Coffee: Brewing.

Madison.

Coffee: how to brew it. There are a lot of methods for brewing coffee, each with their ups and downs. A sampling:

• The drip brewer, the American standard. Water drains through a bed of grounds, passing through a fine mesh filter of either paper or metal. Generally has a light body, with the possibility for good flavor,¹ and it keeps well if you don't drink it all at once. One of the biggest drawbacks of most drip brewers is that you have very little control over the brewing process.
  
  
• The percolator, the worst idea ever. Ever notice how a coffee percolator fills the kitchen with the wonderful aroma of coffee? That's because it's no longer in the coffee. Percolators often end up boiling the grounds, and passing the water through the grounds repeatedly, resulting in overextraction and bitterness. If you like how it makes the house smell like coffee, go ahead and do it, but make sure you brew up another batch via some other method for actual consumption.
  
  
• The French press, which was actually developed by an Italian. Go figure. This is my preferred method, because it permits the fullest range of control over all of the brewing variables, resulting in a consistent cup every time. It produces a full-bodied cup, with lots of flavor, but the resulting tiny bits of ground coffee mean it continues to extract, becoming bitter over time. It's good while it's still hot, but you might as well toss it after it's reached room temperature; it's best to make only as much as you want at the moment, then another pot later.
  
  
• Espresso, which is all but impossible to do (well) at home. Given the fine grind necessary, as well as the necessary water temperature and pressure, it's all but impossible to make a good cup of espresso at home. Espresso relies on forcing steam through well-packed, finely ground coffee to extract the readily available sugars in a short period of time. Even more than in other brewing methods, freshness is absolutely critical for espresso, in order to get the highly desirable crema.

If you want to make the best possible cup of coffee, I'd recommend going with the French press. It allows you control over the greatest number of variables, though it does require some serious thought and experimentation to get the process right. Here's what you need to keep in mind:

1. You'll need to have the following equipment handy:
   
   • A French press.
     
   • A kettle for boiling water. Electric or stovetop is fine.
     
   • An adjustable burr grinder. (More on grinders below.)
     
   • A timer.
     
   • A scale capable of weighing in one-gram increments.
     
   • A spoon.
   
   
2. Start by weighing out your coffee. For a one-liter French press, I've settled on sixty grams of coffee, but that may vary, depending on your water quality, preferred grind, steeping time, etc. You'll want to weigh it, because different coffees - especially at different roast levels² - have different densities. You may want to test it several times with varying amounts until you get a cup that's not overextracted (bitter) or underextracted (thin).
   
   
3. Grind the coffee beans; you'll want it coarse. Exactly how coarse depends on your taste and the limitations of your grinder, but it may take several batches to fine-tune everything. Start with a coarser grind than you might expect, and get it progressively finer with each test batch. Keep making it finer until you begin to get a bit of bitterness in the cup, then back up the grind a little.
   
   
4. Boil your water. If you don't like the taste of your tap water, run it through a carbon filter.³ You'll want it just off the boil, at about 190°-195°F.
   
   
5. Set your timer for four and a half minutes. The ideal extraction time is usually between four and five minutes for most brewing methods.
   
   
6. Put the ground coffee in the carafe, then pour the hot water over top, being sure to wet all of the grounds evenly. You can stir it, briefly, if need be. Be sure to start your timer as soon as the first grounds are wet. Fresh coffee will bubble as the carbon dioxide in the beans escapes, hastened by the heat, so you may need to tap the carafe to settle things down.
   
   
7. When the timer goes off, break the crust on top with the spoon. As you do this, get your nose in there as close as you can, and take a whiff just as the crust breaks. You'll get the best, most intense aroma at this moment, as the volatile molecules have been trapped just beneath the grounds. Give it all a quick stir, then place the plunger on top, pushing down in one fluid motion to strain the grounds from the coffee.
   
   
8. Pour immediately into cups. Proper etiquette for pouring is to only pour a half cup in the first, second, etc., until filling the last cup, then going backwards to top off. The full body of French press coffee is due to tiny, suspended particles, and there are more of them at the end of the pour than at the beginning. By staggering the pours, everyone ends up with the same cup. If you have extra coffee, pour it off of the grounds; it will only continue to get bitter as it sits on them.

If you'd still prefer to work with a drip brewer, it's worth looking into a burr grinder and a scale to ensure a consistent grind and quantity of coffee per pot. Do remember, though, that a half pot will take more than half the coffee to produce the same-tasting coffee, due to the way the water drains through the bed of grounds.

As for grinders, there are several options, depending on what you like. Some common options include:

• The mortar and pestle. If you're making coffee the ancient Ethiopian/Middle Eastern way, this is how to do it. Unless, of course, you'd prefer to do it between two flat stones. Granted, this isn't a common option, but it is authentic. Making coffee like this involves adding the finely ground beans into a pot with sugar, then boiled two or three times before serving. Don't forget the sugar; it's pretty much unpalatable without.
  
  
• The grinder inside the coffee maker. This sounds like a terrible idea, but I'll wager they're selling like hotcakes for gifts this season. Not only do you have no control over grind size or quantity, but what happens when just one little piece of the expensive all-in-one coffee maker breaks?
  
  
• The electric blade grinder. Most everyone has one of these, but they're not great. It's impossible to get a consistent grind, especially for something like a French press, that wants it coarse; there's invariably a lot of fine dust to make the coffee more bitter. In addition, they can also produce a lot of heat during grinding, which can volatilize some of the coffee's aroma away before it even gets in the pot.
  
  
• The burr grinder. They come in electric or manual versions.⁴ Rather than a chopping propeller blade, burr grinders use a pair of interlocking gears that shear the bean into pieces that only pass through when they're small enough to fit between the gears - the grind dimension that you set. In addition, the beans are only in contact with the gears for a brief time, and so don't end up pulverized or overheated in the process.

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¹Assuming you have a good drip brewer. Top-grade professional models - since there are plenty of sub-par ones out there - take care to get the right brew temperature, extraction time, and an even wetting of the grounds. Home models run the gamut from "not bad" to "genuinely awful".

²Coffee beans expand as they roast longer, so a dark roast takes up more volume than a medium roast. Also, if you're working by volume, you're running into the issue of how the coffee bean fragments pack and settle in the scoop. A 2-tablespoon scoop can hold anywhere from 8 to 12g of ground coffee, which is too much leeway to make a consistent cup.

³If it's still nasty, you may want to use bottled spring water. Overly hard water will prevent the coffee from properly extracting - as will distilled water - and any taints, such as chlorine, will result in funky off-flavors.

⁴Mine's a manual grinder from Zassenhaus, a German company. Sweet Maria's carries (or, well used to) a full line of their grinders, which feature smooth adjustability, enabling you to get the perfect grind, every time. The downside of a manual mill is the amount of time and effort it takes. A coarse grind for the French press is quick and easy, but a fine grind for espresso can take forever, and is probably better left to an electric version.