Posted Thu Mar 21, 2013, 10:35pm Subject: Re: Coffee Proportions
The Speciality Coffee Association of America guidelines are pretty much the accepted standard or at least the starting point for coffee brewing and this hasn't changed with the so called "3rd Wave" movement. If anything there has been a tendency to use more coffee than the SCAA advocate and brew for shorter times.
Your starting proportions seem about right to me. Starbucks have for many years recommended the ratio you use. Stumptown recommend 42g (1.48oz) or 6 rounded tablespoons of coffee for 20oz in a Chemex which doesn't seem wildly different to your formula (6.67 tablespoons) especially if you consider rounded tablespoons are more generous than level tablespoons.
Personally for Chemex I stick to SCAA proportions which works out at 33 grams (1.16oz) or 5 level tablespoons for 20oz water. At least for the Chemex Stumptown are advocating much more coffee than the SCAA standard.
If anything your query highlights the importance of using weight rather than tablespoon measurements to compare brewing recipes since the actual amount of coffee a tablespoon holds varies with different coffees/roasts and whether you use level, rounded or heaped tablespoons.
Crotonmark902 Junior Member Joined: 21 Mar 2013 Posts: 21 Location: Westchester, NY Expertise: I live coffee
Posted Fri Mar 22, 2013, 3:18am Subject: Re: Coffee Proportions
al_bongo Said:
The Speciality Coffee Association of America guidelines are pretty much the accepted standard or at least the starting point for coffee brewing and this hasn't changed with the so called "3rd Wave" movement. If anything there has been a tendency to use more coffee than the SCAA advocate and brew for shorter times.
Your starting proportions seem about right to me. Starbucks have for many years recommended the ratio you use. Stumptown recommend 42g (1.48oz) or 6 rounded tablespoons of coffee for 20oz in a Chemex which doesn't seem wildly different to your formula (6.67 tablespoons) especially if you consider rounded tablespoons are more generous than level tablespoons.
Personally for Chemex I stick to SCAA proportions which works out at 33 grams (1.16oz) or 5 level tablespoons for 20oz water. At least for the Chemex Stumptown are advocating much more coffee than the SCAA standard.
If anything your query highlights the importance of using weight rather than tablespoon measurements to compare brewing recipes since the actual amount of coffee a tablespoon holds varies with different coffees/roasts and whether you use level, rounded or heaped tablespoons.
Thanks !! I was responding to a video posted showing much less coffee used. My experience with "hipster" coffee places is that their coffee is too weak
Do you drink dark roasted coffee? If so, you may be mistaking 'weak' flavors for lighter roasted coffee. Third wave coffee is much lighter roasted. This showcases the flavor of the bean/region and not impart roasted/burned flavors that are more predominant in dark roasting (like starbucks). Most who are new to evaluating coffee mix up roast level with strength.
Crotonmark902 Junior Member Joined: 21 Mar 2013 Posts: 21 Location: Westchester, NY Expertise: I live coffee
Posted Fri Mar 22, 2013, 3:38am Subject: Re: Coffee Proportions
diggi Said:
Do you drink dark roasted coffee? If so, you may be mistaking 'weak' flavors for lighter roasted coffee. Third wave coffee is much lighter roasted. This showcases the flavor of the bean/region and not impart roasted/burned flavors that are more predominant in dark roasting (like starbucks). Most who are new to evaluating coffee mix up roast level with strength.
Posted Fri Mar 22, 2013, 4:50am Subject: Re: Coffee Proportions
Metric or not (an aside: if you don't understand metric, then you CERTAINLY don't understand English, but I digress LOL)
go by weight. It's the most constant parameter throughout the brewing process.
Stumptown's recommendation for 1.5oz/20oz of coffee (by the wording, I'll guess that this is a yield ratio) means an ingredient ratio of 15.5 or so. SCAA is a "weaker" recipe at about 17+/-
2 tablespoons of ground coffee to 6 oz of water is the basic SCAA recipe. that's around 17, but volume is the worst way to brew coffee. Water density is nearly a constant at room temperature and normal conditions.
Coffee density has a HUGE range. A perfectly level tablespoon scoop of ground coffee (dip and sweep) is around 5g, but it's really 4.5g to maybe 7.5g. Add up to another 40% if you're not exactly level (heaping).
The good news: if you have a brewing process that extracts properly, the only thing that the brew ratio does is change the resulting strength.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- 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
Crotonmark902 Junior Member Joined: 21 Mar 2013 Posts: 21 Location: Westchester, NY Expertise: I live coffee
Posted Fri Mar 22, 2013, 5:02am Subject: Re: Coffee Proportions
I think adopting metric is incredibly pretentious for people who live in America But I digress. I understand the point about weight I brew via chemex after many years of brewing via melitta Still not sure which is better.
Just in case you didn't know, a US fluid oz of water is NOT 1 oz (by weight) of water, nor is 1 imperial fluid oz of water equal to 1 us fluid oz....
but a cc or ml is the same the world around. So is a gram... pretentious or not.
Crotonmark902 Said:
I don't understand "3rd Wave" coffee making proportions ... the recipes that I see online from Stumptown, etc. have much less coffee per ounce of liquid. ...
Just pointing out that many other suggestions use much MORE coffee per oz of liquid.
Using weight allows a consistency in units. This allows you to use a ratio (which if you use the same units, is unitless).
In the end, go with what tastes good. Most of the 3rd wave are updosing (using stronger recipes) for a variety of reasons.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- 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
Symbols: = New Posts since your last visit = No New Posts since last visit = Newest post
Forum Rules: No profanity, illegal acts or personal attacks will be tolerated in these discussion boards. No commercial posting of any nature will be tolerated; only private sales by private individuals, in the "Buy and Sell" forum. No cross posting allowed - do not post your topic to more than one forum, nor repost a topic to the same forum. Who Can Read The Forum? Anyone can read posts in these discussion boards. Who Can Post New Topics? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post new topics. Who Can Post Replies? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post replies. Can Photos be posted? Anyone can post photos in their new topics or replies. Who can change or delete posts? Any CoffeeGeek member can edit their own posts. Only moderators can delete posts. Probationary Period: If you are a new signup for CoffeeGeek, you cannot promote, endorse, criticise or otherwise post an unsolicited endorsement for any company, product or service in your first five postings.
= No New Posts since last visit 