How to flush out the sweetness of coffee? The reason why there is no sweetness in hand-made coffee and its solution

Why are you so obsessed with sweetening the coffee? It's probably that sweetness makes us secrete dopamine, which makes us feel happy!

If you want to make coffee sweet, you must first understand the sweetness of coffee. The sweetness of coffee does not exist independently, it depends on the coordination between acid and bitterness. For example, light roasted coffee has less bitter substances, so sweetness depends on the sweet and sour taste shown in high acidity and low bitterness, such as a variety of fruit flavors. Deep-roasted coffee contains more bitter substances, so sweetness depends on showing bitterness and sweetness in low acidity and high bitterness, such as caramel.

In order to sweeten the coffee, when making coffee, try to extract all the sweet substances from the coffee. The specific principle is as follows:

In the process of hand-brewing coffee extraction, the time of release of sweet, sour and bitter is different. Sour substances are the easiest to extract, so in the previous period, sour substances dominated, but also included some early release of sweet and bitter substances. In the middle stage, the release of sour substances decreased gradually, while the release efficiency of sweet substances began to exceed that of sour substances. At the same time, the bitter substance is also increasing at the speed of gentle slope.

In the latter stage, the release of sour substances decreased further, while the sweet substances also declined, and the release efficiency of bitter substances began to improve.

In this model, the ideal state to rush out of sweetness is to rush out of the sweetest substances that account for the largest proportion. That is, a relatively high extraction rate. It is generally believed that coffee with an extraction rate of 18-22% tastes better, so we put the extraction rate in the model diagram as follows:

The extraction rate is 22%. The theory is that coffee has the highest sweetness. If it exceeds 22%, it is very prone to bad bitterness.

After looking at the extraction model, let's take a look at the actual brewing examples. the sweetness of coffee is usually divided into two cases, the first is also over-extracted, and the second is too conservative.

In the first case, the sweetness is extracted more completely, but the bitterness is also extracted more, which leads to a lower proportion of sweetness, so the resulting coffee is sour and bitter, but the sweetness is not obvious.

If your coffee tastes the same way, check whether the water temperature is reasonable. The recommended temperature is 90-93 degrees for light-roasted coffee and 86-89 degrees for medium-deep roasting. You can choose the lowest water temperature in the range.

Secondly, check whether the degree of grinding is too fine, specifically reflected in the launching speed and extraction time. For example, if the extraction time of 15 grams of coffee powder is more than 2 minutes and 30 seconds, and the extraction time of 20 grams of coffee powder is more than 3 minutes, then the grinding degree needs to be thickened.

The second and most friends encounter the situation. Many friends are afraid of the bitterness at the back of the coffee, so they will set the degree of grinding at a thicker degree. In this way, the extraction can be finished 2 minutes ago.

In this way, the extraction rate of coffee will be about 17-19%, the bitter feeling is not obvious, but the sweet proportion is not large, the sour taste is absolutely dominant, showing a relatively bright (irritating) sour, and the sweetness is a looming feeling.

If your brewed coffee is sour and weak in sweetness, use a powder-to-water ratio of 1:15 or less and the extraction time is about 2 minutes. If this is the case, the direct solution is to continue to inject water and stretch the powder / water ratio to 1:16 or 1:17. In that way, the extra amount of water injection will prolong the extraction time and continue to extract flavor substances. The sweetness of coffee will account for a larger proportion, and the sweetness of coffee will naturally be more obvious.

If the coffee itself is light enough, if the proportion continues to stretch, it will only make the coffee more watery. Then Qianjie suggests using segmented water injection to prolong the extraction time. For example, if you are using three-stage water injection, the sour taste of the coffee washed out at 1:16 is obvious, but the sweetness is not prominent, then divide the number of water injection stages into four stages, which will prolong the overall extraction time. At the same time, the "scour extraction" with relatively high extraction efficiency is also concentrated in the middle and later stages, which is conducive to the extraction of sweet substances.