Espresso Brewing Advice

I know basically nothing about coffee and when I go to a coffee shop, most times I have no idea what I’m ordering. So I’m going to change that.

So, in these next three episodes, I’m breaking down, learning the three most important aspects of making that perfect cup of coffee; the bean, the roast and the brew.

For the last step of the brew, I turned to Jackson at Peace Coffee to learn several unique possible ways to brew coffee and then what differences they’ll make to the final taste.

First thing you’re going to do when you’re making coffee is you’re going to measure your ingredients, grind the coffee and then heat the water, going to get the coffee and the water to hang out for a certain period of time and then we’re going to take the water and the coffee away from each other, which is going to result in brewed coffee beverage.

What you’re going to see is a very, very subtle difference between them. Okay. What you’re going to see is that the coarser the filter gets the more kind of dirty the coffee is, it’s going to have a bigger body but it’s going to have less nuance to it. It’s just going to have it in your face single note- bad coffee taste!

While if you have a thicker paper filter or something like that, it’s going to be a much cleaner taste, it’s going to have less body, it’s going to have less heaviness in the mouth but the flavors are going to come through a lot clearer.

Steps to brewing Espresso.

First off, remove your portafilter, wipe it clean and dry because this thing has some moisture condensed within it. We’ll run that pump until water comes out of it, make sure that everything is coming through at the right temperature. Okay. Going to dose. When to tamp, you’re just going to compress these ground until they can’t be compressed any further.

The hallmark of the espresso machine is that it brews with very high pressure, so if it’s not tamped evenly it’s going to find a point of least resistance and brew through that. You want everything to extract evenly. Latch that in, start that up. See how it’s flowing completely evenly through the brew bed? That is exactly what we want to see with an espresso coffee Espresso Brewing Advice.

So to stop the pump when the scale read 50 grams, right up near the top here and that took about 27 seconds, so we were right in the ballpark of where we want our extraction to be. Notice that it has a nice thick golden crema on top. Freshly roasted coffee has co2 gas present within it and in the pressurized system of an espresso brewer, it’s going to actually extract that gas along with it to create a foamy head.

Espresso is known for being a butt shot of caffeine, right? Exactly. Does it actually have more caffeine or is it just concentrated cup of coffee? Ounce for ounce, absolutely it’s going to have more caffeine. First off, hit this with hot water just to warm the whole thing up. This way, when the hot water hits the beans it’s going to keep things at the temperature we want it to be for the purposes of the brew.

Set my timer for six minutes. Adding that French press ground coffee. I’m going to start the timer as soon as the water hits the coffee and then hit that with just enough water to saturate it and give it a quick stir with this paddle and then I’m just going to add water until I hit 800 milliliters. 800 milliliters is also 800 grams of water because the metric system is awesome. Alright.

So, what I’m going to do now is set that filter just below the surface of the beans. So while we’re waiting for this we can go ahead and do a Chemex as well.

So I’m going to drop the coffee in there- kind of even it out. Espresso Brewing Advice The first thing we’re going to do is hit this with just a little bit of water for what’s called the bloom. I mentioned how freshly roasted coffee has co2 present in it, there’s that bubble right there. That’s that co2 gas escaping. In filtered coffee, this is an impediment to the brewing process- this bloom.

So once we’ve got the bloom going, done swelling, I’m going to go ahead and hit it with some water. The brew is going to settle down just a little bit and then I’m going to pour slightly higher in order to get those grounds that are on the sides to wash away.

You can see how the slurry is getting lighter as I go, that’s because more grounds are floating down to the bottom. So there we go. We can see that that slurry is breaking up a little bit, it’s not all an even tan shade of bubbles. Eventually, we’re going to start seeing holes in the bubbles.

That’s our sign that we can just finish the pour. I’m going to pour until I hit 500 grams of water. I’m just going to walk away. So we’re now: three, two, one, blast off! So, when we’re done, what you want to do now is kind of pop this filter just a little bit. We’re going to push it down and then pull it right back up. These grounds are going to cascade from the top right down to the bottom.

Once they’re cascading down to the bottom, they’ve released all their gases, they’re all completely done with. Now you can just push it down very gently. So here is a French press. Hopefully, your palate is not completely blown out by that espresso, but it’s going to taste a lot lighter than the espresso.

Even I see as the coffee settles, a little bit of the silt is settling to the bottom of the cup. That’s going to give it a little bit more body, a little bit more chew to it, but again, it’s going to muddy those aromatic flavors. Do you want to taste the Chemex? We’re done dripping through with that. Yeah, I’m curious to try this. I feel like any coffee hipster friend I have has one of these.

Yep. So you can taste that zing of the acidity just a little bit more and you can get some other flavors in there. I think I’d probably say that the Chemex is a little bit better, but I can barely notice the difference. Alright. We coffee owners are always about that little bit better.

That’s why they have one of these things. Now, we’re going to brew with a couple of brewing methods that involve open flame here. First off, let’s do a Turkish coffee, shall we? Also occasionally known as Greek coffee or Arabic coffee, it’s brewed using this guy right here. It’s called an E-brick and it’s probably the oldest continuous used method of brewing coffee.

So what we have is our super-duper-duper fine ground coffee. Espresso Brewing Advice We’re also going to add two teaspoons of sugar and it’s going to mitigate the bitterness of the brew because we’re also, by definition, going to over extract it. Going to hit this with about 60 grams of water, just about two ounces. Get it over the flame, bring it close to a boil, it’s going to fizzle and bubble.

Go ahead and dip that into the coffee and hit that green power button on there for me. Oh, there it is, there it is. Kind of see it. Typical instructions tell you to do this two to three times.

Just drop the whole thing in the grounds and all. What you do with this is you let the ground settle just a little bit for a minute after service. By all means, try it. Alright. It’s a drink meant to be savored; you drink it very slowly, tiny little sips at a time. Definitely taste the sugar.

Has that similar thickness and richness as the espresso did. Right, right. Yeah, it’s good. Good deal. Might just be the sugar. Yeah. I like sweet things. Yeah. So what is this apparatus? So this apparatus, everybody who sees this the first time asks “Is that a bong or something?” it’s not a bong.

So we’re going to start out with 350 grams of water. So I got this little spring on here that’s holding the filter in place. Set that in here, open that flame up. Get it under there. So, you can see some saturation happening at the top, just beginning to force it into the top.

So, the water in here is turning to steam, forcing the water that’s in the bottom through the center into the top. I’m going to start my timer just like I did before- two minutes. Get everything evenly saturated. Alright. We’re about a minute and a half out. It’s about where we want it to be. So what I’m going to do now is remove the flame. I’m going to actually cover the bottom with this cold towel.

There it goes. So the steam that was filling this headspace and condensing into water, that’s creating a vacuum that’s sucking with coffee through the top into the bottom.

And have a taste of that and I’ll have myself a taste as well. It’s been a while since I’ve had a siphon brew. So again, it’s got a little bit of that zing, that same acidity the Chemex has, but a little bit less than that and a little bit more of that kind of muddier, dirtier kind of flavor that you got from the French press. Again, that’s all due to the filtration.

Everything else is just mechanics to get to this level of extraction. It seems pretty similar to the Chemex. Yeah. I could barely tell the difference between the French press and the Chemex, so hard to tell for sure. It seems even closer. And again, the difference is going to come from the kind of coffee.

As long as you have the method of brewing down, you’re going to be pulling the same kind of stuff from the coffee no matter which method you use. I can brew you a good cup of coffee using the cheapest piece of stovetop cookware and a sock as a filter. Just as long as I can get the water to the right temperature, saturate to the right amount of time and get the grounds afterwards.

Thanks to Jackson, I now know several possible ways to brew coffee. Through these past three episodes, I’ve now examined some of the most important aspects that go into making that perfect cup of coffee. And I feel like I’ve managed to learn a lot.

The next time I go into a coffee shop I think I might actually know what I’m doing. All the wisdom I’ve gathered from these experts along the way will also be put to use in my next video when I go forth and attempt to make my own cup of coffee entirely from scratch. So be sure to check that out next. And as always, be sure to subscribe, support us on Patreon so we can keep making awesome content like this. Thanks for watching.