What is the high concentration and low extract in coffee extraction? How to extract the coffee without bitterness?

I believe you often see the words "high concentration and low extract" in Qianjie articles or in the cooking and sharing of other websites! But a search, pop-up explanation is directly thrown out of a pile of incomprehensible data stacked there. It is as if the brave just went in and out of the novice village to practice, and the result directly ushered in the feeling of the final Boss.

So today, Qianjie will transform these complex theories into simple descriptions, so that friends can better understand. "High concentration and low extraction", what on earth is it? What is high concentration and low extraction? "High concentration and low extraction" he is not a set of fixed techniques or cooking parameters, it is an extraction idea, but also the result of extraction. I believe that although many friends are not sure what high concentration and low extraction is, they have more or less used the cooking method developed around the idea of high concentration and low extraction, because there are many ways of extraction with high concentration and low extraction: the most common is to use a large amount of coffee powder and then extract a small amount of coffee liquid.

At this time, do many friends think of a lot of Japanese cooking? For example, the powder bed is washed like a volcano like Mount Fuji, or the pine house style steamed with a "pot lid". Yes, they use a lot of coffee powder, and then use a very low powder-to-water ratio for extraction, although the coffee liquid is not much, but each drop of coffee is very rich!

The reason why the idea of high concentration and low extraction is derived, it involves "concentration" and "extraction rate"! They are the main factors affecting the taste of coffee! Like the well-known gold cup extraction table, it is made by an authoritative coffee organization in the United States, collecting a large number of tables made by Americans on the taste of coffee. The research shows that the extraction rate is 18%, 22%, and the concentration is 1.15%, 1.35%. Coffee in these two ranges is the most delicious for Americans! It is also what most of us like! So, what do these two words mean respectively?

Concentration: concentration is the best to understand! For example, a cup of sugar water, if the sugar content is too high, then it is "sweet" sweet, and if its sugar content is too low, then it will only be a little sweet water. The same is true for coffee. If the concentration is too high, the flavor will be too concentrated, and you will feel that the whole cup of coffee is very strong, turbid and can not distinguish any flavor. If it is too light, it is a cup of water with coffee flavor. Only in a reasonable concentration range can you drink a cup of coffee with outstanding flavor and full taste.

(thin concentration of coffee) extraction rate: the extraction rate will directly affect the overall flavor of the coffee, when it exceeds the highest value of 22% of the gold cup value range, then this cup of coffee will have a strong bitter taste, that is, it is often said to be too outstanding. When your extraction rate is less than 18% of the lowest value of the gold cup, then this cup of coffee will be prone to underextracted flavors such as acidity and subtilis. Only in the appropriate extraction range, the taste of the coffee can be balanced!

According to the idea of gold cup extraction, people have created many classic cooking schemes (such as 15g powder commonly used in Qianjie, 225ml 92 °C water, fine sugar grinding. Three-stage brewing), so that the final coffee can be in the delicious range of gold cup extraction. However, there are some coffee beans that are not resistant to extraction (such as deep roasting, or anaerobic treatment, coffee beans that have been kept for a long time), which are loose in texture and can easily cause excessive bitterness in extraction with conventional cooking methods. At this time, it is necessary to modify the parameters to reduce the extraction rate, so as to obtain coffee without bitterness (the parameters that can be adjusted are: water temperature, grinding).

However, if the extraction rate is only reduced in the original scheme, and the other parameters are not changed, it means that the concentration will also be reduced, and the resulting coffee will become coffee-flavored water. this concentration is obviously not acceptable to us. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the concentration while reducing the extraction rate (which can be adjusted: adding powder and reducing water). High concentration, low extraction, is such a fault-tolerant way is called "high concentration low extraction"! What kind of cooking adopts the idea of high concentration and low extraction?

That's too much! We reduce the ratio of powder to water by conventional cooking, which is also a way of extraction with high concentration and low extraction. Not to mention unique brewing such as the pine house style, which requires by pass to dilute the very high concentration of coffee liquid.

But again, you can't have both fish and bear's paw! The low extraction rate is mainly in the front and middle part of the extraction, and rarely in the latter part of the extraction, which will naturally reduce the tail performance of the coffee! So, you have to choose beans.

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