Seriously - check out the Awesome Coffee Club! I first had their stuff last year and trust me - it's *really* awesome. Get started at good.store/minutefood to get 25% off your coffee subscription or ANYTHING else at their parent website, the Good Store!
I tried Awesome Coffee Club before, they charge specialty coffee prices but the beans tasted old and stale and there was no roast date on the bag. Dont buy this garbage, find a local roaster near you and buy from them.
For anyone else wondering about the Nintendo Switch cartridge thing: they are coated with a bittering agent to prevent kids from putting them in their mouths and swallowing them.
after watching this video don't go any deeper into coffee, because you will wake up some day, using special kettle with special water with special filters and special scale just to make coffee, or even worst you will buy esspresso machine, srls get out while you can.
Take it from me, I fell to deep as well and now I’m at an airport, about to go on vacation, with a hand grinder, 3 bags of different coffee beans, V60, scale, filter papers. Run, run away from coffee content
I took a coffee brewing class for three days, you guys sum this up in 8 minutes with same idea. Pretty impressed for this video. I can say this is pretty rigid to get good extraction a cup of coffee.
An extra trick you can try - if your coffee is slightly over-extracted, a (very small) pinch of salt can dull your perception of the bitterness, helping the sweetness and acids stand out
Yup -- can't recall when I learned that one, but it came in handy when I tried a nitro cold brew sample at uni. Still remember my friend's reaction in lecture when he finally got around to tasting his.
I use the salt trick too. Making a low concentrate solution in water makes it easier to measure accurately. You can use a dropper. I think I got that from James Hoffmann.
Yep, the salt saved so many overly-bitter coffees for me! Conversely, though, adding that salt to coffee that doesn't need it (a good, acidic, non-bitter light roast) ruins it to my taste...
Of particular note that matters for the tea people, if your tea is not a black tea, temperature has a particularly noticeable effect, as it also speeds oxidation, which converts certain other compounds into bitter ones, so lowering temp and increasing time can get less bitter compounds and more other compounds. For a fully oxidized black tea or a roasted coffee bean, this doesn't matter as oxidation of those compounds is already complete.
For tea folks Additional factor, the type and source of tea. Green teas need a lower brew temp and shorter brew time for its Goldilocks zone. A jasmine green tea can go from comforting to unpalatable in an extra minute. Black teas generally want to be brewed around boiling and time is your major variable that you can adjust and its alot more forgiving. Note that the source/strain of tea matters. Assams and Ceylons are a lot more astringent and either need milk or a shorter brew time to avoid bitterness. If you like your black tea straight, I suggest getting a nice keemun tea, which is basically not bitter at all as far as teas go, even if you mess up.
It's not that easy with teas, as the way they are processed (even within the same group, especially green teas or oolongs) will greatly affect their compound ratios. Wu Mountain Tea has a great video about this, it's 30 minutes long but it's essentially all you will ever need regarding this topic
@@mopman9264 That would purely depend on the herbs used really. I suggest keeping the temps around or below 90 and trying different brew times until it works for you. (Somewhere between 2 and 6 minutes I find works for me depending on the tea) I find many berry or fruity herbal teas can essentially be brewed indefinitely in my experience. But I do like strong and interesting flavours, so I would avoid taking my advice without a hefty pinch of salt. If you are not sure what temperature your water is and you don't have or don't want to use a thermometer, you can use the Chinese bubble method. This works best in a pot/pan, but I have a glass kettle which is ideal for this. As a rule of thumb, the milder the expected flavour, the lower the temperature and the less brewing time needed.
Had a panic a few weeks ago when my trusty 20+ yr old Technivorm gave me a sour pot. I feared it might be faltering with age. Temp was right on still so I had to assume I had absent mindedly shorted the coffee or something. This video gives me more variable to consider. Happy to say that the Technivorm is back up to snuff and giving me delicious pots of coffee every day. I did do a cleaning but I think it was my age and not the brewers that caused the problem.
If you have finer grounds in an immersion brewer (i.e. french press - where water isn't moving anywhere) then it will still be more extracted than a coarser grind brewed for the same length of time. So, the greater surface area of fine grounds still is an important factor.
My experience is that powdered tea (the sort you'll find in most tea bags) tends to brew much quicker and have more of a tendency toward bitterness than loose-leaf tea. So... yes! The size of the "grind" does indeed have an effect!
These graphs seem cumulative, which means the acidity gets extracted early and then stays the same. This means that you could further reduce acidity by doing a pre-extraction that you throw out, and then only take the centre cut where most sweetness and a little bitter comes in. This is somewhat similar in distilling whiskey (and probably other distilled spirits) where they select "cuts" of the distillate based on when it comes out of the still, with the first portion dubbed the "head", the middle portion the "heart", and the final portion the "tail". So you could play with your coffee by separating the "head", "heart", and "tail" of the extraction which would be respectively be focused on acidity, sweetness, and bitterness; you could then recombine them to taste to get the perfect brew.
Yep. If you watch some of Lance Hedrick's early videos on espresso, he does what he calls a "salami shot", where he swaps cups twice and the first is sour, middle is sweet, last is bitter.
I tend to pour a cup of hot water over my grinds before using my coffee machine. It smoothes things out considerably and I tend to get a more full nutty flavor.
Another fun thing to look into is "channelling", sometimes water can force a channel through the coffee. The inital water will spend a lot of time in contact with the coffee, but the water that passes through the channel will spend far less time in contact with the coffee - resulting in a cup of coffee that's too bitter and too sour.
I've been getting into speciality coffee and proper brewing, etc. for a few weeks now and have been watching a _plethora_ of coffee content however this video explained so much in a simple, easy to follow way that now have a way better understanding of brewing and extraction! Really great video!
In China, some people put loose leaves in their mug, then pour in boiling hot water. They just let it steep until it's at a comfortable drinking temperature. It's very convenient, but it only works if you use tea that is low in bitterness compounds. When I'm very lazy but want to drink a lot of tea, I'll have a mug of tea in front of me that I'm drinking from, then another mug with too hot tea that I will drink next, and a little mug-sized tea pot that'll steep until the middle mug is empty. This doesn't make the best tea, but since I only drink less bitter tea, it is still very tasty. Even the green tea from Wuling that I'm sipping on right now, that says it should be steeped at 70 to 80 °C for 2-3 minutes, is excellent after boiling hot water and 10+ minutes of steeping.
I actually think the best green tea I've made is cold brew 黄山毛峰 that I just leave in a jar in the fridge for about 3 days. You get basically 0 bitterness but full extraction of all the other flavours
I usually tune in to these videos with very little knowledge of the topic being covered. It’s nice to see a video on something I consider myself knowledgeable about and agreeing with all the points, makes me feel super positive about the accuracy of other videos on this channel
There’s one more variable, pressure, the higher the air pressure during extraction, the less time you need to brew. I find that using aeropress that press water out tastes different from filtering coffee with paper or french press.
This is such a good video! Also helped me understand my chaotic methods of achieving a perfect brew :D Also I would like to note that you really should start your coffee journey with a good cup (preferably from a local coffee shop that also roasts them) so you can make an opinion about what flavor do you want to see in your coffee
Quick comment on method #4, where I think it is technically correct, but not applicable in practise: When you increase the amount of coffee in your brew (in #4 to reduce bitterness) it will always result in longer brew times which will counteract the effect you wanted to get and result in more bitterness. Or am I missing something?
Yes, for filter coffee this is true, unless you simultaneously reduce the grind size or change to a differen type of filter that restricts the flow less. If you use a brewing method where you can control the brewing time directly, like the french press, this is not an issue. Hope that helps 😊
After several years I found a good tasting Arabica coffee and went thru all the testing for that perfect formula. I found (water) to be the culprit on some bad coffee I had made so I just taste purified now and go from there on the right brands to buy it has saved me a lot of money and time, it was all about trying different water brands the whole time...
With immersion brewing like French press, you can't really over extract it because you're not adding fresh water. The reaction slows to a stop once the water can't hold any more coffee solids. The only way to really over extract is if you prefer less bitter coffee so you define over extracted earlier. It means that if you don't know what you're doing, french press and aeropress are much more forgiving.
1:25 the Ithkuil inscriptions on the coffee maker means "this (object) is being a coffee maker" (or just "this is a coffee maker"), written "pçmila" in normal script, for those interested.
I'm absolutely appalled that in a video about coffee sponsored by the Awesome Coffee Club there is no stick figure of James Hoffman, Hank Green or John Green.
Brewing temperature is NOT fixed in your coffee maker. Preheat your water. James Hoffmann has a great video on this. Standard coffee makers cannot heat the first few ounces of water fast enough, so they don't get to 210F. They're closer to 180F or lower. Boil your water first, then brew with that.
Many coffee brewers recommend in their instructions against pouring preheated water into the reservoir. The plastic in that part of the brewer might not be rated for boiling water and you could develop heat cracks. It may also affected the brew time & the behavior of the shower head to use preheated water. Most drip machines are calibrated for low extractions of preground, very dark roasts: coffees that extract very freely & easily. Just let those machines do their thing. If you want to get into mediums & lights which require those higher temperatures, either get a nicer machine with a nice grinder or get into pourovers with the full setup.
@@MinuteFoodif you didn't know this, why the hell are you bothering to make a video which isn't thoroughly checked? Or do you intend on making as many inaccuracies as minutephysics?
I've read that adding anything but cold water can burn out your coffee maker, bc they're "dumb" and don't heat to a particular temp, they just blindly heat the water.
I've switched too French press and let it rest for 20mins before my first cup, use water near boiling. Don't get upset stomach or the runs halfway through my first cup
I would like to make a suggestion for a video: I wanna know more about milk curdling. Why does it happen? Does it happen to vegetable milk as well? How can i prevent it when making a creamy souce? I know that it's the base for making yogurt and cheese, so sometimes can be good, but I also want to stop ruining my chicken curry...
Temperature is one of the most important aspects people often neglect, simply due to difficulty in proper adjustment. If you can get a kettle with temperature settings, it will likely be the biggest game changer in your brewing results.
Thank you, this was really instructive. I'm using a bialetti moka express and can vary how fine I grind the coffee and how quickly I heat it up. When it comes to tea I remember the instructions to use boiling water for black tea and 70°C water for green tea. I guess that is also because hotter water will extract more bitter?
Are you sure that grind size matters only because of its effect on brew time? Hoffmann suggests otherwise, and my experience with an aeropress would also suggest that increased surface area increases extraction independent of brew time.
That were my thoughts too. Her explanation kinda works for filtered coffee, but in immersion methods all the coffee is submerged at once. There is no obstructed flow, which would supposedly make the brewing time longer.
A few years back, I started going to a tea salon where I'd always find tea much better than the one I brought back and brewed at home. Until the day I asked the owner and she told me she brews most teas 5 to 10 degrees Celsius lower than the usual recommendation. I used to reduce brew time, but heat was the key. Never had bitter tea again :)
Im subbed to the Awesome coffee club and my favorite roast by far is the medium-dark roast! It's got a really full bodied and roasty flavor without even a hint of burning. The decaf is also quite good! I made coffee jellies with it! Not sponsored, just a believer in its mission and a fan of its quality
I don't usually drink coffee, but sometimes I want one, but a good one. Therefore I've been looking into this chemistry before and opted for a manual coffee maker for single cup. This gives you the possibility to easily choose the coarseness of the coffee, the temperature at which it is brewed and how long. You have infinite possibility and therefore can find your own combination (and tweak it according to the coffee you've bought) to make your best cup.
I've been enjoying teas like assam a lot lately and I like to fill half of my mug with cold water, add the bags and steep cold while the kettle boils. It makes a strong, flavourful cup without burning
A quick tip, even with a drip brewer, you can (sorta) adjust the temperature. If you put hot water into the machine, the first water that hits the grinds will be hotter, which can increase extraction. Can’t make it colder though, lol
This science is so satisfying! And I say science, because I did have some hint towards these facts beforehand, with more water giving better taste, et cetera. (while I would obviously prefer milk!)
I'll brew my auto drip coffee with the pot out which stops it from dripping and the water will hang out in the coffee grinds a little longer. Then a little after it finishes I'll put the pot in and let it all fall. tastes good and I don't have to use as much coffee grinds saving $$$
Something that I'm left wondering about is a french press. How does the grind size affect the taste? Does pressing out the coffee do enough to make the coffee stop extracting or does it keep extracting at the bottom? Time to experiment once I get my coffee grinder up & running again.
Interesting! As a subjective marker, I always considered a coffee well balanced when it has a sweet and some light fruit acid taste, like a raisin or a jujube. Now, I realise why this has always been so hard to achieve.
For years i've considered getting acquainted with coffee brewing and buying an expensive machine or something. I didn't because frankly, i just love instant coffee. It took me a long time to admit it. The fact that is also healthier than other types of coffee really helped.
Great video, but missing one really important piece: getting a quality burr grinder. A blade grinder will get you BOTH underextraction AND overextraction owing to the wider particle size distribution. The assertion that surface area isn't a factor I think is inaccurate, otherwise the absolute best coffee brewers who win competitions wouldn't spend $300+ on sifters to further achieve particle size uniformity.
Thanks for the video. I only drink tea, and IMHO there's already a huge difference between teabags and "lose" tea (I use the latter 99% of the time). Exploring different black and green teas is a really nice journey, and discovering teas that are completely outside of what you expect can be a pleasant surprise. Like "milky Oolong", a green tea that has almost none of the "bitterness" that's typical for green teas, or "Pu Erh", a fermented green tea (aka "red tea") that's also very mild. And I know certain savages (work colleagues...) that leave their black/green tea (bags) in the tea can indefinitely...
And about some steering to the mixture? I like my coffee VERY strong, and a little spoon steering while I pour the water just hit the nails for me... There are so many ways to brew a nice coffee, but the personal taste is what really matters, I know for a fact that very few people like their coffee as strong as I do ☕
I switched to using a conical burr grinder many years ago and the consistency of grind is lightyears ahead of the mini food processor types. Do yourself a favor if you want to up your game and retire your old machine to grinding spices!
Interesting. When I was in the UK the tea there was fantastic. When I got home I bought the same type and brand, Yet was seriously disappointed. This video makes me wish I knew how they did it there.
Overextracted doesn't mean equally extracting the entire bed too far, it means unevenly extracting a tiny bit until it gives off all of the acid and all of the bitterness. Overextracted coffee is sour as well as bitter, because kverextracting an entire bed like is implied here would take silly amounts of water. You will only ever encounter this if you lack evenness
6:09 Another good starting tip: throw out your percolator. It's double-cooking your coffee, it's a flawed brew method. Throw a Clever Dripper next to the French Press instead.
This was a great video and after having watched probably hundreds of hours of coffee content on UA-cam I still felt like it taught me something. However I do believe the topic of grind size was mischaracterized. Surface area is as far as I understand it still an important factor and to make the topic of coffee amount more complicated the amount of water used to extract the coffee is probably even more impactful than contact time. I know that you can complicate the topic endlessly and start talking about water properties and stuff like that but I think this was one core piece that wasn't represented as I've understood it. Would love to be proven wrong to challenge my understanding. @LanceHedrick would probably be my go to source for this answer.
As a tea drinker, I watched to the end. While I can't dispute any data you've presented, my experience is so different. I weigh out my whole leaves, and brew them for the suggested time. I then brew* them for longer for each following extraction (3-4 for "Western" style basket brewing). But, my last brew I always let linger. I like bitter and balanced, early on it's hard to get it right with all the easily soluble stuff ready to go. edit: *
Grind size doesn't just influence extraction via brew time - this is very obvious for immersion methods (like the french press in the video). It's okay that this is largely limited to drip coffee methods, but the really interesting bit is where these variables that influence extraction have differential effects, I was really hoping you would get into that a bit more than the hint about brew temperature and complex chemistry at work. I'm a bit disappointed by this.
I'm not a coffee lover, I just hate bad coffee. And sadly, 90% of "coffee" is bad. It lacks flavor, too acidic, too bitter, and etc. Im glad I stumbled upon this video.
Addendum to the tea extraction graph: There's a lot of scientific literature saying that those polyphenols at the right side of the graph are really good for you, from regulating the microbiomes in your mouth and gut (the former can help benign or beneficial bacterial colonies out-compete malignant bacteria like the ones that cause halitosis and gingivitis) to allegedly improving metabolism and the health of your circulatory system (heart and blood vessels). Meaning, if you want to improve overall health through tea, over-extracting green tea might be the way to go. There are some toothpastes and gels that contain green tea extract specifically to control the bacteria that cause tooth decay, but unfortunately they are a real pain to find in North America where Colgate controls well over half the market. You can also cold-brew green tea, which will extract different classes of polyphenols and flavonoids, which are also really really good for you without the bitter tannins that come from hot over-extraction. You will get a lot less catechins, however.
Small correction that I would love to suggest is that, instead of thinking about how much water for a certain amount of coffee, it's better to think about the dose of the coffee instead (how much coffee per certain amount of water), because at the end of the day, you'll be brewing some certain "cups" of coffee instead of how many grams of coffee ground (e.g. "I want to brew 2 cups for my wife and I", and NOT, "I want to brew 30 grams of coffee ground for my wife and I")
I use freshly ground Espresso Beans from a grinder set to medium-fine grounds, much finer than the normal filter coffee. And it's the best damn coffee, at least in my opinion. It can even get cold, and it still tastes great. That's something I can't say for pre-ground beans
Does the mineral content and pH of the water have much of an effect on the extraction process? I've also seen people add salt to their coffee grounds before brewing.
I liked the first title better, I put the video in a que to watch, and by the time I watched it, the title had changed.. I don't like the new (your videos will get more likes or clicks if you have different titles, and see which titles perform better, I clicked on the original title...) But I like your videos, and I like coffee. So, the Minute part is what got me to click. Minute Earth, Minute physics, all the Minutes are good. Thankyou.
The brewing method is the 5th component. _That_ is what actually determines _the strength_ of your coffee. If you try to make "weaker" coffee by putting in less grounds … you'll get the same strength coffee, only _strongly bitter._ I repeat: "brew-method determines strength", and as factor #4 points out, too little grounds == overextraction. To make "weaker" coffee - (1) Brew it _correctly_ using the right amount of grounds [or a bit more]; then (2) add hot water. No, really, that's what you're doing with your tea-bag, right? You dunk it for a shorter time, then stir - which is mixing the hot water in the cup with the brewed tea around the bag.
Seriously - check out the Awesome Coffee Club! I first had their stuff last year and trust me - it's *really* awesome. Get started at good.store/minutefood to get 25% off your coffee subscription or ANYTHING else at their parent website, the Good Store!
I tried Awesome Coffee Club before, they charge specialty coffee prices but the beans tasted old and stale and there was no roast date on the bag. Dont buy this garbage, find a local roaster near you and buy from them.
I'm an ACC member. I love the coffee (both roasts) and it feels great to be supporting both ethical growing and a great non-profit every morning!
日本で住んでたら、、、
For anyone else wondering about the Nintendo Switch cartridge thing: they are coated with a bittering agent to prevent kids from putting them in their mouths and swallowing them.
That's an incredibly thoughtful design choice!
Not going to stop adults tho ;)
@@thefaboo Probably to prevent lawsuits.
@@vectorlua8081 which doesn't take away from their choice even 1%.
Could you lick it off?
after watching this video don't go any deeper into coffee, because you will wake up some day, using special kettle with special water with special filters and special scale just to make coffee, or even worst you will buy esspresso machine, srls get out while you can.
Never tell me the odds!!!
Just add a teaspoon-ish of Trader Joe's instant coffee grounds to a cup of Silk dark chocolate almond milk. (Optionally heat the almond milk first.)
Do NOT search for "James Hoffmann pour over", worst mistake of my life
Take it from me, I fell to deep as well and now I’m at an airport, about to go on vacation, with a hand grinder, 3 bags of different coffee beans, V60, scale, filter papers. Run, run away from coffee content
Problem:
I'm already in both the coffee and tea rabbit holes before this video released.
I took a coffee brewing class for three days, you guys sum this up in 8 minutes with same idea. Pretty impressed for this video. I can say this is pretty rigid to get good extraction a cup of coffee.
An extra trick you can try - if your coffee is slightly over-extracted, a (very small) pinch of salt can dull your perception of the bitterness, helping the sweetness and acids stand out
Yup -- can't recall when I learned that one, but it came in handy when I tried a nitro cold brew sample at uni. Still remember my friend's reaction in lecture when he finally got around to tasting his.
cant emphasise enough how important the very small part is though, i've made the mistake of putting too much salt in and it was miserable lol
I use the salt trick too. Making a low concentrate solution in water makes it easier to measure accurately. You can use a dropper. I think I got that from James Hoffmann.
@joshuanewman6409 10% saline solution in an eye dropper. Works wonders, makes bad coffee drinkable.
Yep, the salt saved so many overly-bitter coffees for me! Conversely, though, adding that salt to coffee that doesn't need it (a good, acidic, non-bitter light roast) ruins it to my taste...
Of particular note that matters for the tea people, if your tea is not a black tea, temperature has a particularly noticeable effect, as it also speeds oxidation, which converts certain other compounds into bitter ones, so lowering temp and increasing time can get less bitter compounds and more other compounds. For a fully oxidized black tea or a roasted coffee bean, this doesn't matter as oxidation of those compounds is already complete.
Good green tea should be brewed at 70-80C for 30-45 seconds.
For tea folks
Additional factor, the type and source of tea.
Green teas need a lower brew temp and shorter brew time for its Goldilocks zone. A jasmine green tea can go from comforting to unpalatable in an extra minute.
Black teas generally want to be brewed around boiling and time is your major variable that you can adjust and its alot more forgiving.
Note that the source/strain of tea matters. Assams and Ceylons are a lot more astringent and either need milk or a shorter brew time to avoid bitterness.
If you like your black tea straight, I suggest getting a nice keemun tea, which is basically not bitter at all as far as teas go, even if you mess up.
Nope. Black tea is best around 95°C, not 100°C. You're right for green tea - it's best around 90°C
It's not that easy with teas, as the way they are processed (even within the same group, especially green teas or oolongs) will greatly affect their compound ratios. Wu Mountain Tea has a great video about this, it's 30 minutes long but it's essentially all you will ever need regarding this topic
I like my black tea straight and as strong as the tea bag will allow it to go. I drink a cup of tea like that every day after work.
and do you have anything to say about herbal tea?
@@mopman9264 That would purely depend on the herbs used really. I suggest keeping the temps around or below 90 and trying different brew times until it works for you. (Somewhere between 2 and 6 minutes I find works for me depending on the tea)
I find many berry or fruity herbal teas can essentially be brewed indefinitely in my experience. But I do like strong and interesting flavours, so I would avoid taking my advice without a hefty pinch of salt.
If you are not sure what temperature your water is and you don't have or don't want to use a thermometer, you can use the Chinese bubble method. This works best in a pot/pan, but I have a glass kettle which is ideal for this.
As a rule of thumb, the milder the expected flavour, the lower the temperature and the less brewing time needed.
Had a panic a few weeks ago when my trusty 20+ yr old Technivorm gave me a sour pot. I feared it might be faltering with age. Temp was right on still so I had to assume I had absent mindedly shorted the coffee or something. This video gives me more variable to consider.
Happy to say that the Technivorm is back up to snuff and giving me delicious pots of coffee every day. I did do a cleaning but I think it was my age and not the brewers that caused the problem.
If you have finer grounds in an immersion brewer (i.e. french press - where water isn't moving anywhere) then it will still be more extracted than a coarser grind brewed for the same length of time. So, the greater surface area of fine grounds still is an important factor.
As a tea person I'm nor sour about the coffee content. But I will be bitter if varying the grind of my leaves will not have any effect.
7 hours agoo???
We tea folk don't 'grind' leaves, true, but loose leaf tends to have larger pieces than the more powdery bagged offerings.
@@deleted_handle early access for Patreon supporters.
My experience is that powdered tea (the sort you'll find in most tea bags) tends to brew much quicker and have more of a tendency toward bitterness than loose-leaf tea. So... yes! The size of the "grind" does indeed have an effect!
I’m going to have to report these puns
I would LOVEEEE a deeper dive video!!!!!!!!!
I love James Hoffmans videos but I always love different views and your graphics are quite nice.
I was about to close UA-cam when I read the title, but the "or tea!" in parentheses made me watch this immediately.
These graphs seem cumulative, which means the acidity gets extracted early and then stays the same.
This means that you could further reduce acidity by doing a pre-extraction that you throw out, and then only take the centre cut where most sweetness and a little bitter comes in.
This is somewhat similar in distilling whiskey (and probably other distilled spirits) where they select "cuts" of the distillate based on when it comes out of the still, with the first portion dubbed the "head", the middle portion the "heart", and the final portion the "tail".
So you could play with your coffee by separating the "head", "heart", and "tail" of the extraction which would be respectively be focused on acidity, sweetness, and bitterness; you could then recombine them to taste to get the perfect brew.
Yep. If you watch some of Lance Hedrick's early videos on espresso, he does what he calls a "salami shot", where he swaps cups twice and the first is sour, middle is sweet, last is bitter.
I tend to pour a cup of hot water over my grinds before using my coffee machine. It smoothes things out considerably and I tend to get a more full nutty flavor.
@@Kiaulenyep, correct, also recommending
Pretty much how you do tea if you're doing it gonfu style at least. Pour out the initial infusion then drink the rest :)
@@kyokoyumi that's the best part. Send it to mee
I drink neither coffee nor tea. Yet I found this video very instructive. Percolation is awesome!
Another fun thing to look into is "channelling", sometimes water can force a channel through the coffee.
The inital water will spend a lot of time in contact with the coffee, but the water that passes through the channel will spend far less time in contact with the coffee - resulting in a cup of coffee that's too bitter and too sour.
So in other words, "channeling" results in the *worst* cup of coffee possible? 😂
@@MissBlackMetal 100% lmao, and it always seems to happen when you're So Close to making the perfect cup
I've been getting into speciality coffee and proper brewing, etc. for a few weeks now and have been watching a _plethora_ of coffee content however this video explained so much in a simple, easy to follow way that now have a way better understanding of brewing and extraction!
Really great video!
Thanks
ay tks for the donate!
In China, some people put loose leaves in their mug, then pour in boiling hot water. They just let it steep until it's at a comfortable drinking temperature. It's very convenient, but it only works if you use tea that is low in bitterness compounds. When I'm very lazy but want to drink a lot of tea, I'll have a mug of tea in front of me that I'm drinking from, then another mug with too hot tea that I will drink next, and a little mug-sized tea pot that'll steep until the middle mug is empty. This doesn't make the best tea, but since I only drink less bitter tea, it is still very tasty. Even the green tea from Wuling that I'm sipping on right now, that says it should be steeped at 70 to 80 °C for 2-3 minutes, is excellent after boiling hot water and 10+ minutes of steeping.
I actually think the best green tea I've made is cold brew 黄山毛峰 that I just leave in a jar in the fridge for about 3 days. You get basically 0 bitterness but full extraction of all the other flavours
6:12 "this clip hits hard, feel free to take a screenshot"
I usually tune in to these videos with very little knowledge of the topic being covered. It’s nice to see a video on something I consider myself knowledgeable about and agreeing with all the points, makes me feel super positive about the accuracy of other videos on this channel
Shoutout to the Moccamaster! Such a great rig!
There’s one more variable, pressure, the higher the air pressure during extraction, the less time you need to brew. I find that using aeropress that press water out tastes different from filtering coffee with paper or french press.
As a self described weird coffee person this video does a really great job at explaining all the variables! Love it!
I love the Awesome Coffee Club! Been using it for years.
This is such a good video! Also helped me understand my chaotic methods of achieving a perfect brew :D
Also I would like to note that you really should start your coffee journey with a good cup (preferably from a local coffee shop that also roasts them) so you can make an opinion about what flavor do you want to see in your coffee
Great video - nicely presented information (especially the extraction chart), but I did find the music loop really annoying.
Great explanation 👍
Quick comment on method #4, where I think it is technically correct, but not applicable in practise:
When you increase the amount of coffee in your brew (in #4 to reduce bitterness) it will always result in longer brew times which will counteract the effect you wanted to get and result in more bitterness.
Or am I missing something?
This is what I was thinking!
Yes, for filter coffee this is true, unless you simultaneously reduce the grind size or change to a differen type of filter that restricts the flow less. If you use a brewing method where you can control the brewing time directly, like the french press, this is not an issue. Hope that helps 😊
Yes this is a very good point, and I think @lukasplatz has the correct answer!
Love the cup
I LOVE Minute Food and this is one of your best vids yet!
This is the BEST basic coffee tutorial
After several years I found a good tasting Arabica coffee and went thru all the testing for that perfect formula. I found (water) to be the culprit on some bad coffee I had made so I just taste purified now and go from there on the right brands to buy it has saved me a lot of money and time, it was all about trying different water brands the whole time...
With immersion brewing like French press, you can't really over extract it because you're not adding fresh water. The reaction slows to a stop once the water can't hold any more coffee solids. The only way to really over extract is if you prefer less bitter coffee so you define over extracted earlier. It means that if you don't know what you're doing, french press and aeropress are much more forgiving.
1:25 the Ithkuil inscriptions on the coffee maker means "this (object) is being a coffee maker" (or just "this is a coffee maker"), written "pçmila" in normal script, for those interested.
I would have never expected Ithkuil
I'm absolutely appalled that in a video about coffee sponsored by the Awesome Coffee Club there is no stick figure of James Hoffman, Hank Green or John Green.
Brewing temperature is NOT fixed in your coffee maker. Preheat your water. James Hoffmann has a great video on this. Standard coffee makers cannot heat the first few ounces of water fast enough, so they don't get to 210F. They're closer to 180F or lower. Boil your water first, then brew with that.
This is a really good point, thank you!
Many coffee brewers recommend in their instructions against pouring preheated water into the reservoir. The plastic in that part of the brewer might not be rated for boiling water and you could develop heat cracks. It may also affected the brew time & the behavior of the shower head to use preheated water. Most drip machines are calibrated for low extractions of preground, very dark roasts: coffees that extract very freely & easily. Just let those machines do their thing. If you want to get into mediums & lights which require those higher temperatures, either get a nicer machine with a nice grinder or get into pourovers with the full setup.
@@MinuteFoodif you didn't know this, why the hell are you bothering to make a video which isn't thoroughly checked? Or do you intend on making as many inaccuracies as minutephysics?
I've read that adding anything but cold water can burn out your coffee maker, bc they're "dumb" and don't heat to a particular temp, they just blindly heat the water.
another key component in extraction is agitation, and brew time is also dependent on the filter you use
this video is sooo helpful! Thank you!
I've switched too French press and let it rest for 20mins before my first cup, use water near boiling. Don't get upset stomach or the runs halfway through my first cup
I would like to make a suggestion for a video:
I wanna know more about milk curdling. Why does it happen? Does it happen to vegetable milk as well? How can i prevent it when making a creamy souce? I know that it's the base for making yogurt and cheese, so sometimes can be good, but I also want to stop ruining my chicken curry...
Another amazing, well-explained video. Thank you for continuing to produce educational and interesting content!!!
Temperature is one of the most important aspects people often neglect, simply due to difficulty in proper adjustment. If you can get a kettle with temperature settings, it will likely be the biggest game changer in your brewing results.
also, the old percolators, and the stove top coffee makers were my faves. Nowadays I like Black and Decker.
Thank you, this was really instructive. I'm using a bialetti moka express and can vary how fine I grind the coffee and how quickly I heat it up.
When it comes to tea I remember the instructions to use boiling water for black tea and 70°C water for green tea. I guess that is also because hotter water will extract more bitter?
HEY! Awesome Coffee Club! Easily the best coffee I've ever made and I feel better knowing where the coffee comes from and where the money is going.
What is required to maximize caffeine content? Can that be done while still maintaining good flavor?
I'm not a coffe or tea drinker (not into hot liquids) but i loved the video!
Are you sure that grind size matters only because of its effect on brew time? Hoffmann suggests otherwise, and my experience with an aeropress would also suggest that increased surface area increases extraction independent of brew time.
That were my thoughts too. Her explanation kinda works for filtered coffee, but in immersion methods all the coffee is submerged at once. There is no obstructed flow, which would supposedly make the brewing time longer.
A few years back, I started going to a tea salon where I'd always find tea much better than the one I brought back and brewed at home. Until the day I asked the owner and she told me she brews most teas 5 to 10 degrees Celsius lower than the usual recommendation. I used to reduce brew time, but heat was the key. Never had bitter tea again :)
Im subbed to the Awesome coffee club and my favorite roast by far is the medium-dark roast! It's got a really full bodied and roasty flavor without even a hint of burning. The decaf is also quite good! I made coffee jellies with it!
Not sponsored, just a believer in its mission and a fan of its quality
I don't usually drink coffee, but sometimes I want one, but a good one. Therefore I've been looking into this chemistry before and opted for a manual coffee maker for single cup. This gives you the possibility to easily choose the coarseness of the coffee, the temperature at which it is brewed and how long. You have infinite possibility and therefore can find your own combination (and tweak it according to the coffee you've bought) to make your best cup.
great stuff!! thanks!!!
I've been enjoying teas like assam a lot lately and I like to fill half of my mug with cold water, add the bags and steep cold while the kettle boils. It makes a strong, flavourful cup without burning
😘thanks for including us tea people
Could you make a video on why and how to soak nuts and grains overnight
A quick tip, even with a drip brewer, you can (sorta) adjust the temperature. If you put hot water into the machine, the first water that hits the grinds will be hotter, which can increase extraction. Can’t make it colder though, lol
This is a really good point, thank you!
If you have a Moccamaster, this is ill advised. You’re only supposed to put cold water in the reservoir.
This science is so satisfying! And I say science, because I did have some hint towards these facts beforehand, with more water giving better taste, et cetera. (while I would obviously prefer milk!)
I clicked on this thinking it was minute physics. It did not disappoint regardless.
So this why I never understood what the acidity people were referring to in coffee was.
James Hoffman be like "but actually..."
where is this tea vs coffee thing coming from, i drink both every day
There's die-hard fans of each who loathe the other.
Great presentation. One small caveat. In my understanding, sugars are not present in coffee. The sweetness that you taste is more what you smell.
I'll brew my auto drip coffee with the pot out which stops it from dripping and the water will hang out in the coffee grinds a little longer. Then a little after it finishes I'll put the pot in and let it all fall. tastes good and I don't have to use as much coffee grinds saving $$$
I have that exact same French press from the ad read!
Something that I'm left wondering about is a french press. How does the grind size affect the taste? Does pressing out the coffee do enough to make the coffee stop extracting or does it keep extracting at the bottom? Time to experiment once I get my coffee grinder up & running again.
Interesting! As a subjective marker, I always considered a coffee well balanced when it has a sweet and some light fruit acid taste, like a raisin or a jujube. Now, I realise why this has always been so hard to achieve.
Excellent video ❤
For years i've considered getting acquainted with coffee brewing and buying an expensive machine or something. I didn't because frankly, i just love instant coffee. It took me a long time to admit it. The fact that is also healthier than other types of coffee really helped.
Get a grinder and french press for like $20
Great video, but missing one really important piece: getting a quality burr grinder. A blade grinder will get you BOTH underextraction AND overextraction owing to the wider particle size distribution. The assertion that surface area isn't a factor I think is inaccurate, otherwise the absolute best coffee brewers who win competitions wouldn't spend $300+ on sifters to further achieve particle size uniformity.
I guess I just love that bitterness x
Thanks for the video. I only drink tea, and IMHO there's already a huge difference between teabags and "lose" tea (I use the latter 99% of the time). Exploring different black and green teas is a really nice journey, and discovering teas that are completely outside of what you expect can be a pleasant surprise. Like "milky Oolong", a green tea that has almost none of the "bitterness" that's typical for green teas, or "Pu Erh", a fermented green tea (aka "red tea") that's also very mild.
And I know certain savages (work colleagues...) that leave their black/green tea (bags) in the tea can indefinitely...
And about some steering to the mixture? I like my coffee VERY strong, and a little spoon steering while I pour the water just hit the nails for me... There are so many ways to brew a nice coffee, but the personal taste is what really matters, I know for a fact that very few people like their coffee as strong as I do ☕
I switched to using a conical burr grinder many years ago and the consistency of grind is lightyears ahead of the mini food processor types. Do yourself a favor if you want to up your game and retire your old machine to grinding spices!
I will always steep my tea with lemon juice for at least an hour if I have the time, is just how I like it.
That finally explains how I always seem to take perfectly fine tea bags and make the result taste undrinkably sour or bitter
Nothing beats Vietnamese Phin brewing for me. Simple, and efficient for single serve. And Robusta ftw.
Interesting. When I was in the UK the tea there was fantastic. When I got home I bought the same type and brand, Yet was seriously disappointed. This video makes me wish I knew how they did it there.
I think the water also makes a difference
Water makes a big difference. And probably how fresh the tea is?
What about lyophilized coffee? I never saw anyone make a video about it and I'd love to know about the pros and cons of it.
Overextracted doesn't mean equally extracting the entire bed too far, it means unevenly extracting a tiny bit until it gives off all of the acid and all of the bitterness.
Overextracted coffee is sour as well as bitter, because kverextracting an entire bed like is implied here would take silly amounts of water. You will only ever encounter this if you lack evenness
6:09 Another good starting tip: throw out your percolator. It's double-cooking your coffee, it's a flawed brew method. Throw a Clever Dripper next to the French Press instead.
I've found high-pressure coffee makers are the best... moka pot 2'nd place, then paper filter/ french press and last "ground coffee in a cup".
Just like coffee, minutefood is worth waking up to
This was a great video and after having watched probably hundreds of hours of coffee content on UA-cam I still felt like it taught me something. However I do believe the topic of grind size was mischaracterized. Surface area is as far as I understand it still an important factor and to make the topic of coffee amount more complicated the amount of water used to extract the coffee is probably even more impactful than contact time. I know that you can complicate the topic endlessly and start talking about water properties and stuff like that but I think this was one core piece that wasn't represented as I've understood it. Would love to be proven wrong to challenge my understanding. @LanceHedrick would probably be my go to source for this answer.
As a tea drinker, I watched to the end. While I can't dispute any data you've presented, my experience is so different. I weigh out my whole leaves, and brew them for the suggested time. I then brew* them for longer for each following extraction (3-4 for "Western" style basket brewing). But, my last brew I always let linger. I like bitter and balanced, early on it's hard to get it right with all the easily soluble stuff ready to go.
edit: *
Grind size doesn't just influence extraction via brew time - this is very obvious for immersion methods (like the french press in the video). It's okay that this is largely limited to drip coffee methods, but the really interesting bit is where these variables that influence extraction have differential effects, I was really hoping you would get into that a bit more than the hint about brew temperature and complex chemistry at work. I'm a bit disappointed by this.
I'm not a coffee lover, I just hate bad coffee. And sadly, 90% of "coffee" is bad. It lacks flavor, too acidic, too bitter, and etc. Im glad I stumbled upon this video.
Can’t wait for Hames Joffman to do his video….wait…..
It will be great if he will do a collab with Hance Ledrick
Awesome coffee club!
I'm not 6-13, need an alternative to switch cartridge.
Blow into nes cartridge
Addendum to the tea extraction graph: There's a lot of scientific literature saying that those polyphenols at the right side of the graph are really good for you, from regulating the microbiomes in your mouth and gut (the former can help benign or beneficial bacterial colonies out-compete malignant bacteria like the ones that cause halitosis and gingivitis) to allegedly improving metabolism and the health of your circulatory system (heart and blood vessels). Meaning, if you want to improve overall health through tea, over-extracting green tea might be the way to go. There are some toothpastes and gels that contain green tea extract specifically to control the bacteria that cause tooth decay, but unfortunately they are a real pain to find in North America where Colgate controls well over half the market.
You can also cold-brew green tea, which will extract different classes of polyphenols and flavonoids, which are also really really good for you without the bitter tannins that come from hot over-extraction. You will get a lot less catechins, however.
I don't drink coffee or tea but I like your videos anyway.
Small correction that I would love to suggest is that, instead of thinking about how much water for a certain amount of coffee, it's better to think about the dose of the coffee instead (how much coffee per certain amount of water), because at the end of the day, you'll be brewing some certain "cups" of coffee instead of how many grams of coffee ground (e.g. "I want to brew 2 cups for my wife and I", and NOT, "I want to brew 30 grams of coffee ground for my wife and I")
I'm glad I was at least acknowledged as someone who likes to be on the far right side of the graph for both coffee and tea.
I use freshly ground Espresso Beans from a grinder set to medium-fine grounds, much finer than the normal filter coffee. And it's the best damn coffee, at least in my opinion. It can even get cold, and it still tastes great. That's something I can't say for pre-ground beans
Some coffee machines allow regulating the pressure too: does that affect the extraction as well?
Does the mineral content and pH of the water have much of an effect on the extraction process? I've also seen people add salt to their coffee grounds before brewing.
I liked the first title better, I put the video in a que to watch, and by the time I watched it, the title had changed.. I don't like the new (your videos will get more likes or clicks if you have different titles, and see which titles perform better, I clicked on the original title...) But I like your videos, and I like coffee. So, the Minute part is what got me to click. Minute Earth, Minute physics, all the Minutes are good. Thankyou.
Wow, those Technivorm systems are expensive on Amazon. Think I'll just stick with my French Press and espresso machine
The brewing method is the 5th component. _That_ is what actually determines _the strength_ of your coffee.
If you try to make "weaker" coffee by putting in less grounds … you'll get the same strength coffee, only _strongly bitter._ I repeat: "brew-method determines strength", and as factor #4 points out, too little grounds == overextraction.
To make "weaker" coffee - (1) Brew it _correctly_ using the right amount of grounds [or a bit more]; then (2) add hot water. No, really, that's what you're doing with your tea-bag, right? You dunk it for a shorter time, then stir - which is mixing the hot water in the cup with the brewed tea around the bag.
Nice.