How to Brew Coffee at Home with Coffee Grounds? How to Make Coffee Taste Better - The Easiest Way to Drink Coffee Grounds

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Many coffee enthusiasts have begun researching how to brew coffee at home, but they don't know where to start. First, they don't know what equipment to use for brewing coffee at home, and second, they don't know the brewing process or how to make it taste good. In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will answer these questions one by one for coffee enthusiasts.

How to Make Pour-Over Coffee at Home?

There are many ways to brew coffee at home, such as making pour-over coffee yourself, pour-over drip bag coffee at home, or instant coffee, cold brew coffee, etc. However, with the promotion of the specialty coffee market, making pour-over coffee at home has become a trend.

This is because the pour-over coffee experience is excellent, and it offers the best flavor among various coffee brewing methods. This is because pour-over coffee uses freshly ground coffee beans, so the aroma preservation is more complete than drip bag coffee. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will share how to make pour-over coffee at home.

Pour-Over Coffee Equipment

First, you must prepare the necessary equipment for pour-over coffee. Coffee enthusiasts who frequently visit FrontStreet Coffee to enjoy single-origin coffee may have noticed that FrontStreet Coffee always uses fresh coffee beans for pour-over coffee, weighing precise grams with an electronic scale before putting them into the grinder. Additionally, you'll need a thermometer, pour-over kettle, filter cup, filter paper, sharing pot, etc. As you can see, there's quite a lot of equipment to prepare for pour-over coffee. So how should you choose? FrontStreet Coffee will now share this with everyone.

1. Pour-Over Kettle

There are various sizes and materials of pour-over kettles on the market, and you can choose according to your needs. What affects the brewing result more is the spout size, as it relates to water flow rate. Beginners are generally recommended to use narrow-spout kettles, which are easier to control. Additionally, each type of pour-over kettle is suitable for different heating methods. For example, moka pots are heated with induction cookers or gas stoves, so pay special attention when purchasing.

2. Filter Cup

Filter cups come in different sizes and materials, mainly divided into three shapes: fan-shaped, conical, and wave filter cups. The size of the filter holes at the bottom of the filter cup affects the flow rate of extracted coffee, thereby influencing the coffee's flavor. Fan-shaped filter cups have small filter holes, slow flow rate, and richer mouthfeel; conical filter cups have large filter holes, fast flow rate, and lighter mouthfeel; wave filter cups have flat bottoms and special wave filter paper, resulting in the most uniform coffee taste. Particularly notable are metal mesh filter cups, which don't require filter paper and can retain more coffee oils for a richer taste, but some finer coffee powder may not be filtered out.

3. Filter Paper

Filter paper comes in bleached and unbleached varieties. Bleached filter paper looks whiter, while unbleached filter paper appears light brown. The function of filter paper is to use extremely dense fibers to retain ground coffee powder and filter the extracted coffee into the cup. When purchasing filter paper, choose the corresponding type according to your filter cup.

4. Coffee Grinder

Good pour-over coffee requires a good coffee grinder. There are three types of coffee grinders on the market:

1) Ghost tooth grinder

2) Flat burr grinder

3) Conical burr grinder

5. Thermometer

A thermometer is used to measure the water temperature for coffee. There are Tiamo thermometers, Hero thermometers, and Cafede Kona thermometers on the market.

6. Electronic Scale

An electronic scale helps us better control the coffee-to-water ratio during brewing, reducing unstable factors and increasing error tolerance. Electronic scales range from several hundred yuan to as low as几十 yuan. There are Yami electronic scales, Hero smart scales, and Timemore electronic scales.

7. Flour Sifter

Mainly used to determine grind size. Each coffee bean has a different suitable grind size for pour-over. Through continuous testing, FrontStreet Coffee has determined that 80% passing through a Chinese standard #20 sieve is the suitable grind size for pour-over.

8. Sharing Pot

If you're drinking alone, you can skip the sharing pot and place it directly over a mug to drip. For brewing multiple cups of coffee, you'll need a sharing pot. With the sharing pot's scale markings and transparent material, you can more easily understand and control the extraction process, making the sharing pot more than just for serving. FrontStreet Coffee recommends the HARIO V60 Cloud Sharing Pot and Kalita Sharing Pot.

What are the detailed steps for pour-over coffee?

Above, FrontStreet Coffee listed the equipment needed for pour-over coffee. So how exactly should you use them? How can you brew single-origin coffee to bring out their flavors? This mainly starts from four aspects: water temperature, grind size, coffee-to-water ratio, and brewing technique.

1. Water Temperature

The higher the water temperature, the stronger the extraction ability, resulting in more bitter coffee with intense flavor; lower water temperature means weaker extraction ability, making coffee more likely to become sour with mild and light taste. The pour-over temperature should be adjusted according to the coffee's roast level. Light to medium roast beans are recommended at 90-91°C, while medium-dark roast beans are recommended at 85-87°C. FrontStreet Coffee basically adjusts within this range. Once a customer questioned this brewing temperature, so FrontStreet Coffee took Golden Mandheling coffee beans (dark roast) and brewed them with 90°C water temperature. The result was almost comparable to espresso. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee generally recommends using 86-88°C water temperature for Mandheling coffee beans.

2. Grind Size

Grind size refers to the size of coffee particles and affects the contact time between coffee and water. If the coffee powder is finer, water can extract more substances in the same amount of time, but fine grind size makes coffee prone to over-extraction during the extraction process; conversely, the coarser the coffee grind size, the fewer substances extracted in the same amount of time, but coarser grind size makes coffee prone to under-extraction. FrontStreet Coffee recommends using 80% pass rate through Chinese standard #20 sieve as the pour-over grind size. This was determined through multiple taste tests. It's worth noting that different coffee beans have different grind sizes, so when the pour-over flavor doesn't seem right, you can check if there's an issue with the grind size.

3. Coffee-to-Water Ratio

The coffee-to-water ratio refers to the proportion of coffee powder to brewing water, affecting the coffee's concentration. It can be 1:10, 1:13, 1:15, or 1:16. FrontStreet Coffee recommends using a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, which is relatively moderate in both concentration and mouthfeel. Of course, everyone pursues different coffee tastes, so when extracting coffee, everyone can adjust their coffee-to-water ratio according to their desired concentration and taste.

Pour-Over Coffee Brewing Methods

After completing the steps mentioned above by FrontStreet Coffee, we come to the final step of pour-over coffee, which is the brewing technique. There are many brewing techniques, such as three-stage brewing method, single-pour brewing method, and drip brewing method, all of which are feasible. There are various pour-over methods, and you can choose according to personal preference. However, FrontStreet Coffee still recommends novice pour-over enthusiasts use the three-stage water injection method because this technique is suitable for light roast, medium-light, and medium roast coffee beans. The segmented extraction of three-stage water injection can clearly define the front, middle, and back-end flavors of coffee, better ensuring flavor presentation. FrontStreet Coffee's store has always used this brewing technique to provide coffee, ensuring quality. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will teach coffee enthusiasts how to perform three-stage brewing.

Three-Stage Brewing Process:

First Water Injection: Bloom (Helps release gas)

Coffee beans undergo a series of chemical reactions and physical changes during the roasting process from green beans to roasted beans. After reaching a certain degree of roasting, coffee beans accumulate large amounts of gas (mostly carbon dioxide).

Generally, the fresher the beans and the closer to roasting, the more bubbles during blooming. Dark roast beans also release more gas during blooming than light roast beans. FrontStreet Coffee's coffee beans are all freshly roasted, so we generally recommend customers let the beans rest for three days first, allowing the coffee beans to release carbon dioxide first, which can avoid instability and under-extraction issues during brewing.

After the bloom releases gas, coffee particles can absorb water evenly, allowing for more uniform extraction later. A good bloom allows coffee powder to quickly, fully, and evenly release gas while also enabling full and rapid contact between coffee powder and water, helping coffee powder to be extracted evenly.

Pay attention to the following four points during blooming:

1. Before water injection for blooming, level the coffee powder first.

2. Water injection during blooming should be gentle.

3. During the blooming process, the extracted liquid dripping down should be as minimal as possible; when too much extracted liquid appears in the lower pot, reduce the water injection amount or pay attention to the grind size. (If the bloom water volume is too much and a large amount of coffee liquid drips down, the falling water doesn't stay but directly carries substances from the outside of the coffee powder - the outer layer's miscellaneous and astringent tastes also start to dissolve, resulting in coffee that's both thin but has over-extracted miscellaneous tastes. If the bloom water volume is insufficient and no water drips down, it means the coffee powder hasn't absorbed enough water, and some coffee hasn't released enough gas, causing under-extraction). Based on this situation, FrontStreet Coffee conducted multiple bloom tests and found that injecting twice the amount of water as the coffee powder weight during blooming is quite suitable.

4. The blooming time should be about 30 to 40 seconds. When the expansion of the coffee powder surface ends, you'll see the coffee surface shrink, indicating the bloom is complete and you can start water injection. (In terms of time, if the blooming time is too long, coffee easily develops bitter and astringent tastes; if the time is too short and soaking is insufficient, coffee may have under-extraction or fail to fully showcase its characteristics). Generally, the end time of blooming varies for each bean, but FrontStreet Coffee found this不利于新手操作. After all, beginners focus on standardization and ease of use. Therefore, while ensuring coffee beans are still in a freshly roasted state, FrontStreet Coffee recommends a bloom time of 30 seconds. Of course, experienced individuals can adjust the time themselves.

Second Water Injection

The second water injection starts from the center, injecting into the bottom of the powder layer with a small water stream. To concentrate the water stream's penetrating power, the circular movement range should be small, about the size of a one-yuan coin, then expand outward. From the second water injection, pay attention to the water volume, trying not to exceed the height of the powder layer. That is, when the water stream reaches close to the filter paper, you can stop adding water.

Third Water Injection

As the originally thicker powder layer near the filter paper becomes heavier from absorbing water and slides down and thins as the water level drops, you can perform the third water injection when the water level drops to halfway.

Starting from the third water injection, observe the magnitude of the water level drop. Also start from the center and move in circles, with water volume not exceeding the powder layer height. At this point, you'll also observe that foam proportion has filled the surface. The third water injection should increase the tumbling of coffee particles, causing all settled particles to tumble and dissolve soluble substances.

The tumbling particles will begin to settle when water addition stops. At this point, rely on the flow rate caused by the dropping water level to create friction between coffee particles. Once water addition stops, coffee powder particles sink downward, causing blockage. So pay special attention to the rhythm of water addition. If there are too many water interruptions, it's equivalent to letting coffee powder particles continuously soak in water, which will lead to astringent and miscellaneous tastes in the final coffee extraction.

Finally, you'll get a cup of your own pour-over coffee, then taste it to see if you've extracted the flavors that the coffee beans should present.

The above is the content organized by FrontStreet Coffee about how to make pour-over coffee at home. We hope it can help coffee enthusiasts who want to make pour-over coffee at home.

For more specialty coffee beans, add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473