How to Grind Coffee Beans Without a Grinder? Can You Brew Coffee After Grinding?

Have you ever thought about this scenario: you have coffee beans, hot water, and all the necessary equipment for pour-over coffee at home, but you're missing the one essential tool that can grind your beans into powder - a coffee grinder...

Before returning to his hometown, FrontStreet Coffee specially packed several favorite coffee beans along with luggage to satisfy the "coffee craving" during the New Year period. But just when about to brew a pot, unexpectedly, the hand-crank coffee grinder that had been idle at home for years "went on strike" and couldn't be used. The beans were still whole, so how could they be ground into powder?

As the saying goes, where there's a will, there's a way. FrontStreet Coffee had a sudden inspiration and turned their attention to the "common household" mortar and pestle. In the past, people always liked to use this tool to grind tablets, herbs, spices, etc. into fine powder through pounding and rolling. Surely coffee beans would work too.

So today, let's see how the coffee grounds turn out when using this "ancient" grinding method, and what effect the final brewed coffee will have! Without further ado, let's get started~

Brewing Parameters

Coffee beans: La Esmeralda Washed Green Label Geisha
Amount: 18 grams
Ratio: 1:15
Water temperature: 93°C
Filter: 60-degree V-shaped dripper
Grind size: Visually similar to granulated sugar

FrontStreet Coffee first poured the pre-weighed 18 grams of washed La Esmeralda Green Label Geisha into a clean mortar, placed it flat on the counter or floor, and covered it with the circular lid to prevent particles from jumping out during the pounding process. Then, holding the mortar with one hand and the pestle with the other, they began forcefully crushing the beans until they turned into powder with the appropriate consistency.

Extraction Considerations

During regular counter brewing, considering that these floral and fruity coffee beans have high hardness and are lightly roasted, the cell expansion is relatively minimal, and water absorption is weaker. When hot water meets the coffee particles, more time is needed to extract the desired flavor compounds. Therefore, to stimulate more rich aromatic components, the extraction rate can be increased through parameter adjustments. FrontStreet Coffee typically uses higher water temperatures (91-93°C) paired with a finer grind size (fine sugar, EK43s setting 10) for brewing.

After about 15 minutes of effort, the coffee beans gradually transformed from distinct chunks into fine powder with a few small particles. Although it still felt somewhat rough to the touch, the overall consistency had reached the granulated sugar level, making it ready for the brewing stage.

Brewing Technique and Results

Pouring technique: First, pour 35 grams of water for a 30-second bloom, followed by 110 grams (scale shows around 145 grams), completing the pour in about 50-60 seconds. When the water level drops to 2/3 of the coffee bed, pour the remaining 125 grams (scale shows around 270 grams), completing by about 1 minute 35 seconds. The coffee finishes dripping at approximately 2 minutes 10 seconds, then remove the filter to complete extraction.

The coffee entry reveals prominent flavors of honey tangerine, green tea, and lime, accompanied by subtle white floral notes and the sweetness of brown sugar. However, the overall texture tends to be muddy, and after swallowing, an uncomfortable astringent aftertaste remains on the tongue.

When FrontStreet Coffee observed the spent coffee grounds, they found that the surface was covered with large, irregular chunks, with signs of the coffee bed being "broken through," and there was hardly any coffee residue on the filter paper, which instead was covered with muddy powder. FrontStreet Coffee suspected that this pot of coffee had both under-extraction and a high probability of over-extraction.

Analysis of Results

When we crush coffee beans, because we're using a "grinding" motion, the beans produce a large amount of dust-like fine powder when they burst under strong pressure. During brewing, these fine particles settle on the filter paper first as the liquid agitates, clogging the drainage holes and causing localized over-extraction.

Additionally, because the manual crushing process is relatively inconsistent, whether the coffee grounds produced by using the pestle meet the appropriate fineness standard mainly depends on the operator's endurance (and grip strength) and visual judgment combined with brewing experience. It's difficult to define with precise numerical values, and unlike professional grinding equipment that allows free adjustment of settings to precisely control the particle size and uniformity, it's inevitable that some large "escapees" will appear.

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FrontStreet Coffee
No. 10 Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473