A good cup of coffee can switch up any mood. It's the stuff that gets some of us through the long hours at the office. So it’s important to get your coffee right. The right bean and roast are important when picking your coffee but without the right grind, you might not have the amazing flavor you were looking for.
Grind is a very important part of coffee preparation for two major reasons
- It facilitates the brewing process
- It aid to extract the flavor from the bean
Taking your roasted beans and throwing them in a cup of hot water might be an exciting new thing to try, but then your coffee is sure to lack a whole lot of flavor. It's important to break it down so the flavors can be extracted from the bean in the water to provide a cup of proper coffee.
Brewing methods expose coffee ground to heated or cool water for long periods of time, and you obviously can do this to large beans with less surface area for the water to pass through. It very important to get the right grind size when brewing, most coffee drinkers grind their coffee themselves before brewing.
A coarser grind will be better suited for a brewing method that requires heated water for long hours. Beans with finer grinds will expose much surface area to the heated water and produce more of a harsh bitter taste. Coarse grinds will also be better fitted for cold brew.
Now that you get why it's important to grind your coffee, how do we grind our beans to makes our delicious cups of heavens?
They are four major methods of grinding:
- Burr grinding, using a burr mill.
- Chopping (no, not with a knife) with a rotating blade, like a blade grinder or a home blender.
- Pounding.
- Roller grinding, with a pair of corrugated rollers.
All these methods are easy ways you can break down your beans your self, or if you don’t want to go through all the trouble, you could just get the grinded coffee at the store, but be sure to look out for the size depending on what sort of flavor you're looking to achieve.
By: Khaled Alshgran
Instagram: Khaled_Alshgran