I have been making coffee for myself very regularly over the last 10 years. In that time, I’ve made a couple breakthroughs that have greatly increased my homebrew enjoyment:
Consuming freshly roasted (roasted less than a month before consuming) and freshly ground (ground less than a day before consuming) beans.
Realizing that I enjoy light roasts.
Focusing on consistency of my brews, and dialing in one variable at a time.
I dislike the stale coffee more than I dislike dark roasts. These days I consume coffee that is roasted less than a week before I drink it, and grind coffee as I brew. I suspect that freshness follows diminishing returns, and have not rigorously tested my enjoyment of coffee as a function of freshness.
As with many coffee beginners, I began by buying pre-ground beans or getting beans ground at the time of purchase. This was a major convenience, as it meant that I didn’t have to grapple with the seemingly infinite variations of burr grinders. Grinders can also be very expensive, so delaying this investment seemed right at the time.
Then one time, I forgot to grind my beans at the store. A friend let me use his grinder and I brewed coffee with the fresh grinds right away. The resulting coffee was much more flavorful and vibrant. I bought a cheap grinder shortly thereafter and have never looked back.
In my experience, coffee from light roasted beans & dark roasted beans is so different that the two are barely the same beverage. Regardless of the roast level you prefer, I believe that determining your preference will greatly improve your coffee enjoyment.
To me, dark roasts are bitter and upset my stomach. Dark roasts can be very unforgiving in terms of brew process; a slightly overextracted dark roast will be very caffeinated and bitter (perhaps headache inducing), and a slightly underextracted dark roast will still carry bitter notes while generally having a flat profile.
With lighter roasts, I find that there is a broader range of brew parameters that will produce coffee I really enjoy. This gives me more room to vary brew parameters without fear of hitting a wall of acidity.
In priority order, I’ve noticed the best improvements in consistency by:
a. investing in a better grinder.
b. investing in a sub-gram accuracy scale.
c. investing in a gooseneck kettle with an integrated thermometer.
Consistency is a bit of a loaded term. I don’t make multiple batches of coffee and try them side by side. I certainly don’t test for extraction using a refractometer. However, I do make coffee for myself nearly every day, often twice a day. When I do, I try to think about what changes I might make to improve tomorrow’s cup. This is often pretty simple; if the coffee is underextracted, I’ll use a finer grind setting.
In my experience, you can make delicious coffee with any gear. However, even while holding your brew parameters constant, you may wind up with wildly different cups of coffee. Ultimately, brewing is a noisy process, and it can be difficult to tell what changes to your process had what effect in your coffee.
Investing in higher quality gear can help improve consistency and establish a feedback loop between changes in input and changes in output. However, in my experience this is a rabbit hole, and there is always a more expensive piece of kit that purports to be higher quality. I think it is useful to take things slow; I try to use a piece for at least a year before considering an upgrade.
tags: coffee