A cup of coffee is like a blessing especially if it is perfectly made with foam, excellent flavour and immaculate taste. Many people struggle in making a frothy cup of coffee just like the ones they make at restaurants. But to achieve that, you must have essential equipment and gadgets and follow these tips to brew your best cup of coffee. Here’s everything you need in order to get that.
1. Make Use Of Freshly Ground Coffee And Whole Beans
Because pre-ground coffee loses flavour and aroma due to oxidation, freshly ground coffee is always preferred. Furthermore, because coffee oil is water soluble, moisture in the air reacts with coffee components in pre-ground coffee. Furthermore, when grinding coffee at home, you frequently just grind as much as you need, keeping the remaining beans fresh and fragrant.
2. Use A Kitchen Scale
Weighing your coffee using a digital kitchen scale is preferable to calculating how much coffee to add. Another method is to use measuring spoons. Making the perfect cup of coffee, like preparing a cake, takes meticulous attention to detail. 15 grams of ground coffee is required for an 8-ounce cup of coffee (roughly a tablespoon of ground coffee).
3. Use The Correct Coffee-To-Water Ratio
The ideal coffee-to-water ratio for preparing the perfect espresso is 1:7. Some like a 1:8 ratio, however, this would dilute the flavour significantly. 15 parts water should be added for every one serving of coffee, according to the 1:15 ratio.
4. The Size
Grinding the coffee is one of the most crucial duties to consider if you want to make coffee that tastes absolutely fantastic. The grind size is extensively emphasised since it affects the extraction rate, flow rate, and brewing time. Finely ground coffee that has been exposed to water for an extended amount of time and is over-extracted will taste harsh; coarsely ground coffee that has been exposed to water for a shorter period of time will be under-extracted and will not yield a strong cup of coffee. Another helpful tip for grinding coffee is to use a conical burr grinder to achieve the most properly and consistently ground coffee.
5. Use Filtered Water
Coffee with a faint flavour could be due to poor water quality. In regular tap water, there are several minerals, metals, and other pollutants. The amount of these varies by location, so even if you pay attention to the grinding and brewing procedures, the flavour of the coffee can differ depending on the quality of the water. Hard or soft water cannot be used to make the perfect cup of coffee. Because soft water is high in sodium and low in magnesium, it cannot extract the desired quantity of flavour from ground coffee. Hard water, on the other hand, contains calcium and magnesium, resulting in severe scale buildup on your machine. Filtered water is the best water to use for coffee.
6. Clean Equipment
Maintaining the cleanliness of the machine is important for hygiene reasons, but it also affects how your coffee tastes. Diffusers frequently accumulate old and burned coffee, altering the flavour and turning it bitter, acidic, or even metallic. A clean machine is vital to ensuring that your coffee tastes wonderful and bitter or metallic-tasting coffee should not be mistakenly attributed to the coffee bean or grind type.
7. Verify The Temperature Of Your Water
As previously said, making outstanding coffee necessitates meticulous attention to detail. A perfect brew requires water between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit, or 90.56 degrees Celsius, which is just below the boiling point of water. The nice part about maintaining this temperature is that it is ideal for all brewing procedures.
8. Pre-Wet/ Pre-Heat Everything
The pre-wetting of the filter paper is a simple but crucial step. Pre-wetting the filter paper facilitates percolation brewing and boosts the extraction rate. Additionally, when preparing an espresso, pre-wetting reduces fine migration. Pre-wetting also guarantees that the taste of the paper is not passed to your brew, resulting in little to no change in flavour. Pre-wetting the paper also secures it at the funnel's end and keeps it intact. Preheating your mug ensures that the coffee stays hotter for longer and that the heat of the coffee is not absorbed to heat the mug.
9. The Appropriate Granules For The Equipment
To achieve a consistent grind, use a burr grinder rather than a blade grinder. Sour, sweet, and bitter are the three distinct stages of coffee breakdown. If the granules are not consistent in size, the extraction process will be impeded, which will also affect the flavour of the coffee. Because of the sharp grooves that run the length of the grinding surface, a burr grinder provides consistently ground coffee. Furthermore, it constantly presses and spins evenly to crush beans at a low speed while keeping the flavour and producing consistently sized particles.
10. Serving
To avoid the beverage from cooling, coffee should be served as soon as it is ready. Before serving, give it a good stir to ensure that the flavours are well dispersed. Serve the coffee in a clean, previously heated cup to keep the beverage warm for an extended period of time and to enhance the flavour.