How to make a delicious cup of pour-over coffee

What is hand-poured coffee?

Hand-brewed coffee is actually just a form of coffee brewing, which is called Pour Over in foreign countries. As the name suggests, it means pouring water, so it is not very cool. There are many ways to brew coffee, and new brewing methods are still being invented. There are about five or six popular brewing methods now, and they each have their own characteristics.

To make coffee, just pour water. The process of hand brewing coffee is more like brewing a black tea bag. The only difference is that the black tea bag is to wrap the tea powder with filter paper and throw it into hot water, while hand brewing is to let the hot water pass through the coffee powder and get the coffee liquid we want under the filter paper.

What are the characteristics of hand-brewed coffee compared to the Nestle instant coffee that everyone often drinks?

1. Hand-brewed coffee is black coffee, without any unhealthy substances or non-dairy creamer.

2. Because hand-brewed coffee basically uses Arabica beans, compared to Nestle coffee which uses a lot of Robusta, its caffeine is only about 1/3 of Nestle espresso (assuming the concentration of the two is the same)

3. The production of hand-brewed coffee varies from person to person. After becoming familiar with the process, the maker can adjust the operating variables in the extraction process to determine the taste of the coffee: including sourness, bitterness, reduced astringency, reduced concentration, and increased sweetness. The output of instant coffee is fixed, and the only thing that can be adjusted is the amount of water and concentration.

4. The taste of hand-brewed coffee tends to be very sour. This is something that many Chinese people cannot understand. In fact, coffee is not necessarily bitter. In practice, although most coffees are bitter, the current trend is to lightly roast and emphasize the flavor characteristics of the beans' origin. Coffees with sourness overshadowing bitterness are becoming more and more common. Of course, this sourness is mainly pleasant fruit acid. In some producing areas (such as Panama), most coffee beans are balanced in style and rich in various fruit acid textures. The common characteristics of good drinks are the same: balanced taste and rich layers.

5. Most hand-brewed coffee looks lighter, and when held up to the light, you can observe colors ranging from dark brown to ruby ​​red.

Coffee Beans

It should be pointed out that the coffee beans used to make hand-brewed coffee may be different from the coffee beans people generally understand.

Generally speaking, for the same type of raw beans, each roaster will have at least two roasting methods (for hand pouring/for Italian style). Generally speaking, the roasting deadline for hand pouring coffee beans is around the first crack (a term for roasting coffee beans, coffee beans will produce some popping when heated to around 190 degrees in the roaster). Italian style beans are often roasted deeper, perhaps to the second crack (210 degrees or even higher).

For most drinkers, it is enough to buy coffee beans for hand pouring. But this does not mean that they cannot be mixed. After mastering some necessary knowledge, you can use Italian beans for hand pouring and get the effect you expect (generally more sweetness, less acidity, more body, and of course some adjustments to the extraction process).

When we buy coffee, because there is still no fixed standard for coffee beans worldwide, it is difficult for us to determine whether a coffee bean is really "delicious" based on the name and grade. It also involves the factor of the roaster's level. So instead of considering the type, it is better to take the attitude of "you get what you pay for" and purchase half a pound of beans at 80-100 grams for hand brewing. The daily consumption of hand brewing is about 15g per serving. Considering the quality of the flavor, new beans should be purchased every 20 days. The purchase quantity and frequency can be arranged by everyone.

Hand brewing kettle

The hand brewing kettle is the most high-end, with the most diverse styles, the most complete varieties, and the largest price range among all the hand brewing equipment. It is also the link that has direct contact with the maker.

Recommended styles include Bonavita, Kalita Wave and Shizuku. In general, as long as it suits your aesthetic taste and you can afford it, just buy it. In general, although you get what you pay for, a good pot is really like a work of art. It makes you feel good and the coffee is really good.

The differences between the coffee pots are mainly concentrated in the two major schools of narrow mouth and crane mouth. The water flow of the crane mouth may not be easy to reduce, but it can be large or small and easy to control, while the advantage of the narrow mouth coffee pot is that the water flow is stable and thin. Experienced hand brewers often recommend that you buy a narrow mouth coffee pot for entry, and choose a crane mouth for advanced. Personally, I think if you just make it yourself, the difference is not that big. Whether it is the entry-level Hario grenade or the rich-level electroplated Shizuku, just be happy.

Coffee grinder

The grinder is probably the equipment that has the greatest impact on the coffee product, besides the beans themselves. The grinder has the greatest impact on the taste of the coffee.

A good grinder should be able to obtain a stable ratio of fine powder/coarse powder, and then obtain a uniform powder with a faster processing speed and lower heat generation. Of course, since it is not an Italian grinder, static electricity agglomeration and other issues can be relatively less of a concern.

Electric grinders have obviously become the mainstream at this stage. In terms of hand brewing, the best one should be the EK43 from MAHLKONIG (Mahdi) of Germany (yes, there is also a double-head version of EKK43). By the way, it can also be used as an Italian grinder, which is really killing two birds with one stone (but... it's so expensive). The hand-cranked Lido and the electric Fuji R220 are both products that can be considered. If you really can't do it, Baratza Encore is actually a good choice.

Cup and filter paper

There are three main types of filter cups: cone, fan, and basket. Generally speaking, Hario's V60 series is the basic of the basics. MUJI has also launched fan-shaped coffee filter cups. Different filter cups must be equipped with matching filter paper to complete the coffee brewing normally. For example, Hario's V60 filter cup can only choose cone filter paper, and fan-shaped filter paper will not fit.

The rest is the material. The main common materials are porcelain, plastic, metal and glass. In fact, metal is not the most ideal material. The main disadvantage is that it loses temperature too quickly.

other

At this point, the basic equipment needed to make coffee is enough. In other words, with these things, you can make a cup of hand brewing. But we also need some auxiliary equipment. I will briefly list these auxiliary equipment according to their common degree.

Sharing pot, electronic scale, thermometer, timer, hand pouring rack, water tray, small spoon

If you have all these things, then you can start making a cup of coffee happily.

Folded filter paper

For basket-shaped filter cups, just take out the filter paper and put it into the filter cup. For fan-shaped and cone-shaped filter cups, you need to fold the filter paper from the joint of the filter paper, stretch it out and put it into the filter cup.

This is very important. Please make sure that the filter paper is in the correct and centered position in the filter cup. If the filter paper is not flat, it will easily cause channeling effect and lead to coffee extraction problems.

How to stack filter paper? Take V60 as an example:

After folding the edge of the filter paper once, turn it over, fold it in half again and put it into the filter cup.

Wash filter paper

Pour hot water over the filter cup to clean the dust and smell on the filter paper, and to warm the cup so that the water temperature does not drop suddenly after it reaches the lower pot, causing a change in taste. Remember to pour out the waste water in the cup after warming the cup.

Next, you can put the prepared portion on the electronic scale and reset it to zero, waiting for the next brewing process.

Grinding

After weighing a suitable amount of coffee beans, pour the beans into the grinder and grind them into the powder you want. The ideal hand-brewed coffee powder should be as coarse as "white sugar", but in fact it is just a texture that everyone agrees on. In fact, according to the actual extraction situation, the barista will adjust the coarseness of the coffee powder according to his own needs, the condition of the beans, the taste of the customer and even his mood.

However, before grinding the beans, in addition to determining the grinding degree, we also need to simply "clean the grinder", that is, waste a few beans to push out the coffee powder remaining in the grinder core. The grinder also needs to be cleaned regularly to ensure the quality of the coffee.

Brewing/Steaming

First, we pour the ground coffee powder into the filter cup. At this moment, we can use the electronic scale to obtain the mass m of the coffee powder involved in the extraction.

Then simply calculate the amount of coffee liquid you expect to get. For example, for the common water-to-powder ratio of 1:17, for 15g of coffee powder, you need to add 255g of water. In this way, the total amount of water added is 255g.

Before you start pouring water, check if the coffee grounds in the filter cup are evenly distributed. If they are obviously biased to one side, you can tap the filter cup appropriately to make the coffee grounds evenly distributed.

Then comes the first stage of water injection, steaming. Add about 1.5-2 times the weight of the coffee powder to wet all the coffee powder. At this time, the coffee powder will expand due to water absorption. And it will release some gas (bubbling). When the bubbling is basically over and the coffee powder pile begins to collapse, you can start the next step of further water injection (extraction).

It should be pointed out that many tutorials clearly indicate that the steaming time should be 30 seconds, which is actually unscientific. The steaming time is determined according to the state of the coffee beans. The purpose of steaming is to wet the coffee powder, expel excess carbon dioxide, avoid the channel effect during the extraction process, and make the coffee extraction uniform.

Water injection

Next is the extraction process. Keep a steady water flow and add all the hot water you need. Stop when the total amount is reached and wait for the extraction to end. If the coffee liquid still does not flow into the next cup after the preset time (for example, two minutes), you should stop the extraction and remove the lower pot that receives the coffee liquid.

The water flow should be even, and for conical filter cups such as the V60, a circle the size of a dollar coin is necessary (but do not fill the water to the edge). This will make the extraction more even.

When pouring water, the distance between the spout and the liquid surface of the filter cup determines the speed of water entering the extraction layer and the intensity of the turbulence. In addition, the angle of entering the extraction layer also needs to be considered. The ideal angle is perpendicular to the liquid surface, that is, 90 degrees.

When pouring water, a steady hand holding technique plays a vital role in ensuring a steady water flow. When swinging the hand pouring kettle, you should use the strength of your wrist, not your arm.

Homogenization

After brewing, you will have a pot like this. But before drinking, please shake the pot evenly to homogenize the coffee liquid.

ENJOY

Pour the coffee in the pot into the heated cup and drink it while it is hot.

In addition to emphasizing the characteristics of the producing area, hand-brewed coffee also has more so-called acidity.

The acidity of this coffee can be citrus/lemon-like or berry-like. You may need to drink a few coffees to understand this.

But basically, what a cup of coffee is made of, or how a cup of hand-brewed coffee feels, can be expressed in the form of mellowness/flavor.

But it must be said that there is no real "good coffee", but only coffee that one likes to drink. So the selection of beans and the adjustment during brewing become the greatest pleasure of hand brewed coffee.

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