At Home with James Bailey - A Considered Approach to Grinding
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- The biggest improvement you can make to your home brewing set-up is to buy the very best grinder you can afford. It’s a fact extolled by every specialty coffee roaster, including us - but why is that the case?
Our latest video takes a detailed look at the impact of grind size and consistency on the brewing process and the taste of your final cup. Walking through these elements in detail, the intention is to arm you with the tools you need to dial-in and adapt your grinder settings to get the most out of whichever brewer and coffee you might be using.
Section [1]: Grind Size & Taste - 1:05
We taste three cups of coffee, each brewed using a different grind size - one very coarse, one medium-fine and one very fine grind. Highlighting particular taste traits to look for in your cup, this section will help provide the knowledge you need to tweak and refine your grind for cleaner, sweeter cups.
Section [2]: Grind Size & Your Brewer - 11:41
We run through two brew methods to showcase why you might need to adapt the consistency of your grind for different brewers (or even materials). This involves taking you through how to set-up your grinder and dial-in for filter coffee brewing.
I use a small electric blade grinder and it is so hard to get a consistent grind. I hadn't really cared much before about the grind until my wife said that when I make her coffee it taste much better.
This video helps confirm that the grind plays a huge roll in the taste.
Great video. 😊
mirroring other comments. super interesting, enabled me to conceptualize things in a new way, and learned a lot!
That was such a well organized and super informative video! Thanks a lot!
Our pleasure - thanks for watching.
This is so informative! Thanks!
Our pleasure - thanks for watching.
Amazing video! One of the best on the topic available on line! Kudos !!! Can I ask what’s the preferred grinding number with the uniform for a clever dripper (using your recipe, water first and then coffee). Thanks!
Hey Eduardo, I made a brew this morning using 21 on the Uniform and 19g coffee to 300g water, which worked out really nicely. I hope that helps, thanks for the kind words.
I have been using your clever dripper method (via James Hoffmann’s shout out to you) and grinding at 22 on the Uniform, and have to say it’s really nice. Have been using a slightly different recipe though, with 24.5g to 350g water (70g/l as opposed to your 63.5) , but may try yours tomorrow.
Thanks for great content.
Hey guys - just wanted to say a quick thanks for your videos! I have found them extremely informative, well made and enjoyable. Thank you! I have a quick question. I recently started using a Timemore C2. I brew with a French press but generally find I am grinding much finer than the recommendation. More like 16 clicks than the recommended 24. Going coarser for me seems to result in a flatter cup. Am I on the right lines or am I better off following the guidance?
Hi Will - thanks for joining us and for the kind words.
You should 100% go with what works for you and your taste preferences. A few things can make it tricky to calibrate on grind sizes, like where the ‘zero position’ is to count from, as well as grinder manufacturer tolerances, the coffee you’re using and the water you’re using.
Going finer for an immersion method which doesn’t have to drain through (French Press being the perfect example) won’t really do anything terrible to your coffee, a higher extraction is definitely favoured by more folks than not.
How much coffee are you typically brewing at a time?
@@workshopcoffee9001thanks so much. It is helpful to have reassurance from the experts. I usually just brew a single cup. Around 250ml to 15g of coffee. I like my coffee less strong.
I recently picked up a clever dripper which I have enjoyed a lot. I was really struggling with some bad brews and referred back to this video and took your advice to radically change (in my case increase) grind size and have been really enjoying it since.
I'll be sure to come and visit when you guys can reopen and pick up some stuff from the online store in the meantime.
Great video, thanks. Particularly interesting as I have a Uniform, but have typically been using finer settings than you recommend, so will try yours and compare. One question though - I use a 2-cup V60, so would you grind finer or coarser than what you’re recommending for a 1-cup?
Our recommended grinder setting for 1-cup V60 brewing (15-18g of coffee) on the Wilfa Uniform is 24, whereas we'd recommend rotating to 30 for a 2-cup V60 (30-36g coffee).
Thanks for watching and take care.
What is the typical sucrose content of roasted coffee? No burr grinder makes particles that are all the same size, nor even close to being so, and the tolerance for achieving comparably tasty brews is wide. How then, does the home brewer determine what is a good/normal/poor/useless grinder? Isn't it vastly more useful to concentrate on dialling in the overall size, rather than worrying about evenness of grind (assuming the grinder is a known good model)?
Hi Mark - a couple of big questions there. Whilst this video aims to provide more of an introduction to grinding, hopefully the following answers are insightful.
The sucrose content in roasted coffee will depend on the initial green coffee as well as how developed the roast is. Simple sugars will degrade and alter in their composition to form new compounds throughout the roast cycle. If you send us an email on betterbrewing@workshopcoffee.com, we can reference a few research papers from our staff library to quote a % figure. However, we find it more productive to taste for simple and complex sweetness in our coffees.
Regarding evenness of grind size, you're right that no grinder produces perfectly even grind sizes. Using a sieve like those in the set by Kruve is an interesting experiment, so that you can experience what a much tighter spread of grind sizes will brew and taste like. The point I'm trying to make is that using a better quality grinder that yields a tighter spread of grind sizes will give the brewer more flexibility by creating a higher ceiling for deliciousness to work to. You're widening the sweet spot window. The wider the spread of grind sizes yielded by your grinder the more you're working with a compromised product. Whilst you can absolutely dial in to maximise the potential of the grinds coming out of an average grinder you will find brewing easier and the cups more enjoyable from a better grinder.
@@workshopcoffee9001 Will do, on the sugar content point, thanks. Using a Kruve for sifting for drip will significantly affect the distribution in a way that is far more dramatic than any grinder's grind quality. In fact if used as advertised, removing both fines & boulders, it will screw up your flow rate and cause more problems than it solves. Probably a better prospect for immersions, where you might like to reduce siltyness in the cup, or removing the top ~20% of a drip brew dose, so you don't need to adjust brew regime, but want a tighter particle spread. I doubt you'll find many people who have done more Kruve sifting than me. A wider spread of sizes, within normal day to day experience (say 50-80% falling between two Kruve sieves x3 apart), has a very tiny, almost imperceptible effect on cup quality for drip brewing. A wider distribution is, in effect, a coarser grind which you can normalise by slowing the water delivery & stretching out the brew. To talk about better grinders, you really need to identify what they are specifically & why in terms of a known characteristic, as grinder performance is never stated by manufacturers in this respect.
@@markburness5609 All that sifting for a drip brew? Why? lol If you're going to that extreme then a pour over is probably where those differences will shine. I know for a fact that my hand grinder produces 'muddy flavors' compared to my countertop burr grinder and the uneven grind from the hand grinder is why those brews aren't amazing.
@@bluemystic7501 I don't sift grinds for pourover brews, with any grinder (from Porlex to Niche & Wilfa flat), simply because it is not necessary for decent/representative brews (better is always better, use the best you have/can justify/afford). I only sift small amounts, occasionally, for calibration purposes.
My original point was that making unqualified statements about grind distribution & grinder quality is not helpful to most home users, who have to use the grinder that they have. If you are broadcasting that you know what good distribution & good grinders are, then name them & classify them, rather than being vague.
Also, that if you believe grind distribution is the holy grail (I don't, within reason) then sifting gives a level of 'performance' that a burr grinder cannot possibly achieve.
Sounds like your hand grinder is set too fine, try coarsening up (to reduce smaller particles) & slowing down the pour rate (to lift extraction, compensating for the coarser grind). All grinds are uneven, some have a larger std.dev, but the useable range is very wide (>50% falling between 2x ASTM sieves, one twice the size of the other, or >50% falling between 400 & 1200 Kruve).
Achieving the right grind size, for your regime & brew size, with a known working grinder is much more important than fretting over grind quality/uniformity. Most problems with grinders are down to 'finger trouble'.
@@markburness5609 And maybe that's the difference here. I'm not looking for 'decent/representative' brews. I'm looking to brew exceptional, clean cups of coffee. To bring this back around to the uneven grind of my hand grinder (and why an even grind matters), I get cups of coffee that are both thin on flavor yet also not super smooth. Backing off the grind results in even less flavor. Tightening the grind flirts with bitterness. The solution you ask? lol Grinding the beans twice to even out those boulders.
As a novice would you recommend a medium roast to burr grind to medium 6 on Krups grinder using Fellow system pour over 10oz cups Thx
Hi David, would you be able to email betterbrewing@workshopcoffee.com with a visual reference of the grind on setting 6? It isn't a grinder we're familiar with so tricky to make a helpful suggestion here.
I don't think you were entirely fair to the fine grind... more surface requires less time and temperature, clumps can be avoided with one mixing motion, floaters can be avoided with a little attention mixing the surface as you did a few times. Mine always makes plenty foam.
Very fine grinds like those used in the video aren’t suited to immersion methods using this kind of ratio of coffee to water, temperature and steep time, so in that sense it was a fair assessment that the coffee tasted poor. However, a fine grind isn’t innately good or bad - it needs to work in tandem with the other parameters at play.
@@workshopcoffee9001 Precisely, I gave more thought to my initial comment and came to the same conclusion. The parameters you used are based on a method, a standard if you will. I use very fine grind with success because my parameters are quite different. All fair indeed.