MoJoeCoffeeRoaster Senior Member Joined: 19 Aug 2011 Posts: 12 Location: Vegas Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Sun Nov 25, 2012, 10:35am Subject: Help with understanding pour over
I have a few beehouse drippers and lately have burned though a ton of coffee trying to perfect my method. I am really looking for some science on what is happening durring the brew, particularly with how the bloom and the crust effect extraction.
In my head it always made sense that the less crust you have the water would pass through althe grinds the same and give an even extraction. My old method was a fine drip grind, a long bloom till the coffee collapsed (a minute) then breaking the crust to keep all the grounds sunk.
I feel like I am not getting as much character and clarity as I would like. Seems Andy Spenger, 2 time champ with a beehouse, likes a shorter bloom and keeps the crust rising through most of the brew.
I notice when cupping you keep the crust floating too
So my question is why, I drive my self crazy with this crap and I can't wrap my head around why this creates a better cup. Do the grinds sitting on top get extracted?
Posted Sun Nov 25, 2012, 1:29pm Subject: Re: Help with understanding pour over
MoJoeCoffeeRoaster Said:
I have a few beehouse drippers and lately have burned though a ton of coffee trying to perfect my method. I am really looking for some science on what is happening durring the brew, particularly with how the bloom and the crust effect extraction.
In my head it always made sense that the less crust you have the water would pass through althe grinds the same and give an even extraction. My old method was a fine drip grind, a long bloom till the coffee collapsed (a minute) then breaking the crust to keep all the grounds sunk.
I feel like I am not getting as much character and clarity as I would like. Seems Andy Spenger, 2 time champ with a beehouse, likes a shorter bloom and keeps the crust rising through most of the brew.
I notice when cupping you keep the crust floating too
So my question is why, I drive my self crazy with this crap and I can't wrap my head around why this creates a better cup. Do the grinds sitting on top get extracted?
You could be overthinking it. Single cup brewing is subject to errors in several areas. The quantities are smaller, so seemingly small variation may make a big difference in brew ratio - which I think may be one of the largest sources of variation I see in single cup brewing.
The brew ratio is the ingredient list for a recipe. If you have 2 parts flour, 2 parts liquid, 1 egg, you can make pancakes - but if you undershoot the flour amount, you end up making popover batter, which cooks differently than pancake batter.
With coffee, it the brew ratio determines the end strength - but the method of controlling the contact is the primary control for extraction.
Consistency is the key here - so get a scale and weigh your coffee and understand your brew ratio in mass.
One thing I can do consistently is overextract with a pourover. You're introducing clean hot water at the top, the water acts as a solvent as it contacts the grounds and washes the coffee through the filter. Percolation frequently stalls or is fairly slow unless you have a pool of water mixed with the grounds to create enough flow through the grounds.
The floating crust is extracting less than the submerged grounds. There is no flow through the crust, so water that is extracting in a moistened but floating crust of grounds is not contributing as much dissolved coffee to the produced beverage. However, so long as you eventually agitate the grounds enough to get some rinsing through the crust, it is generally of little consequence.
Ideally, you look for a grind that allows contact and percolation that is a reasonable timeframe to allow most of the delivered water to be through the grounds in about 3-4 minutes. Fine drip grind, depending on your grinder, may contain way too many fines for this to allow decent percolation.
Cupping is a completely different method of brewing - it doesn't apply to pourover or percolation methods. Additionally, you don't consume the end result of a cupping - it's only for taste sampling.
Just some thoughts for you to brew upon. Good luck!
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
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