Summary of some common mistakes made by beginners in the basic course of hand-brewing coffee

Professional coffee knowledge exchange more coffee bean information please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

How fine does the coffee powder of hand-brewed coffee need to be ground to achieve perfect extraction?

Uncle Coffee: grinding beans is the first step of handmade coffee, but it is also a step that many people are easy to fail. It is either too fine or too thick, which indirectly affects the taste of the cooked coffee powder. If you want to accurately grasp the size of the coffee powder, you can use a small flying eagle or Pegasus bean grinder, which can adjust the scale of the coffee powder and accurately grind it to the ideal fineness. The best thickness of hand coffee powder is between Italian coffee (No. 1 ~ 2) and French filter kettle (No. 5 ~ 6), that is, the granularity is about No. 4, and the smaller the number is, the finer the powder is. If you use a traditional hand grinder, the granularity of hand-brewed coffee is half the size of brown sugar, but the disadvantage of manual grinder is that it is easy to have uneven thickness. The coffee powder that is too fine will be over-extracted, and it is easy to extract the coffee impurities, while the coffee powder that is too coarse will be underextracted and the taste will be light.

Will different coffee filter cups affect the taste of hand-brewed coffee?

Uncle Coffee: we have previously introduced three kinds of hand-brewed coffee filter cups: trapezoidal, conical and wave filter cups, all of which may affect the taste of coffee, the biggest key is the speed of water flow, due to the different design of water guide groove, it will affect the flow rate of coffee extraction.

The traditional trapezoidal filter cup has a small opening and a slow flow rate, so the hand-brewed coffee will taste thicker, but the disadvantage is that the flow rate may be too slow, which makes the stagnant water easy to have bitter taste; while the tapered filter cup has a large hole, the flow rate is faster, but the taste may be lighter. The wavy filter cup is because it has a flat bottom and is equipped with wave filter paper to guide the water down through the grooves on the filter paper. The water flow is the smoothest and the taste of the hand-brewed coffee is the most uniform.

Can hand-made coffee filter cups replace filter paper?

Uncle Coffee: at present, there is a kind of metal filter cup on the market, which can achieve the effect without using filter paper, and the material of stainless steel is also quite durable. The advantage of the metal filter cup is that it can save filter paper, save money and environmental protection, and then retain more coffee grease to make the taste more rich, but also because the hole of the filter is too fine, the fine coffee powder is easy to pass through, and more or less you will drink some powder. it is recommended to filter the fine powder with a sieve before hand flushing, so that the taste will be cleaner.