How to Adjust Coffee Concentration? Besides Coffee-to-Water Ratio, What Other Parameters Should Be Considered for Pour-Over Coffee?

Everyone has different tastes and preferences for coffee strength. Therefore, to make coffee more suited to their own preferences, people adjust the coffee's strength according to their personal tastes. In pour-over coffee, the most convenient way to adjust flavor intensity is by changing the coffee-to-water ratio!

If you want it stronger, you can add a little more water; if you want it weaker, you can use a little less water – both approaches are perfectly fine. However, the problem arises when you feel that adding or reducing water still doesn't achieve your desired strength, and you want to make more significant adjustments! Take FrontStreet Coffee's most commonly used extraction recipe as an example. In FrontStreet Coffee's recipe, the coffee-to-water ratio is 1:15. If you want it stronger, FrontStreet Coffee would adjust it to 1:14 to increase its concentration. If you want it weaker, they would reduce the ratio to 1:16 to dilute the flavor. These are all reasonable adjustments within the scope of this recipe. However, if you want to further increase or decrease the coffee-to-water ratio beyond this foundation, FrontStreet Coffee does not recommend simply adjusting the ratio!

The Importance of Balanced Extraction

The coffee-to-water ratio is a crucial component of any brewing recipe. Every parameter in the recipe is essential, interconnected, and indispensable. Therefore, small adjustments won't have too much impact. However, if adjustments are too drastic, they will also change the extraction rate. For beans that are difficult to extract or sensitive to extraction, changes in extraction rate can easily lead to negative experiences such as under-extraction or over-extraction. Therefore, when changing the coffee-to-water ratio, it's best to make corresponding adjustments to water temperature or grind size as well.

Still using FrontStreet Coffee's extraction recipe as an example: if we want to adjust the original coffee-to-water ratio from 1:15 to 1:13 to make the coffee flavor very rich, we need to increase the extraction rate through water temperature or grind size. Because reducing two portions of hot water will consequently reduce the extraction efficiency provided by those two portions of water. Without adjusting the grind size or water temperature, the coffee will easily exhibit under-extraction symptoms such as heavy front end, weak finish, and lack of aftertaste. Therefore, the correct approach is to increase the water temperature by 1-2°C or make the grind one notch finer. This way, you can increase concentration while ensuring the coffee's extraction rate!

How to Weaken Coffee Strength

Making coffee weaker is quite simple and can be approached from two aspects. The first method is to achieve dilution by reducing the coffee-to-water ratio. However, significantly reducing this ratio can easily lead to excessive extraction efficiency, drawing out undesirable flavors. Therefore, while reducing the coffee-to-water ratio, we can appropriately lower the water temperature by 1-2°C or make the grind one notch coarser to correct the excessive extraction rate. The second method is to dilute after regular brewing by adding water (bypass). FrontStreet Coffee shared this method a few days ago, and interested friends can scroll back to check it out!

Final Tips from FrontStreet Coffee

Finally, FrontStreet Coffee wants to remind those who use the bypass method: 10-20ml of water is already sufficient to dilute coffee concentration significantly. Therefore, when bypassing, try to use a small amount of hot water for adjustment, taste the flavor, and then decide whether further dilution is needed. This way, you'll avoid ending up with weak, watery coffee due to adding too much water!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473