jaupro Junior Member Joined: 4 Mar 2013 Posts: 1 Location: canton,ohio Expertise: Just starting
Posted Mon Mar 4, 2013, 1:47pm Subject: help me refine my process.
OK. So I've just been getting into coffee the last couple of months. Here is what I have.
An electric kettle that warms to desired specific temps.
A bodum brazil 8 cup
And a mr. Coffee burr mill grinder (current model)
I buy my beans fresh at a local roaster (muggswigz). They said via a contest they are currently ranked in the top 14 in the country. But I digress. When I taste their brewed samples they are perfect. Mine are still good but not fantastic. I'm no expert in describing the flavors I taste yet, but the best I can say is a hard sour bitterness usually at or near the bottom of the cup. Here is my process.
I grind the beans between the course and fine setting but closer to coarse.
I grind up 45 grams and pour it into my Brazil.
I set the kettle to 200, and it usually heats to 203.
I pour just under a liter into the brazil and stir semi vigoursly for about 30 seconds.
I put plunger in and stop it just barely touching the water and wait 3 more minutes
I plunge down slowly applying slight pressure at the bottom.
I then pour the coffee into my thermos brand thermos, pour a cup and cap it off and drink the rest through out the day.
coffeestig Junior Member Joined: 25 Feb 2013 Posts: 60 Location: Charlotte Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Quick Mill QM67 Grinder: Mazzer Mini Electronic... Drip: French Press
Posted Mon Mar 4, 2013, 2:04pm Subject: Re: help me refine my process.
You may be grinding to fine. Also, look up alton brown french press... he recommends a very small pinch of salt which will remove the bitterness you speak of.
calblacksmith Moderator Joined: 25 Nov 2007 Posts: 5,684 Location: Riverside, Ca, U.S.A. Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: ECM Veneziano A1 Grinder: Many different commercial Vac Pot: 40s era Silex Drip: Milita, Bunn&Curtis... Roaster: Cast iron pan, gas burner
Posted Mon Mar 4, 2013, 3:12pm Subject: Re: help me refine my process.
That bitterness is due to stale coffee but yes on stale coffee the salt does help a little.
On a FP, do not put pressure on the grounds in the bottom, just press until slightly above the grounds then pour very slowly so as to leave as much sediment in the bottom of the fp and not in your cup/thermos.
FP is not my method of choice when brewing coffee, I like a Vac pot or the Aeropress which works backwards from the FP.
You might try not stirring so much, you may be over extracting, which can spoil the whole pot. Perhaps it is not noticeable to you when hot but is when it cools, coffee changes it's flavor as it cools.
You are not happy at the end of the cup and you say you drink it all day long, perhaps the coffee is just past the point when it is good? Good coffee shops brew into air pots then toss the remainder of the pot at an hour due to the drop in quality coffee has when sitting.
Mods, could you please move this to Coffee General?
In real life, my name is Wayne P.
Feed the newbs, starve the trolls and above all enjoy what you drink!
IMAWriter Senior Member Joined: 4 Jul 2002 Posts: 5,464 Location: Brentwood, TN Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Nothing at the moment Grinder: Vario-W,Preciso-Esatto/KyM... Vac Pot: Adcraft SS, Yama 8 cup Drip: Brazen.Chemex, Hario, Clever... Roaster: Behmor 1600, CO/UFO combo
Posted Tue Mar 5, 2013, 1:09am Subject: Re: help me refine my process.
No mention of his grinder? A wee bit of a grinder upgrade would do wonders to help alleviate the bitterness. Much of that comes when a grinder produces too many "fines" which will then exacerbate the bitterness when you over stir.
Many here use the less expensive Baratza grinders, or Capresso Infinity for the press pot. The Baratza Encore is $129 new, but less as fully guaranteed refurb, and will do wonders for your coffee needs, from drip, vac pot (get a 5 cup Yama sometime) to press pot. click here
Bitterness after being hot for more than 30 minutes is about par for the course. Chlorogenic Acid or Chlorogenate decomposes into bitter acids with water and heat. The simplest is hydrolysis reaction where H2O - with the help of heat - splits Chlorogenic acid into Quinic Acid (precursor to quinine - yep, the flavor that makes tonic water taste like it does) and Caffeic Acid, both of which are bitter tasting in low concentration.
Chlorogenic Acid can be paritially neutralized by alkaline reactors - that's why calcium salts work, or the addition of calcium carbonate (eggshells, for example) to tame bitterness.
The pinch of salt tip is not a chemical reaction per se, it is actually a flavor de-enhancer (yep, I just made that scientific word up - but if you know the opposite of a flavor enhancer, I'm open. Maybe a flavor 'damper'? Nothing comes to me right now).
The ions of chlorine in dissolved salt (I think it's cholorine, maybe it's the sodium?) can block the bitter receptors on the tongue so they don't sense bitterness, or it takes a higher concentration of bitter tasting compounds before they are sensed. Think of this is the opposite of things like nucleotides - molecules that enhance or amplify the perception of glutamates to obtain savory tastes in cooking. This is a different mechanism than adding an alkaline reactor.
Salt = blocks the reception of bitterness Calcium = alkaline reactor to bitter-tasting acids
Have fun!
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- 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
The molecule of calcium carbonate is considered overall as an alkali - even though it's the hydrolysis of the carbonate (CO3) that is really providing the H+ in a solution. Calcium carbonate is difficult to form in mildly acidic solutions, you use acid to dissolve calcium carbonate hard water spots, and it's used as an antacid (when it creates a solution in your stomach) and for raising alkalinity of swimming pools. Magnesium carbonate solution is also alkaline, but again, it's the carbonate group that does it.
Darn it - now you're gonna make me dig out my organic chem books to figure out what chlorogenic acid, quinic acid and caffeic acid do when combined with a carbonate group! I'm sure it has a more neutral pH than either the carbonate or the organic acids... but also must have something that doesn't trigger bitterness. LOL
As for the salt flavor damping bitterness - it definitely works for me. Do the old tonic water test - even though it's sweetened, the quinine dominates the taste. Then add salt - personally for me it REALLY changes the perception of bitterness and allows the sweetener to be perceived.
Check out some of the supertaster testing and studies out there - I think I saw on PBS or something that supertasters tend to salt things more because of the effect of salting on perception of bitterness. There's also some studies I recall where several bitter compounds were tested with reciprocal taste suppression with both potassium and sodium salts. I distinctly recall that salts supress bitterness, but bitter compounds do not surpress "saltiness". So, in adding salt, you might knock the bitterness down a bit, but at the expense of having it taste salty instead.
There's some evidence that people taste calcium too...
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- 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
Lee_M Senior Member Joined: 2 Dec 2012 Posts: 42 Location: Los Angeles Expertise: I live coffee
Grinder: Baratza Encore Drip: V60 Roaster: Popper
Posted Thu Mar 7, 2013, 4:13pm Subject: Re: help me refine my process.
Well, the question is whether the salt is blocking bitterness or enhancing sweetness (which in turn balances out the bitterness). The study I linked to suggests it's the latter. Of course, it might do both.
Posted Fri Mar 8, 2013, 9:08am Subject: Re: help me refine my process.
Lee_M Said:
Well, the question is whether the salt is blocking bitterness or enhancing sweetness (which in turn balances out the bitterness). The study I linked to suggests it's the latter. Of course, it might do both.
For me personally, I think I've answered this. This may not apply to your or anyone else's taste buds, but I wondered the same thing with the tonic water experiment a few years ago.
So, I made up a warm sugar water solution, poured half in separate cups. Then had someone add salt to one - not much, just about two pinches.
No difference in sweetness, but I could taste a tinge of salt in the one. If it enhanced sweetness, then I expected a noticeable change in the perception of sweetness.
The other thing to observe is how salt tempers bitterness on non-sweet items. Among these: Grapefruit. Yes, one can argue there are some natural sugars in grapefruit, but salting an orange (with a little bit more sugar per 100g) doesn't make oranges taste any sweeter (to me). Salt a grapefruit, and the bitterness is tamed, and I can start to perceive the sourness of the citric and other acids.
Another example: Eggplant. Bitter until salted. Then it tastes like eggplant, which doesn't taste sweet to me at all.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- 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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