How to make coffee easily at home (with tutorial)

Text: Liu Hongliang

Picture: Affe

When brewing coffee at home, good beans and a good mood are equally important!

This article is an answer to a question on Zhihu about how to make delicious hand-poured coffee at home . The description is that it is hand-poured at home without complicated equipment.

Hand brewing is just a convenience, the Japanese have taken it to the extreme, and it is part of their lifestyle aesthetics. Drinking coffee is a part of life, so let’s integrate it into our lives.

Being in a good mood and full of passion for life are the basic skills.

Regarding the advice on hand-brewing equipment , I personally think that the most important thing is to be pleasing to the eye and the quality. How can you just choose something that improves the quality of life? You must touch it on the spot and use it yourself. I also went from hario to kalita, then to kono, and finally chose Chemex. It takes a process to find your favorite. As for some domestic equipment, it is strongly recommended not to use it! The quality is too poor. Can you bear to use such stuff to brew Gesha? It's like finding a goddess and using a street stall iron ring to get rid of her.

The same goes for hand-poured kettles . The most pleasing to the eye and the most textured to the touch is the most basic. Or simply don't use it and just use a kettle. There's nothing wrong with that. As long as the kettle is pleasing to the eye and has texture.

As for the different extraction principles of different filter cups, I'm just saying that those minor details are just for reference and not to be taken too seriously. The only thing to consider is the leakage rate. The contact time between powder and water is different when leaking 100ml per minute and 200ml per minute. Other variables remain unchanged. The faster the leakage, the lower the extraction rate and the lower the concentration.

You said that different materials have different abilities to lock in heat. Why not learn the tea ceremony and boil water to warm the cup every time? No, you should scald the cup.

What’s most important is pleasing to the eye and texture, what’s most important is conformity to aesthetics , the rest is bullshit.

Commercial coffee grinders are not recommended. Do you need a huge machine worth 20,000 or 30,000 yuan to add some fun to your cup of coffee at home? That is a product of industrialization, and it emphasizes efficiency. Home brewing emphasizes ease, convenience, and fun. Anything that does not meet these three standards is a hooligan. Here I recommend Japan's porlex hand grinder, which has a mini version, which is the difference between grinding 30g or 20g at a time. The mini version has a rubber cover for easy storage of the handle. I use the mini version. I spent an afternoon doing detailed data. The grinding disc is buckled and reversed 5-6 grids, and the coarse and fine powder ratio is most evenly distributed.

Do you want to weigh it?

It depends on you. If you want one, I can only recommend one, acaia. This scale, which was crowdfunded on Kickstarter, is a combination of technology and aesthetics. It is very accurate. I tried it with a 500g weight. Compared with another scale with a similar price, the Bonavita, the error of the acaia is constant at around 0.1 to 0.2g. The first Bonavita was 1.7-1.9, but I was unwilling to give up and bought the second one, 1.4-1.6g. I am not here to criticize Bonavita. I bought 10 machines with others, and I wanted two for myself. The other partners had too many problems, either they could not turn on, or they could not respond when they weighed more than one kilogram (nominal 3 kilograms). I am really not here to criticize Bonavita. I also use their kettle, which is very accurate. But the scale is really forgettable. I don't recommend the Hario one. Another advantage of the acaia is that it has an app, which can automatically connect to the Bluetooth and generate hand-brew data. It is a must-have artifact for the coffee science school. It is also a must for the aesthetic school, it is very beautiful. It can be used for several weeks after charging once.

You don't need to weigh it, just remember where your amount ends. If you are not a Virgo, coffee is still very easy.

coffee

This is the biggest variable of hand brewed coffee. Do you want to buy beans from Taobao? Please automatically block beans that cost less than 40 yuan for half a pound. They are basically garbage, rotten by insects, mold, carbon black, smoke and carcinogenic. Even if Master Taguchi comes, they still don’t taste good!

It is best to go to local boutique roasters one by one to try the coffee. Cities with a population of tens of millions have several boutique roasters, and the quality control of the beans is acceptable.

If it is difficult to find coffee in small and medium-sized cities, I recommend Ma Yun's. Just find a store that costs between 50 and 100 yuan for half a pound and has at least 10 reviews and good reviews. (Note from Afei: Or ask coffee enthusiasts to recommend it, it will never go wrong; you can also consider the selected estate beans from Afei's store, please click "Read the original text" at the end for the link)

Water Quality

PH7.5, TDS150, is the most ideal. Then relax it, PH7-7.5, TDS75-225. If you don't want to bother, you can drink water without any odor and without scaling after boiling.

Water temperature

0-Boiling water. It's all right, really all right. Don't believe that 85℃ is the best and 93℃ is the standard of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. The hotter the water, the more active the water molecules are, and the faster the extraction of soluble aromatic substances. The higher the water temperature, the more small-molecule soluble aromatic substances can be extracted. The premise of me saying that it's all right is what kind of coffee you accept. Remember that you have to boil Turkish coffee three times? For our Arab compatriots in the Middle East, it's not bitter and not coffee. Remember ice drip coffee, it's just as mellow. Don't believe the chicken soup that requires a specific temperature to extract good coffee. Either you are a liar, or you are pretending to know a lot.

Filtration device

Metal ones are not considered at all, just like Swiss gold. The reason is that they leak residue. Second, they are difficult to maintain. The more you use them, the more odors they have, and you can't get rid of them.

Flannel is for experts. The advantage is that some grease can be washed into it, making it thicker. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to clean and maintain.

Filter paper. The advantage is that it makes the coffee taste clean, but the disadvantage is that the quality of different manufacturers varies, and those that do not meet the standards have a bitter taste. Bleached or pure coffee? It is said that pure coffee is better than bleached coffee, but the reality is the opposite. There is also a kind of odorless filter paper, which is said to be quite expensive and I have never used it. There should be no filter paper that has no odor at all. Some people have done comparative data and filter paper can increase the tds value by 1-5.

Should you soak the filter paper ? It depends. Soaking has two purposes: to remove odors and to make it fit the filter cup. Second, those who are used to steaming can try the method of washing without soaking the filter paper. The premise is that your filter paper does not have too much odor.

Brewing method.

You can flush in any way ! Strong water flow, thin water flow, fast flush, slow flush, circle flush, fixed point flush. Flush with eyes closed, chanting while flushing, blablabla. Don't learn the champion charging method, there are champions every year, but the flushing method is different every year. Why is it different? Do you know Liu Qian's magic? If Liu Qian changed the phrase "witness the moment of miracle" to "abracadabra", would he not be able to perform magic? Don't learn the spell, learn the principle, understand the principle, and flush in any way. The essence is that carbon and hydrogen atoms bring out soluble aromatic substances, why so many tricks!

Of course, magic tricks still have a market. After all, they are entertaining. A family can sit together and have fun, witnessing a miracle while making a cup of delicious coffee to add some fun. Why not?

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