Hi everyone!
In our latest Youtube episode, our head roaster Kosuke and assistant roaster Reika discussed 5 tips that you can implement on your home brewing process that might improve coffee making experience.
Let's recap the 5 tips discussed in the video and why they will improve your home coffee life.
1. Use an extra gram of coffee when using home grinders to brew coffee at home.
Kurasu usually uses 13 grams of coffee in our cafes, but we recommend you add an extra gram of coffee for home brew. The reason behind this lies in the difference between commercial grinder and home grinder.
Home grinders produce more fine particles, which can cause an unpleasant taste to the coffee.
Grinding on a coarser setting will help to avoid these fine particles. A coarser grind however might make the coffee weaker, so that extra gram is necessary to help adjust the concentration level of the coffee.
2. Finish each pour in 10 seconds
"We recommend 10 seconds but the main point is not the time", said Kosuke. The purpose is to get the best pouring speed and control for each stage. This can be achieved by keeping a fixed pouring time on each stage, regardless of the amount of water.
1st pour: pour gently for blooming (40g of hot water in 10 seconds).
2nd pour: pour aggressively to bring out sweetness (60g of hot water in 10 seconds).
Tips for the 2nd pour: Don't add unnecessary movement to pour more aggressively. All you need to do is control the tilt of the kettle to adjust the pouring speed.
3. Agitation during the blooming stage
Tips: be gentle and make sure and use a spoon to make sure that each coffee ground is covered.
Agitating at the beginning and the end of the brew will help maintain consistency for each brew.
How to agitate:
Plunge the spoon into the coffee bed, then proceed by moving it back-and-forth 3 times. Be sure to dig in deep into the coffee bed like you're aiming for the bottom of the filter, without actually hitting it.
4. Agitation at the end of the brew
Coffee grounds that build-up during the brewing process will lead to inconsistency.
The main purpose of the last pour is to adjust the concentration level. Don't agitate with force, like during the first agitation, this will cause an unpleasant taste in your coffee.
Coffee ground build-ups:
How to agitate:
All you need to do is gently glide the spoon along the surface of the dripper. Be sure to submerge the coffee grounds in the water.
5. The importance of keeping brew finish time.
Looking at Kurasu's basic brew guide, the finishing time of the brew is about 2 minutes 30 seconds."What if all the water doesn't drip down in this time frame?", asked Reika.
"It would depend on each barista and coffee shop. But in my case, I would remove the dripper regardless of the remaining water when the time comes.", replied Kosuke.
"As a result, the coffee would be high in concentration. I would then add hot water straight from the kettle.", finished Kosuke.
This concludes the 5 home brewing tips that head roaster Kosuke and assistant roaster Reika have to share with us today.
Thank you so much to the pair of them for sharing these tips with us, we hope that this information answered some of your questions in regards to home brewing.
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