Brewing is subjective, different people are looking for different things. It’s my belief that if a coffee is roasted well, there are many ways to brew that will all taste good in different ways. Nothing in this brew guide should be taken prescriptively as the only way to brew minmax coffees to taste good!
Resting recommendations: As a roaster, you learn to brew even the lightest roasted coffees less than a day off roast – sometimes right out of the roaster – in order to get a quick idea of there’s something wrong with the way you roasted the coffee. I’ve noticed a fall off in how the coffee tastes between that first day and about 2-3 weeks in so I would not recommend brewing during that period, but I’m typically very impatient with bags of coffee just sitting around! So I like to start brewing at 2-3 weeks, though it’s definitely better if you wait until 4-5 weeks – or maybe even longer.
On the other end, minmax coffee roasts should still be tasty up to about 3 months after roasting, if you’re a lot more patient of a person than me!
Filter Coffee
My standard starting point for my French Roast coffees uses the following:
- A plastic v60 01 with Cafec Abaca filters
- Baratza Vario with steel burrs
- Water with 60GH from Calcium Chloride Anhydrous, 10GH from Epsom salt, 40KH buffer from baking soda
- 12.5g coffee, 200g water between 91 and 93C
- Coffee rested somewhere between two weeks and three months
Directions:
- Pour 40g water about every 30 seconds, or as soon as the water above the coffee bed is looking thin. Full send water as fast as your kettle allows at the bed. Repeat 5 times. Your grind size should be coarse enough that your total brew time should be between about 2:45 and 4 minutes, although I tend to aim for around the 3 minute mark. As with all things, dial by taste, not by following the recipe!
My standard starting point for my Nordic Roast coffees uses the following:
- Timemore B75 with Connaisseur 8-12 Cup Basket Coffee Filters from Costco Business Center mostly, though I have been known to use a v60 02 or a Hario Mugen with unbleached Hario papers on occasion with this recipe.
- Some sort of a drip assist tool like a Gabi, Melodrip, or similar
- Kingrinder P0 at about 46 clicks past lock, or DM47POB at about 146 ticks past lock
- 30 ppm water at 88C (Palo Alto tap water in good water months)
- 12g coffee, 180g water
- Coffee rested somewhere between one week and two months
Directions:
- Run the filter under the tap for 10 seconds or so. Let drain, pour coffee in. Set drip assist tool on top of the dripper. Pour 60g water, the next 60g when you feel like it, and the last 60g by feeling as well. Total brew time should be somewhere between 2 and 2 and a half minutes if your grind size is indeed set to be coarse enough.
Espresso:
I haven’t tried making espresso seriously in about two years. All I can say is, people seem to enjoy pulling turbos with my coffees. It’s probably best to ask someone more qualified than me.