General coffee brewing techniques and methods | Coffee Emergency Cyberspace Roastery

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Much of what makes a good cup is in the brewer...many drip machines brew at 15-20 degrees below the ideal, and that is very bad. French presses, vacuum pots and high-quality drip brewers are highly recommended. Think about how much you spend on good coffee per year...why are you still abusing it with that $15 Wal-Mart dripper?

The same is true of espresso machines. That "steam toy" from Bed, Bath and Beyond isn't going to give you the same kind of creamy, well-extracted shot that you'll get from a $500 Rancilio/Expobar/Gaggia machine (or an even bigger one). Many options, shop around.

We find that a lot of people don't really like to be told how to brew their coffee, as every person seems to have his/her own method. Below are a few (very basic) guidelines for how we like to brew ours.

Drip/Vac Pot/French Press:

For a perfect cup, use 7g (1/4 oz. - 2 Tbsp.) of ground coffee per 5 fl. oz. of water.
Grind as fine as your coffee maker allows (Press: fine | Vac: finer | Drip: maybe not so fine); brew as close to 200-205º F as possible.
A good average steeping time is 3-4 minutes (not many options with a drip machine, but...).
Coffee is stale approx. 10 days after roasting - buy just enough to last one week.
Grind right before you brew - coffee stales hyper-fast once ground!

Espresso:

NOTE: The following guidelines are common wisdom for espresso making, and a good place to start. However, our Code Brown in particular seems to prefer cooler temperatures (flush well, particularly if you have a heat-exchanger machine), a coarser grind, a firmer tamp, and a shorter time (low to mid 20s).

I've had a little trouble thermocoupling a portafilter basket for "scientific" testing of Code Brown, and I'm not sure how scientific I am anyway. I know that our huge heat-exchanger Rancilio runs at about 201º F once it's been flushed for a good 30 or 40 seconds, and that makes a pretty righteous shot with CB or CBX. I've been grinding finer lately and pulling some truly luscious 1 oz. double ristrettos that run about exactly 30 seconds.

My espresso technique is constantly evolving as I learn new things, which with coffee is a constant. I could spend weeks datalogging shots and making minute pressurestat adjustments and looking at coffee grounds with a microscope...but it probably wouldn't make me any happier with the coffee, so it's real, real easy to avoid, and I apologize to all you science-heads for that. When the pump is started, the surprise at what falls in the cup is really what's fun about espresso. I hope that you think so too, or can at least understand what I'm getting at.

Happy brewing!

-Jason

For a perfect cup, use 7g (1/4 oz. - 2 Tbsp.) of ground coffee per shot - 14g for a 2 oz. long double or 1 oz. ristretto (the grind is what makes the difference here).
Don't overfill the portafilter...it took me months to figure out that this really does not make for a better shot.
Grind right before you brew - coffee stales hyper-fast once ground!
Grind very fine with a high-quality burr grinder; tamp with 30-60 lbs. of force; brew at 195-205º F.
The ideal for espresso is a 25- to 30-second shot, regardless of size. Adjust your grind and tamp to get there.

Much else can be said about the preparation of coffee. Here are two good places to learn:

CoffeeGeek
alt.coffee

Enjoy the quest.