry-level hand bean grinder, do not buy too expensive, I think a thousand yuan or so, silver friends can ignore the price of this part.

For electric bean grinders, there are many styles suitable for household use.

Q8 Why is coffee sour or bitter?

A: the sour and bitter of coffee has a lot to do with roasting. To put it simply, the shallower the baking is, the more sour it is, and the deeper the baking is, the more bitter it is.

For the same kind of coffee, different roasters want to express different things and different roasting degrees, resulting in a sour or bitter coffee flavor. But not all coffees are suitable.

For example, Yega Xuefei, from the end of the first explosion to stop baking before the second explosion, will have a good taste, just depending on what you like, but few people bake it until the second explosion is dense. The opposite example is Manning, which most people are used to baking to the point where the second explosion begins and ends.

Q9 Why doesn't coffee smell good?

A: coffee is not a sesame oil, let alone an essence. In fact, the aroma of natural coffee is not as strong as you think.

The aroma of coffee is only one of the indicators to measure the quality of coffee. The aroma of different coffees is indeed different, some are stronger, some are weaker. The aroma of coffee is also different under different roasting degrees. Deeply baked beans may make you feel more fragrant. But it is also wonderful to carefully experience the fresh aroma of lightly roasted coffee.

The aroma of lightly roasted coffee may be weak before it is ground and brewed. Once it is ground into powder and brewed in hot water, the aroma will burst out. Many people buy deep-roasted commercial beans, open the package, there may be some "strong coffee aroma", but that is not necessarily the taste of good coffee.

Q10 Why do you buy coffee beans of different sizes?

Poor evenness?

A: first, the uniformity of coffee beans is definitely not good if they are different in size and heated when roasting; second, some coffee beans are sun-treated, mixed with beans of different maturity, and the uniformity of roasted coffee is not good; third, beans in some countries are not graded according to bean size, that is, they are not filtered by sieve, so the beans themselves are not uniform in size. Fourth, some estates mixed with different varieties of coffee, mixed together, even after the sieve filter, because the varieties are different, the degree of heating will be different, will also lead to poor uniformity after baking.

To sum up, some coffee beans have different sizes and poor evenness, which are beyond our control, but some are the characteristics of some kind of coffee, such as Yejia Xuefei, Harald and other coffee, especially in the light roasting degree.

Coffee such as Kenya and Colombia usually has good size and evenness. But there are exceptions, such as Manning's beans, although the raw beans are also slightly poor, but the taste is very good. Therefore, beginners need to accumulate a lot of experience in order to really distinguish what beans should be what is reliable. If you are too lazy to study, then do not worry too much about the appearance of beans, after all, coffee is to drink, not to see.

There are also Italian beans, which are mixed with beans with different baking degrees, and there will be differences in size and evenness. In addition, your beans can be different in size and poor in evenness, but there should be no foreign bodies such as stones, branches or a large number of mutilated beans.

Q11 how should I keep the ripe beans when I buy coffee?

Answer: coffee beans that can not be drunk in a short period of time can be sealed and placed in a cool place. Every time you drink, take out the right amount and grind and brew it.

How long is the shelf life of Q12 coffee beans?

A: coffee beans are sealed and it's okay to drink them for a few months. the problem is that as time goes by, the beans will taste worse and worse. It is recommended that you buy beans, in the case of good preservation, within 1 month to eliminate the best. It is best not to exceed 3 months at most.

Do you need to "raise" the beans you get from Q13?

A: in fact, coffee beans can be drunk as soon as they are roasted, but with the passage of time, the taste of the beans will change. Generally speaking, the beans will peak on the 7th day, and then they will tend to be flat, and the exciting taste will be smoothed out by time.

I suggest that if you want to drink the taste with better flavor, you still need to raise the beans, and then drink them at different times of the month to feel the changes in the taste of the beans.

Q14 how coarse are the powders such as hand punch, siphon kettle, French kettle, Philharmonic press, mocha kettle, etc.

A: this description is not intuitive in language, and many people still don't understand it after listening to it.

* rough grinding: the size is as big as coarse sugar, suitable for French pressed coffee.

* medium grinding: gravel-shaped, the size is between coarse sugar and granulated sugar, suitable for trickling (filter paper dripping) cooking.

* Fine grinding: size as fine granulated sugar, suitable for distilled coffee pot, electric coffee pot, mocha pot.

* very fine grinding: the size is between salt and flour, suitable for Espresso, Turkish coffee, because household grinders can not grind this texture, generally must buy ready-made grinding powder, so if you want to enjoy Espresso at home, it is best to drink a large amount of fresh coffee.

Q15 what is the ratio of water to powder?

A: there is no standard answer to this. If everyone has different preferences for concentration, the proportion of gouache is different. But there is an approximate ratio for reference, that is, the gouache ratio is 1:15. If you think the coffee made at this ratio is light, add more powder or less water. This is just a simple adjustment method, the factors that affect the thickness of the coffee, as well as the thickness of the powder, water temperature, brewing time and so on.

Does Q16 have coffee that is not sour, bitter and mellow?

A: as mentioned above, coffee is sour in light roasting and bitter in deep roasting, so is it possible that moderate roasting is neither sour nor bitter? We haven't baked this kind of coffee so far. In fact, sour and bitter are the two factors that make up the basic taste of coffee. Without these two flavors, coffee would be missing something.

Q17 coffee is out of oil, good or bad?

A: usually, deep-roasted coffee will produce oil, even if the beans just out of the pot do not produce oil, after a few days, the beans may begin to produce oil, which is a normal phenomenon. For oily beans, pay attention to preservation and boil as soon as possible.

How can Q18 tell whether coffee beans are good or bad?

A: the simple three-word summary is "smell, see, peel". Put the coffee beans close to your nose and take a deep breath to see if you can smell the coffee beans. If so, it means the coffee beans are fresh enough. If the aroma is small or not, or even has a greasy taste, throw the coffee beans in the trash.

Observe your coffee beans carefully, determine the origin and variety of coffee beans, and make sure that the coffee beans are roasted evenly; take a coffee bean and peel off its clothes! If the coffee beans are fresh, they are loose and crispy. If the coffee bean is not fresh, it takes a lot of effort to poke away a bean.

What is the most suitable water temperature for brewing coffee in Q19?

A: it is often seen that many people will directly use boiling water to brew coffee. In fact, this kind of water is not very suitable, and the taste of the brewed coffee will be too bitter and not easy to import. The water temperature that is really suitable for brewing coffee is about 85 degrees Celsius to 92 degrees Celsius. If the water temperature is too low, it will taste sour. On the contrary, if the temperature is too high, it will be bitter, because the water with higher temperature will have more coffee powder extract. Although it is generally believed that the more the extract is, the stronger the flavor is, but it is not the best taste, and there may be miscellaneous flavors dissolved into it.

Will Q20 filter paper affect the taste of coffee?

A: yes. Filter paper is also divided into different grades, poor quality filter paper, sometimes will dissolve the taste of the pulp into the coffee, so it is recommended to blanch the filter paper with hot water first, so as to avoid the smell of the paper.

In fact, at present, there are quite many kinds of filter paper on the market, such as hemp, bamboo fiber, cotton, and high-grade Japanese and paper; the fiber length of filter paper will affect the taste, and some thicker filter paper can also correct the taste of coffee, such as American Chemex filter paper, because it is thick enough to filter out most impurities, it may taste better than using other filter paper. If the beans you buy today are not ideal, you can use filter paper to change the taste, and if your coffee beans are good, you can use general filter paper.

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What is the difference between Q21 pressed coffee and filter paper coffee?

Answer: the coffee is made with the hand of filter paper, because it absorbs the oil and tastes brighter and clear. on the contrary, the coffee extracted retains rich oil, and the floating oil flowers can be faintly seen, so the taste will be a little thicker. but also because the pore diameter in the pot is too large, it tastes more pink. In addition, there is a similar concept of legal pressure on the market, called Philharmonic pressure, because the aperture is small, the amount of residual powder is also low, and you can drink coffee with a full taste, it is also convenient to go out and carry, so it is loved by many people.

Q22 how to avoid brewing coffee with mixed flavor?

Answer: at the end of the 5g-10g coffee liquid will have more miscellaneous smell, can not be, at the same time, silver skin also has astringent taste, and defective beans also have miscellaneous smell, bad water has miscellaneous smell, uneven grinding also has miscellaneous smell. Therefore, in order to avoid smelling, we should pay attention to the above problems.

Can the milk produced by Q23 manual milking machine pull flowers?

The answer is yes. Let's first look at the simple structure of espresso, which has two basic features, namely, the upper layer is a layer of coffee-like foam, and the bottom is black coffee liquid. This kind of coffee can be used to make fancy coffee. All we have to do is fill the coffee cup with black coffee about 30ml, then use the beaten milk foam, pour in a little bit, and then stir it well with a spoon, and the white milk foam on the surface becomes a "coffee-colored foam" and floats on top of the black coffee. Next, we can use milk foam to pull flowers, but the coffee made with this liquid is too light, and the hierarchical flowers are limited, so we can only try and not promote them. Of course, it's good to practice your hands in this way from time to time.

Why is the milk foam hit by Q24 not integrated?

The fusion degree of milk foam mainly depends on the following two points:

1. The pressure of the steam rod. That is, the air pressure of the steam rod will make the foam tumble to varying degrees in the process of frothing. The higher the air pressure, the higher the degree of fusion.

2. The exquisite degree of milk foam. That is, the more delicate the milk foam is, the less air is contained in a single milk bubble, the higher the density and the less buoyancy; the rougher the milk foam is, the more air is contained in the single milk bubble, the lower the density and the greater the buoyancy. If the milk foam is relatively rough, the milk foam will float quickly on the surface of the milk and the degree of fusion is lower; if the foam is more delicate, the speed of the foam floating on the surface of the milk will be slow and the degree of fusion will be higher.

How can Q25 mix milk well?

Is the milk and milk foam, how to mix it well, pull flowers, a pour is not all white? Temperature... Temperature is important. When you are milking, put your empty hand on the flower cup to feel the temperature of the milk. it is almost good when you feel that your hand can no longer be placed on the flower jar-if you keep beating, it will make the foam too hard. The hard foam looks stiff, and it doesn't mix with the coffee when you pour it into the coffee, but accumulates on top of your coffee like fluffy beaten cream. If you play a little longer, it will be layered, 90% of which is flowing milk, and a thick hard foam lid floating on it. When you pour it into the coffee, the milk will flow out of the flower cup first. So if you want to mix milk and foam well-temperature is the key. Do not put the foam for too long after playing, otherwise it will be stratified.

Q26 how to make more and meticulous milk foam?

On how to make a good milk foam, here is a way to pour half of the milk into the flower cup, let the steam pipe and the milk perpendicular to the center or the rim of the cup, then let the steam head just touch the milk surface, then turn on the steam to 1max 2, do not move the flower cup, slowly close when the milk reaches 50 degrees, close just at 60 degrees, and finally the temperature will reach 66 degrees, you can make a good cup of milk foam.

What kind of Italian machine do you want to use for Q27 foam?

Generally speaking, there are steam heads with three, four and five holes in the machine, and as long as they are a little familiar with them, they all make good milk bubbles. However, the amount of steam produced by the machine, the degree of dryness and wetness of the steam, and the size of the stomata still have an impact on milking.

Q28 Why do you use water to practice making milk foam?

As we all know, water is transparent, and practicing with water will give you a clearer picture of how the vortex is formed. The second is to better master the number of holes in the play of different milk bubbles!

And for beginners, remember to use a thermometer when you fail to beat the foam to a thin shape. If the temperature is not better controlled, then the coffee you make is unstable.

Q29 what is the difference between steam milking and manual milking?

First of all, the hand-beaten foam cannot be compared with the steam of the machine at all. The fineness of the steam makes its milk foam very delicate and slippery, and the radiation surface of the steam is wide, so the milk foam will be more uniform and mix better. The hand is mainly squeezed through the small hole of the filter screen, and the milk foam is thicker.

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