mvscal wrote:
Hmm. What do you mean by "standard process"? I just weigh the beans on a digital kitchen scale before grinding them.
You are essentially
extracting the juices and flavors from the bean. In short, the acids / fruity flavors are first to extract; the sugars / sweet flavors are last to extract. Logically, under extracted coffee tastes sour and acidic ("upfront" taste) while over extracted coffee tastes dry and bitter ("after" taste).
Ultimately, you want to hit that sweet spot of perfect balance. Brewing at home, you can control all of the (post-roast) factors to get the most out of your coffee bean. And for any one bag of coffee, those factors can be summed up as:
- Grind Size
- Water:Coffee ratio (i.e. the reason for your scale)
- Brew Time
- Water temperature
- Method & equipment (immersion vs drip; pick one and stick with it)
To extract more from your batch, grind finer +/or increase water:coffee ratio +/or increase brew time +/or increase temperature.
To extract less, grind coarser +/or decrease water:coffee ratio +/or decrease brew time +/or decrease temperature.
One who views coffee-making as an
art would vary all of the above factors in parallel (unknowingly, potentially) per each brew until the perfect cup was
tasted.
One who views coffee-making as a
science would, over time and experimentation, isolate as many of the above factors as possible and vary just one (maybe two) per each brew until the *perfect extraction was
measured. That is what I referred to as the "standard process."
In my own cold brew coffee making, for example, I only typically vary grind size and brew time and keep all of the remaining above factors constant. The real art then becomes perfecting the science for each origin and type of bean (i.e. South American beans are not the same as African beans).
* Coffee enthusiasts who utilize refractometry methods typically contend that preferred extraction is in the ~20-22% range (though the math is slightly different from immersion to drip)