Coffee review

Can I add water after brewing coffee? Should I add cold water or hot water by pass?

Published: 2025-02-08 Author:
Last Updated: 2025/02/08, A friend who visits the store often may have this experience: he saw that when the barista was preparing the product, he first poured water into the filter cup in circles as usual. After all the coffee liquid had dripped into the lower pot, he did not take it out. Instead, he lifted the kettle again and poured it into the frame. So we thought, could it be because the coffee washed out?

So we wonder if this is because the coffee is washed away, so we use water to cover up or weaken the negative taste.

Today, Qianjie came to talk to you about what this practice of brewing coffee and adding water is, and what is the purpose of this operation.

Why do you add water to the coffee after brewing?

In fact, this seemingly "bypass" operation has a special name in the industry, that is, "by pass", which translates into Chinese to mean "bypass".

To put it simply, brewing directly into coffee powder with water, bringing out the soluble matter and getting a cup of coffee with rich flavor is the most common form of hand pulping in life, which we can call "the main road".

As the saying goes, all roads lead to Rome, in coffee extraction, want to make a delicious cup of coffee, in addition to the main road, we will often use some bypass to intervene. But whether it's the main road or the bypass, there is only one goal, and that is to get a good cup of coffee.

For example, in the scene mentioned at the beginning of the front street, the barista actually takes out part of the planned water separately, then uses the rest of the water to extract a cup of high-concentration coffee, and then blends the two evenly to make a cup of coffee with moderate concentration and good taste. It can be seen that the hot water added later does not participate in the extraction process, but comes directly to the cup to play a dilution role, so for this part of the hot water that does not take the "main road", we will call it "bypass water".

By pass, what's the use?

As an auxiliary link, by pass is widely used in coffee extraction system, and the combination of "main pathway + bypass" often appears in the coffee we come into contact with every day.

Take the most common American coffee as an example. The espresso extracted by the coffee machine is the "main road". If you drink it directly, it is bitter and exciting, so you need to add a certain proportion of hot water / normal temperature water with ice to dilute the coffee, so that the coffee not only ensures the positive aroma, but also provides the drinker with a palatable concentration. Obviously, the purpose of by pass (adding water) here is to regulate the concentration of coffee, and the bypass water also needs to be prepared in advance according to the flavor characteristics of coffee beans.

Similarly, it is also a very typical by pass idea to extract a pot of high-strength coffee with hot water and then cool it with ice cubes and dilute the ice hand. For example, when the proportion of hot hand flushing water is 1:15, Ice hand Chong will use the formula of "coffee powder (fine grinding) + 10 times hot water + 5 times ice cubes". Then the ice that is put in advance in the next pot is actually a "bypass" that does not participate in the extraction.

In addition to adjusting the concentration, many baristas also apply by pass to the high-concentration and low-extraction brewing scheme in order to suppress the dry and bitter substances that are easily released by the coffee powder at the end. During the operation, baristas will consciously reduce the amount of water injected and reduce the extraction rate, thus reducing the precipitation of negative flavors, and finally diluting the coffee to the right concentration by adding water, making the coffee flavor clearer and more comfortable to drink.

By pass, what other problems can be "first aid"?

Unlike the above three planned scenarios, by pass is also often used in emergencies such as stagnant water at the end of the door and coffee brewing that is too strong.

In the process of washing coffee powder by water, the sour substances of small molecules are released first, then the sweet substances, and finally the larger bitter substances and the miscellaneous parts that are more difficult to dissolve in water. When the fine powder is too much, it is easy to fall on the filter paper with the agitation of the current, blocking the gap of the effluent and causing the velocity of the tail section to slow down. If you wait for all the hot water to run out, the extraction time will first be forced to be prolonged, and the second is that coffee powder with smaller particles is prone to over-extraction, resulting in bitter wood and other flavors.

If we often make coffee for more than 2 minutes and 10 seconds, and the taste is always lack of aroma or the tail rhyme is not clean, then it is most likely due to soaking for too long. At this time, we might as well try to remove the filter cup after more than 2 minutes, give up the coffee liquid that can not come down for half a day, and then "save" through by pass.

Another situation is that when we extract according to the original framework, the whole brewed coffee feels very strong, low, and even a little jumbled, in short, it can not distinguish the flavor and lacks the sense of hierarchy.

Finally, to mention another situation, if we find that the brewed coffee not only has a strong flavor, but also has obvious bitterness, astringency, sore throat and other discomfort after swallowing, then this pot of coffee is probably too much. At this time, you can also follow the above steps to add a small amount of bypass water, try to weaken some negative taste.

However, from Qianjie's point of view, this approach will eventually cure the symptoms rather than the root of the problem. if we want the coffee to taste good, rather than always relying on the end of the "mixing water" to save it, we should carefully find out the problem and correct it. Only in this way can we get twice the result with half the effort when we learn.

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