What is High Concentration, Low Extraction in Coffee Brewing? How to Extract Non-Bitter Coffee?

Understanding "High Concentration, Low Extraction" in Coffee Brewing

You've likely seen the term "high concentration, low extraction" in FrontStreet Coffee's articles or other brewing guides! But when you search for explanations, you're bombarded with incomprehensible data stacked together. It's like a hero just leaving the novice village ready to level up, only to encounter the final boss—completely bewildering!

So today, FrontStreet Coffee will transform these complex theories into simple descriptions to help you better understand. What exactly is "high concentration, low extraction"!

What is High Concentration, Low Extraction?

"High concentration, low extraction" is not a fixed brewing method or set of parameters—it's both an extraction concept and the result of extraction. Many friends may not clearly understand what high concentration, low extraction is, but you've likely used brewing methods developed around this concept, because there are many approaches based on this idea: the most common is using a large amount of coffee grounds to extract a small amount of coffee liquid.

At this point, many of you might think of Japanese-style brewing methods, right? For example: the volcano-style pour where the coffee bed resembles Mount Fuji, or the Matsuya-style brewing with a "lid" for pre-infusion. That's correct—they both use large amounts of coffee grounds and then extract with an extremely low water-to-coffee ratio. Although the resulting coffee liquid isn't much, every drop is incredibly rich!

The Science Behind Concentration and Extraction

The reason the high concentration, low extraction concept emerged involves "concentration" and "extraction yield"! They are the main factors affecting coffee flavor!

Like the well-known Golden Cup Extraction Chart, it was created by authoritative American coffee institutions based on extensive research into American taste preferences. Studies show that coffee with extraction yield between 18%-22% and concentration between 1.15%-1.35% is what most Americans find delicious! This is also the preference for the vast majority of us! So, what do these terms mean respectively?

Concentration

Concentration is the easiest to understand! For example, a cup of sugar water—if it contains too much sugar, it becomes overwhelmingly sweet, while if it contains too little sugar, it's just water with a hint of sweetness. The same principle applies to coffee: if the concentration is too high, the flavors become too intense, making the entire cup feel very thick and cloudy, making it difficult to distinguish any individual flavors. If it's too weak, it's just water with coffee flavor. Only within a reasonable concentration range can you enjoy a coffee with prominent flavors and full body.

Extraction Yield

Extraction yield directly affects the overall flavor of coffee. When it exceeds the maximum Golden Cup value of 22%, the coffee will develop strong bitter and burnt flavors—what's commonly known as over-extraction. When your extraction yield falls below the minimum Golden Cup value of 18%, the coffee will likely exhibit sharp acidity and hay-like flavors from under-extraction. Only within the appropriate extraction range can the resulting coffee taste be balanced!

Practical Applications and Problem-Solving

Based on the Golden Cup extraction concept, people have created many classic brewing recipes (for example, FrontStreet Coffee commonly uses 15g coffee, 225ml of 92°C water, fine sugar-like grind, and three-stage pouring) to ensure the final coffee falls within the delicious Golden Cup extraction range. However, some coffee beans are difficult to extract properly (such as dark roast, anaerobic processed, or aged coffee beans). Their structure is loose, and conventional brewing methods can easily lead to over-extraction and bitterness. In such cases, you need to modify parameters to reduce extraction yield, thereby obtaining coffee without bitterness (adjustable parameters include: water temperature, grind size).

However, if you only reduce the extraction yield while keeping other parameters unchanged for brewing, it means the concentration will also decrease accordingly, resulting in coffee that becomes water with coffee flavor. Such concentration is clearly unacceptable to us. Therefore, you need to increase concentration while reducing extraction yield (adjustable aspects include: adding more coffee, reducing water). High concentration, low extraction—this is a fault-tolerant approach called "high concentration, low extraction"!

Brewing Methods Using High Concentration, Low Extraction

There are so many! Reducing the conventional water-to-coffee ratio is also an extraction method based on the high concentration, low extraction concept. Not to mention unique brewing methods like Matsuya-style that require bypass to dilute extremely concentrated coffee liquid.

But again, you can't have your cake and eat it too! Low extraction yield mainly extracts the early to middle stages, rarely extracting the late stage, which naturally reduces the coffee's finish performance! So, choose your beans wisely~

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