How do you determine the grind for your coffee? It is the question that can keep baristas busy as well as people who like to brew a pot of pleur for themselves or visitors at home. You will need to grind coffee beans for an espresso, for example, very differently from filter coffee. I did find out in all the years I have been making coffee that grinding is one of the most underrated aspects of coffee making, but it is crucial for flavour.
How to determine the right grind level
There are plenty of people willing to invest big money in a beautiful, expensive espresso machine. They have scoured the internet for fancy machines and now there is a mighty coffee machine at home. Only problem is that making a cup of espresso is actually not at all as easy as it looked on the videos. I think the problem is the coffee grinder, the bean grinder.
Is plain pre-ground coffee not good enough?
Many people will just use the simple pre-ground coffee powder to brew a cup of black slush. However, in doing so, they have not thought about the word ‘extraction’. Let me explain briefly. The grind determines how fast the water soaks through the coffee. With a coarse grind, the water will quickly draw through the coffee and extract less flavour from the coffee grains. With a fine grind, the water draws through slowly.
What effect does a bean grinder have on flavour?
With under-extraction, if the water draws through it too quickly, you will soon find that an espresso has little flavour. With overextraction, the coffee is ground too finely, the water will extract more flavour from the coffee and it will take longer for the water to run through it. An espresso cup can then be filled with a very bitter and strong brew. Finding the middle ground is quite an art.
Getting handy with a bean grinder
This is exactly the theme where the good baristas can be distinguished from the perfect baristas. A perfect barista has a feel for extraction and feels exactly which beans require which grind. A cup of espresso will therefore contain exactly the right aromas and flavours, and filter coffee will also have the right flavours and aromas in a completely different way.
How to find the right grind as a hobbyist
However, you don’t have to be a professional to master bean grinding. You can also just buy a bean grinder and experiment a bit. Below we have a brief overview of the different types of coffee and the degree to which the beans should be ground.
- Filter coffee – v=For filter coffee, it is good to keep a fairly coarse grind. This is because the water seeps through the filter slowly and has enough time to extract the flavours and aromas from the fairly coarse coffee grains.
- Espresso – To make the perfect espresso, it is good to use very fine coffee powder. This is because water is pressed through it at high pressure and the time the water comes into contact with the coffee is quite short.
The different flavours in coffee
You will notice that your cup of coffee can go in two different directions. Either the coffee is too bitter, or the coffee is very sour. I once heard this rule of thumb: if the grind is coarse, the coffee will taste sour and if the grind is fine, your cup will come out bitter. So you can influence coffee flavour by grinding your own beans.
Invest in a good bean grinder
So I can really recommend investing in a bean grinder. It is one of the simplest ways to adjust the taste of your final filter coffee or espresso – just what you like. It is perhaps the key to making a good espresso that is the basis for all other coffee drinks, such as cappuccinos, latte macchiatos and so on.