I’m going to be honest, I don’t drink a lot of coffee because it freaks me out.
And when I do drink coffee I drink decaf because it actually has quite a bit of caffeine in
it.
But whether or not you have cultivated this craving: knowing how to make coffee is a valuable
skill.
And to make your very own cup of Joe, you’re going to need three things: you need coffee,
you need water, and you need some brewing method, like some way of heating them up together
and then separating out the stuff that you don’t want to have in the coffee.
Coffee comes in a variety of roasts and is either ground or whole bean. If it’s ground,
you don’t need the added expense of getting a bean grinder.
However, if you have a bean grinder or you want to get one, whole beans tends to retain
more flavor because you can grind the beans right before you brew.
Most coffee aficionados recommend a burr-grinder, but a blade-grinder is more affordable and
the difference between the two is not going to ruin your day.
Either grinder might have some setting that controls coarseness- to fineness of the grind.
You might also find that this happens in the grocery store. You can actually buy the whole
beans and then grind them with the grocery store grinder and you can also set the coarseness
of the grind there.
As a general rule of thumb, the longer your coffee is in contact with the water, the coarser
you’ll want the grounds. So your brewing method usually dictates the coarseness of
your coffee.
If the intimidatingly hip coffee roaster asks you what kind of grind you want for your beans,
you can confidently tell them your method of coffee-brewing and they will produce the
grind that corresponds.
Now let’s talk about roasts. These exist on a spectrum that goes from light roast to
dark roast.
Maybe somewhat counterintuitively, light roasts have more caffeine in them, and they taste
more acidic, citrus-y, and ‘bright’.
Light roasts will also retain a lot of what they call the flavor information from the
place where they were grown- so a light roast from Ethiopia will probably taste different
than a light roast from Guatemala.
If you can tell the difference at all… which I can’t.
Dark roasts, not so much. The flavor of a dark roast is much more dependent upon the
roasting process itself than where the coffee was grown.
In general, a darker roast will be less acidic and contain less caffeine. Think ‘dark’,
‘smoky’, and ‘bold’.
Like, a lot of people will say that it’s like… nutty, or chocolate-y, but if you’re
expecting this to taste like a snickers bar, you will be disappointed, unless you put a
lot of sugar and cream in, which is what I do.
And as you might expect, medium roasts are in the middle!
Water is easy to overlook, but bad-tasting water will result in bad-tasting coffee, so
use the best-tasting water that you have available.
That might be a water filter in the fridge, or bottled water, or cold water from the tap
if you live in a place where you really like the tap water like I do...
Many people believe that hard water, or water with more minerals, helps bring out the flavor
of the coffee, so keep that mind when selecting your water source.
Finally, you must select a coffee-brewing method with all of its trappings.
There are a bazillion ways to brew coffee. Just… a Brazilian... Overnight steeps to
make a cold brew, methods that involve fancy espresso machines, but we’re going to focus
on three methods that are relatively affordable, and available to you when you’re in a hurry.
Method 1 is drip coffee. It’s this one right here. It uses an electrical drip brewer, or
a filter coffee machine. It’s the automated version of a pour-over.
I call it a coffeemaker.
This method is also going to need some coffee-filters which you can get from any grocery store.
We’re going to use the kind that you can turn into a snowflake or compost, but there
are reusable filters out there.
Make sure that you get the right size for your coffeemaker: a tiny-baby coffee filter
in a giant basket will result in much sadness.
To make the coffee, you first decide how much coffee you want, and fill accordingly with
water.
Then you place the filter in the basket, and the coffee grounds in the filter.
A good rule of thumb is 1-2Tb of coffee grounds per 6oz of coffee, but I’ve definitely just
eyeballed this before, so I promise that it’s not the end of the world if you just throw
some coffee in and you’re like, that seems about right.
If you’re feeling, like, super fancy or scientific you can take out a kitchen scale
and measure out a ratio between the water and the coffee of 1 to 15 to 1 to 18. So,
like, we’re talking, one unit of coffee to 18 units of water.
Then all you have to do is turn on the coffee machine and voila! You are the bathrobe person
in that coffee commercial.
Method 2 is called french press, or cafetieres, or coffee press, or a bunch of other names
depending upon your geography.
For this method you will need this object, which is basically just a cup with a piston
and a disk on it, and the disk separates the grounds from the drink-y part.
You’ll also need a kettle, or some other way of heating water.
First, determine how much coffee you’d like to make, and measure out the corresponding
amount of coffee grounds to water.
With the disk/piston portion out, layer the grounds on the bottom of the cylinder.
Then heat your water. If you’re feeling extra fancy you can use a thermometer to get
the water to about 195ºF or 90ºC, but if you don’t have one, just boil the water,
then turn off the stove and wait a little while… like, 30-60 seconds for it to cool
off some.
With the water at the correct temperature, pour about half of it in and set a timer for
four minutes.
30-60 seconds into the four minutes use a spoon or a chopstick or whatever sanitary
utensil you have around to break up the crust of coffee and mix it all up.
Then pour in the rest of the water. And with the piston pulled all the way up, put the
lid on.
Wait to plunge. Meditate. Take an instagram photo. Practice your catchphrase. Whatever
you need to do until you’ve made it to four minutes.
Now, slowly push that piston down, and savor the moment. Once you have pushed it all the
way down, pour into your mug or a carafe so it doesn’t steep too long and get bitter.
Our last method requires the least amount of equipment, so very little investment, but
you have to be careful or you’ll find yourself with a bitter, and crunchy brew.
If you have coffee grounds, and water, and some way to heat water to boiling, you can
make cowboy coffee.
Grind your beans -- or select your grind at the store -- somewhere between the coarse
grind that you use for french press and the slightly less coarse grind for electric brew.
Then measure out your coffee to water ratio.
Heat the water alone in your kettle or pot or can to boiling and set it aside for 30-60
seconds just like you would for the french press coffee.
Set a timer for four minutes then add the grounds to the heated water and stir thoroughly
to get a good steep.
Might want to give it another good stir when you’re halfway through your four minutes.
Finally, since you don’t have the french press plunger, take a handful of cold water
and sprinkle it on the grounds to encourage them to sink to the bottom of the pot.
Now carefully pour the coffee out of the pot, and take care to avoid getting grounds in
your mug.
You’ll probably want to pour out all the coffee you’d like to drink at this point,
because if you let it steep in there any longer it will ultimately result in jet fuel.
But, like, I’m not here to judge.
Regardless of whether you brew your coffee over a campfire, or in the fanciest of machines,
you are now participating in a ritual humans have been performing for hundreds of years.
If you have any coffee making tips or tricks that you’d like to share, or have a topic
you’d like us to cover, that’s what the comments are for, they’re down there, we
will also be in them seeing what you have to say. And if you want to learn more about
adulting with Rachel
and me, you go to YouTube.com/LearnHowToAdult and subscribe!