Hand brewing method of coffee-steaming and stirring of hand brewed coffee

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Hand coffee is really good! You can watch the flow of water stay gracefully, while a good coffee is like a crystal-clear liquid, and the best thing is that anyone can make it at home.

But it looks great, but it's not as simple as it seems. In addition to the common factors such as water temperature, powder-to-water ratio, grinding thickness, and so on, there are also causes of disturbance and agitation. So what is disturbance and agitation? What do experts say about the disturbance and stirring of hand-brewed coffee? And the most important thing is, does it really taste better?

What is agitation?

Let's start with the basics, we all know that there are two procedures in the process of hand brewing: first, soak the coffee powder with a small amount of hot water and wait for about half a minute to achieve the effect of steaming; second, pour the remaining water into the coffee powder so that the coffee can slowly drip into the receiving container.

But there is also agitation or disturbance in the process, just like when you are very busy, your brother and sister show up next to you, but it is not so negative, and in fact, you are playing the role of brother and sister. To put it simply, stirring and spoiling is a mild interference in the cooking process.

We are all trying to flush out the good taste of the coffee, which means that we need to achieve the same extraction results. If the extraction rates of the powders in different parts of the filter cup are different, you will not be able to manipulate or copy the flavor in the cup. Your coffee will be a mixture of underextracted (sour) and overextracted (bitter) flavors, as well as well-extracted flavors, such as sweetness and good taste.

What can be achieved by stirring?

A common issue in hand-brewed or spaghetti coffee is the channel effect. Water always flows to places with less resistance, so if the coffee powder is not stacked or soaked evenly, the water will create a channel in the coffee powder. this will make more coffee near the channel extracted.

The channel effect can be caused by too fast or unstable water injection, for example, this leaves a high and dry coffee powder wall on the filter paper, which cannot be extracted. Some people also use drip water injection (using a small amount of water several times instead of long water injection), which can avoid the emergence of such powder walls.

In other words, stirring will disperse the coffee powder and ensure the uniformity of the extraction, which is not the only reason for maintaining a consistent extraction. If you want the coffee to taste the same every day, try standardizing your brewing parameters, including powder quantity, water temperature, brewing filter, water injection path and speed, water quality, grinding thickness and brewing time, etc.