Do you need to wet the filter paper before brewing coffee? What are the advantages of wet filter paper? What's the effect on extraction?

"Wet filter paper before cooking" has become a habit of most people, and it is also a detail that most people will think is very important. But is it really that important? Why do many cooking gods and champions not make the operation of wet filter paper in the released video? This can not help but make a lot of friends confused, why are there still people who do not wet filter paper? Make coffee without wet filter paper, can it really taste good?

With this doubt, we might as well take a look at how Qianjie is treated. Then the first thing we need to know is what the benefits of wet filter paper will be in the eyes of the public!

First, to remove the smell of paper. I believe that when many teachers explain the importance of wetting filter paper, the first thing to mention is to remove the smell of paper that comes with filter paper. If the taste is not removed by hot water, then when brewing, the smell of the paper will be dripped along the coffee liquid into the next pot, affecting the taste of the coffee to a certain extent.

Second, let the filter paper paste the filter paper and the filter cup by injecting water, which is the second advantage of wet filter paper. The degree of fit between the filter paper and the filter cup is very important, especially the filter cup with a large number of diversion bones such as V60! In the case that the filter paper is not fitted, the guide bone is as useless as a device. Therefore, many friends will wet the filter paper to achieve the purpose of sticking the filter cup.

Third, preheat the filter cup to wash the filter paper with hot water, so that while attaching the filter paper, you can also preheat the filter cup. There will be a certain temperature difference between the normal temperature filter cup and the hot water, which will cause the hot water temperature to be absorbed by the filter cup, which will reduce the extraction efficiency to a certain extent. Therefore, it is necessary to wet the filter paper through hot water and make the filter cup absorb heat at the same time, so as to achieve the effect of heat preservation.

From this point of view, wet filter paper is indeed a very important thing. But in fact, all these are not enough to support the reason that "the filter paper must be wet now". The reasons are as follows!

First, with regard to the pulp flavor of filter paper, the former filter paper is indeed because the production process is not mature enough, so that the paper has an obvious pulp flavor. But today in 2024, most brands have already developed filter paper without paper flavor! Through the use of bioactive enzymes for bleaching, the resulting filter paper has neither pulp smell nor toxicity, so naturally it is no longer necessary to wash through hot water to remove the paper smell.

Second, the matter of whether the filter paper serves the filter paper or not is mainly related to its own operation, if it is not operated properly, it is difficult to put the filter paper on it even if it is wet with water. But if handled properly, even if it does not need water to infiltrate, it can also achieve the effect of serving because of the weight of the coffee powder.

Third, about the preheating filter cup will bring up the preheating, because a long time ago, the filter cup material is mainly ceramic with thermal insulation properties! But at present, filter cups made of resin are widely used.

The price of resin material is low, and its precision is high, so it can be produced on a large scale. It is heat-resistant, but not endothermic! No smoking means no heat preservation effect. Therefore, preheating the filter cup is not necessary for many friends who use resin filter cup. Therefore, it can be seen that the above three points can indeed prove the importance of wetting filter paper. But this is only for individual cases or equipment caused by the problem, when your operation, your appliance does not have the above three problems, wet filter paper does not have any advantage. Therefore, Qianjie feels that, on the contrary, it is the following two points that make people think about whether the filter paper is wet or not.

Water absorption of filter paper: dry filter paper, like coffee powder, has the property of water absorption. The amount of water that a piece of filter paper can absorb is about 8ml! If we wet it with water in advance, the filter paper will not absorb too much coffee liquid during subsequent formal cooking. Until brewing, the upper layer of the filter paper will be transparent white, but if we do not wet the filter paper for cooking, then the filter paper will absorb the extracted coffee liquid, the appearance from the original pure white, gradually stained with the yellow of the coffee liquid.

In this way, coffee without wet filter paper may be lighter than coffee with wet filter paper, because a small part of the coffee liquid will be absorbed by the filter paper.

Coffee powder is extracted in advance: in many cases, friends pour coffee powder into it as soon as they wet the filter paper. The so-called coffee extraction is to obtain the aromatic substances in the coffee through water. If the coffee powder comes into contact with the water before the extraction begins, does it mean that the coffee powder that touches the water in advance has been extracted in advance?

Do not worry ~ although the two do have an impact on coffee, but based on the comparison of several brewing times in the front street, it is found that if you do not taste and compare very carefully, you can not make any difference. It has an impact, but very small! So, again, if there is nothing wrong with your utensils and your operation, then there is no need to struggle with whether the filter paper is wet or not, it all depends on your own mood. After all, a cup of coffee doesn't need to be too complicated.

-END-

Front Street Cafe

No. 10 Baoqian street, Yandun road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu district, Guangzhou, Guangdong province