The Grind

I thought I would write about the Grind today, and not the MTV show hosted by the Real World season one NYC star Eric Neise, rather the act of grinding coffee. It struck me today as I was, ironic enough, grinding coffee this morning that there is a lot to know about grinding. Also, I was reading the other night about calibrating my BUNN airpot brewer that the act of grinding is a great way to improve your home brewed coffee. BUNN explains that there is a correlation between the degree of grind and the amount of solubles in the end cup, this is important because it is a balance, to few solubles or not enough time the water is in contact with the grounds and its weak, thin and bitter, too much and its to strong and bitter. Where the balance comes is the matching the degree of grind with the length of time your drip brewer takes to brew a pot. As I have read and found from brewing countless pots of coffee is that the best flavor solubles are extracted at the beginning of the cycle, more importantly, the longer the water is in contact with the coffee grounds, the more it picks up unfavorable elements in those grounds. So the object is to have the water roll through the coffee in a short enough time to not over brew and the coffee needs to be ground fine enough that the relatively rapid moving water flow absorbs as much of the good flavor solubles that it can to provide the perfect cup. Make sense?

A good brew cycle is around 3 minutes, you can time your machine if you want but you can do it by taste as well, if it seems like your not getting the flavor you want and want to start adjusting variables, start with the grind, knowing what we just discussed try grinding finer and see if it lowers your brew time and makes your cup taste better.

I'll talk more on grind methods next time, same bat time, same bat blog.