Grinding coffee can be daunting at first when you are new to it.
It can also be stressful: you want to make a perfect cup of coffee, but don’t know how best to grind it.
Where do you start? What do you do? What don’t you do?
You have bought a great coffee grinder in the hope that it would come with instructions and tips and tricks, but you are confused still?
Have you done everything right but the coffee still doesn’t taste quite “perfect“? Are you confused by all the types of beans and wondering which are the best, how to store them, what to do with them?
Grinding isn’t as daunting as you think, and that’s why I have written this article, to give the best tips on how to perfectly grind your beans so you can get the perfect flavor and the perfectly ground beans you need to make that coffee perfect, every time.
Handy Tips for Grinding Coffee Beans
This section is going to look at a host of the best hints and tips on the market to help you with your coffee grinder and grinding the beans.
Of course, this list is a small snippet, and there are lots of different tips that you can pick up for yourself, or that other people may teach you. But here is a list to start you off on your coffee grinding journey.
1. Choose The Right Coffee
This is almost an obvious one, but a grinder can only give the best of what you give it to grind.
If you use pre ground coffee in your machine, then it is not going to be effective, and it will not give you the fresh drink you are looking for.
Coffee found in shops usually has been sat out for months and therefore will not give you the taste you are after. Coffee reaches its best just days after it has been roasted, and therefore should be drunk within a month of its roast date.
When looking for fresh coffee, check local coffee shops, or specialty tea and coffee shops. Some of these shops even roast them on the spot in smaller batches, meaning it is fresher.
Fresh, whole beans are the best types of coffee to grind in your grinder as it will give you a fresher option that tastes better than general pre ground coffee.
Keeping the beans in an airtight container when you buy them will also give you the best results.
2. Measure the Beans
It is quite important to get the amount of coffee you are using right. To do this, using a digital scale to measure is a recommended way, and making the same amount of coffee per unit of water each time you brew is also the recommended way to brew better coffee.
A strong cup generally works in a ratio of 1:20 (one part coffee, 20 parts water). Though this is up to you which is best for your taste.
As a rule of thumb, 7g of ground coffee is enough for a cup and always fill the grinder to the capacity it is meant to be filled to.
Under filling or over filling the grinder will ruin the taste that the coffee is intended to taste, thus you will not get a true reflection of it’s flavor.
Quality coffee will have been roasted very carefully to bring out the unique taste and flavor that is unique to that blend.
3. Use The Right Temperatures
The desired brew temperature for coffee is between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit (92-96 degrees).
Be wary of the fact that newer models of coffee makers have a manual temperature adjustment and older makers do not – if you are using coffee makers.
If you are using boiled water, then use only recently boiled water (92-96 degrees) that has been standing just over a minute.
If you re-boil the water, the oxygen levels in the water will be too low, and if you pour too hot water directly onto the coffee, then you will burn it, which results in a bitter taste.
Some people who use milk in their coffee help with this by pouring the milk over the beans before adding water.
Another good tip is to pour water onto a spoon before letting it hit the beans so it can have the chance to cool a little before mixing with the grinds.
4. Quality of Water
The water quality is often one that is forgotten in making coffee. The chances are that if you are grinding fresh beans, you want that coffee to be at its full potential in terms of flavor.
If that’s the case, then having the right quality water is imperative.
Using water that is hard and full of minerals will mean the water and coffee won’t bond well, which in turn will lead to a wear coffee.
The high mineral content will also lead to build ups in your coffee maker if you are using one to mix the coffee, meaning you will have to descale it more often.
Equally, heavily filtered or distilled water will be just as destructive; less ions and minerals will force the water to take the minerals out of the metal in the machine, leading to a degrade of the machine over time.
The water needs to be in the middle of two, a mineral balance of 150 parts per million is fine. Use distilled water and add some capsules to help this. Or use lightly filtered water, if you do not want to do the first idea.
5. The Correct Time
Different flavors inside the coffee are released at different times, so in theory, if you want to get it’s full potential, you will want to leave it to brew for the right time.
If you want to do this properly, the recommended way is to ‘pre-infuse’ the grounds – you do this by adding a small amount of water to them in the grinder or maker, stir the beans and then add the rest of the water.
If you do this, you should fill the maker to its intended capacity and stir five to six times to make sure the grounds are well stirred.
Leave it to brew for four minutes to give the flavor its time, then plunge. After this, pour it straight away so it doesn’t over brew.
This process means that the carbon dioxide left from the roasting process will get a chance to release, however if you choose to skip this pre-infusion process, the carbon dioxide will repel water and make the brew weaker.
6. Grinding
Getting the grind right is obviously the most important part of making freshly ground coffee! Consistency of this is key, and that consistency depends on your choice of brew. Generally, this is how it is defined;
Coarse – percolators, French Press.
Medium – flat-bottomed drip coffee makers.
Fine – conical drip coffee makers or an espresso pot.
Experts in the field say that coffee can begin to lose its flavor merely thirty minutes after being ground. If this is truly the case, then it is probably best to grind the beans just before brewing a pot.
If you grind the beans too fine, you can over extract the coffee and the flavor will be bitter.
Also, a blade grinder can also lead to over extraction. A burr grinder is best, whether it be automatic or manual. An automatic burr grinder will be more expensive; however, the quality of the grind will be much better.
The manual burr grinders will be more affordable and will achieve a more consistent grind, but do require a small amount of labor.
7. Get to Know Your Coffee
Getting to know your taste for coffee is part of the fun of getting a grinder.
For example, you may like weak instant coffee, but having freshly ground coffee is a whole new taste experience.
The number on the front of many packs refer to the strength of the beans, which refers to the roast and taste profile of the product.
Lower numbers generally mean they have been roasted a bit lighter and have brighter notes. Higher strengths are roasted darker and are more full bodied and intense. Exploring these different strengths and origins is a fun and new experience.
There are lots of different types, from different countries like Peruvian or Tanzanian, and there are coffees with tastes like rich and nutty styles, or coffee with a floral characteristic.
All fresh coffee tastes different and many people like many different coffees, whether they have a different breakfast coffee to their after-dinner coffee, the possibilities are endless.
8. Types of Coffee
The best coffee to grind is obviously fresh coffee beans. This means you will get the best taste, the most fresh taste. To get the maximum taste, you should use beans and grind them yourself.
There are many benefits to this, including the best taste, but also fresh coffee.
Another benefit is being able to grind exactly how much you need every time, so you can have the best value for money also. To keep them even the more fresh, modern day packaging means that coffee stays very fresh for much longer.
Most companies do not provide the date for when the beans were roasted because it will most likely have been there for months.
Coffee reaches its flavor peak when it has just been roasted and should be consumed within a month of its roast date.
The best way to find the freshest beans is local independent coffee shops. Some of these shops even roast them on site, so they are at their freshest when you buy them.
9. Storing Your Coffee
The best way to keep your coffee fresher for longer is to store it properly.
Modern day packaging ensures the coffee you buy stays fresher for longer, and vacuum sealed containers are recommended to seal in the freshness also.
A standard mason jar is also the best way. The recommended way is to move the coffee as you brew through it into the appropriate sized jars.
A wide quart-sized jar (946 milliliters) is great for storing twelve ounces of coffee. As you work your way through that jar, it is recommended to downsize the jar to a pint size jar, or an alternative is a 4 four ounce jam jar to store servings of coffee that have been pre-weighed.
The best place to store coffee once it has been opened is to also freeze it.
However, it is still advised to drink it fairly quickly if you wish to keep the full flavor and freshness of the drink.
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In conclusion, there are lots of tips on making fresh coffee using a grinder.
There are lots of tips on how best to get the freshness out of your favored coffee beans for the longest, including picking beans from your local independent shop, where they are likely to be freshest.
There are also lots of tips on how to make the coffee so you get the best flavor, including the best temperatures in which to blend the coffee and hot water.
There are even tips on how best to store your beans to keep the freshness in for longer so you can keep your coffee for longer without compromising on the taste.
Grinding fresh coffee may be daunting at first, however, reading some of these tips and tricks may help you to get used to the idea, so much so that hopefully you will get the best out of your beans.
