How to Enhance Sweetness in Pour-Over Coffee? What Does "High Concentration, Low Extraction" Mean? Understanding High Concentration, Low Extraction in Pour-Over Coffee

Although the sweetness in coffee doesn't come entirely from sugar, this sweetness is enough to make us secrete pleasant dopamine, which is why people always prioritize "sweetness" when pursuing coffee. In contrast, bitterness is the least appealing flavor that makes us resistant to this cup of coffee and difficult to swallow. So, are there any brewing methods that can avoid the excessive release of bitterness while only preserving the sweetness of coffee?

There really is! As FrontStreet Coffee often mentions, flavors in coffee dissolve at different rates due to varying molecular sizes. First comes sweet and sour, followed by bitter and miscellaneous flavors. If we don't want too much bitterness in our coffee, we simply need to control the brewing to end before the bitterness dissolves in large quantities.

Of course, this doesn't mean you should cut off the tail end of coffee extraction, because if not pre-set, this will cause deviations in your original extraction. What FrontStreet Coffee wants to share today is not a specific brewing method or brewing parameters, but a brewing concept—a concept that can make coffee only sweet and not bitter. It is called—"high concentration, low extraction."

What is High Concentration, Low Extraction?

To understand the concept of "high concentration, low extraction," we first need to briefly understand Golden Cup extraction. The so-called Golden Cup extraction refers to the generally accepted delicious range for coffee. As long as we control the concentration and extraction rate within this range (concentration 1.15-1.35%, extraction rate 18-22%) when brewing coffee, this cup of coffee will be liked by the vast majority of people. Because concentration and extraction rate achieve balance, the coffee not only has appropriate concentration but also tastes excellent.

The concept of high concentration, low extraction can be understood as controlling the concentration and extraction rate of coffee at the higher and lower ends of the Golden Cup extraction range, respectively. For example, if the coffee we brew has a concentration of 1.35% and an extraction rate of 18%, then we can understand it as "high concentration, low extraction." Of course, this is just an analogy. Even if your concentration is higher, reaching 1.45%, and the extraction rate is lower, reaching 17%, it's still a cup of high concentration, low extraction coffee. However, it's important to know that "low extraction" doesn't mean the extraction rate has to be very low; it's just relative, reducing the extraction rate to avoid the release of miscellaneous flavors from the tail end. If the extraction rate is too low, the coffee will be very bland due to insufficient substances, or it may become sharp and sour due to too much acidity. Therefore, what we need to achieve is to increase the concentration while keeping the extraction rate within an appropriate range.

Origins and Applications

As we all know, Japanese people have a special fondness for dark-roasted coffee. But when beans are roasted darker, bitter substances are more easily extracted. What Japanese people love about dark-roasted coffee is its rich body, steady flavors of spices and chocolate, not the "heart-torturing bitterness." Therefore, in the years when extraction theory was not yet fully popularized, they researched many classic brewing methods! These coffee extractions all have a significant characteristic: large coffee grounds amount, small liquid weight. Without exception, the final extracted coffee is high in sweetness and not bitter. And this is the precursor of high concentration, low extraction. By reducing liquid weight and increasing extraction rate, they obtain coffee with extremely high concentration but appropriate extraction rate. But at the same time, because the coffee concentration is very high, they will add hot water to dilute it after brewing is complete, diluting it to appropriate concentration before serving it to customers.

Practical Brewing Methods

If you don't want to use these cumbersome brewing methods, we can also design our own high concentration, low extraction brewing plan. After all, as FrontStreet Coffee said, "high concentration, low extraction" is a brewing concept. The brewing method often shared by FrontStreet Coffee is actually a high concentration, low extraction version! You can refer to it! Take light-roasted coffee as an example; just reduce the parameters for dark-roasted coffee! Coffee grounds: 15g, grind: EK43 setting 10, 80% pass-through rate with #20 sieve, water temperature: 92°C, coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15, brewing technique: three-stage method, filter cup: V60, extraction time: 2 minutes.

With these parameters, the extracted light-roasted coffee will have an extraction rate around 17.8-19.5% and a concentration between 1.28-1.42%. The coffee shows full and rich flavors with bright acidity. We can apply this concept to other brewing methods—by reducing the amount of hot water injected while increasing the extraction rate, the coffee concentration can be increased, and the extraction rate can also be limited to an appropriate range. The Ristretto in espresso systems is such an operation—by grinding finer and reducing extraction water on the original espresso basis, allowing a small amount of liquid weight to extract more substances, concentration increases while extraction rate is not high, making the coffee high in sweetness and not bitter.

Important Considerations

However, we need to note that overly extreme high concentration, low extraction (such as the particularly concentrated iced brew) has disadvantages! Because it sacrifices a large amount of tail-end substances, the performance of flavor, body, and aftertaste will decline. If it's some very high-quality beans, then we'd better not use the high concentration, low extraction brewing method. But if it's some beans that are far from the roasting date, dark-roasted, anaerobic processed, or otherwise likely to extract bitterness, then the concept of high concentration, low extraction will be a very good choice.

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