Does brewing require large grind adjustments?

#1: Post by **another_jim** » March 9th, 2014, 7:21 pm

In my struggle with 3rd wave coffee, I've been sampling a miscellany of light roasts, some done fast, some slow; some pulled at the end of the 1st crack when the green flavors were still detectable, some pulled maybe 20 seconds later, when they were gone. I brewed all of them using a four minute steep, then decanting the liquid through a Melitta filter to clarify it.

Turns out that the slower, non-green roasts worked best at the usual French Press and cupping grind; whereas some of the more radical roasts did best at grinds even finer than filter coffee, roughly the grind used for a mocha pot.

This is so extreme that it has me wondering if anyone else has experienced the same thing. If the result holds up, it means that grind corrections to fix cartoon-extracted* or blah-extracted* cups may be a lot more extreme than anyone thinks.

* I am using the term "cartoon-extracted" and "blah-extracted" to avoid yet another dementia inducing discussion on extraction; my remaining stock of brain cells is too limited for them.

#2: Post by **MWJB** » March 9th, 2014, 11:12 pm

another_jim wrote:This is so extreme that it has me wondering if anyone else has experienced the same thing.

I typically grind much finer than most suggest for French press, Sowden, or other steeped methods (Clever, Bonavita immersion cone, inverted Aeropress). If lighter roasts are less soluble, then grinding finer can help to balance that. Especially if, as you are doing, you secondary filter to keep the solids down -the only reason I can see for grinding coarse in a French press is to reduce silt from blasting through the mesh of the plunger into the beverage. Even without secondary filtering, finer grinds seem to become water logged faster & will sink & stay out of the way if not disturbed...no good, of course, if you anticipate breaking a crust.

I grind every coffee fine now (certainly no coarser than one turn out on a Lido), taste intermittently & kill extraction at preference. There does seem to be a point where going too fine starts to make life harder again, as the coffee is prone to dry clods of grinds & this prevents quick & even wetting.

Additionally, you can go much longer than 4 minutes too. If you're not aiming for a specific point, left to steep, most coffee seems to hit a fairly common level of extraction (discernable by both taste & measurement). It's much less likely to overextract than if drip brewing.

#3: Post by **varnex** » March 9th, 2014, 11:54 pm

I haven't had the luxury to taste as many different roasts as Jim, but my experience is kind of similar. For a regular 4 min 200F steep, I have a darker roasted coffee dialled in at 8-M (cupping grind) and a scandinavian-light roast dialled in at 4-F (slightly coarser than coarse espresso). It might be extreme, but I guess it does show how much solubility affects required grind settings. Since it is a lot easier to change brew temps with filter brewing, varying your slurry temperature is a pretty decent and effective way to compensate for solubility differences. Keeping my grinder at 4-F, the light roast was tasty with a slurry temp of 200F and the dark roast was tasty at 180F.

March 12th, 2014, 4:37 pm

Thanks for the feedback.

I've never timed the steep by tasting, like Mark, since I don't like to break the crust; but I'll have to try it. Oddly, I'm playing with a fermented Yemen, and a really fine grind cuts the ferment flavor just as it cuts the unripe flavor in too lightly roasted coffees.

It could be that the coarse settings used for cupping accentuates the flaws in coffees; whereas highly extracted brews cover up a lot of sins in the prep and roasting.

#5: Post by **TomC** » March 13th, 2014, 8:53 am

This is a trend I've started to notice more and more lately. My roasting class has me traveling to dozens and dozens of top end cafes throughout the bay area, and the thing that has struck me the most is how fine people are grinding for drip. One cafe made me one of the best cups of Esmeralda Geisha I've ever had, and I watched them brew it, using the finest grind I've ever seen in a filter brew. Their particular roast was a well developed FC -> FC+, with the wonderful notes of high quality chocolate quite apparent, but the wonderful juicy fruity notes weren't lost.

Heart Coffee Roasters (no doubt known for their better mastery at light roasts than the many wannabe's) has their Colombia Agua Blanca Pedregal. It's not the same exact bean as the micro-lot from Sweet Maria's, but its the same crop, same farm, same harvest etc. That coffee only shines when ground very finely and brewed hot too.

I teeter back and forth, dialing in grind fineness based on two criteria, 1) roast degree (knowing lighter roasts are less soluble and need the finer grind for equivalent extractions) and 2) flavor separation. Some coffees lose too much flavor separation and their highlights all get hammered down flat when ground finer than a medium-coarse grind. The fast extracting acids, followed by the sugars seem to carry the components I want in that instance well enough without requiring a finer grind. Usually, in coffees like those, they get boring if ground finer when the darker caramels and larger molecular structures or those that are just less soluble end up in the cup. It's wasteful in a way, in that it requires significant updosing, but the results are worth it.

But if I were to open a cafe, I'd pay particular attention to delicious coffees I can easily or consistently acquire, that taste amazing when ground finely, since it would cut costs and still deliver the same high quality.

Tierra Mia Cafe in Oakland is the place I had the mindblowingly great Esmeralda Geisha that was a super fine grind. Relatively dark roast too, for that particular coffee. It literally looked like they were pouring hot water thru cocoa powder (non-Dutched).

#6: Post by **endlesscycles** » March 13th, 2014, 3:40 pm

guys, this is "why the VST".

#7: Post by **shadowfax** » March 13th, 2014, 4:10 pm

... or why you'll suck at making coffee, with or without a refractometer, if you don't learn how to taste and adjust your brewing parameters.

March 13th, 2014, 4:17 pm

endlesscycles wrote:guys, this is "why the VST".

If it tastes like crap, and VST says it's properly extracted, I should not change anything? If it tastes great and VST says it's not properly extracted, I should change something?

To me, the VST refractometer, as used, is a sort of gag that prevents people from actually tasting the coffee for themselves. Moreover, it is used by self appointed experts as a club to bully people into saying they like a coffee they actually do not. Finally, the VST set up is so hard to use that I can probably teach an experienced coffee drinker to infallibly taste over and under extraction faster than anyone can actually use it to take an accurate measurement.

But it does come with a real cool secret handshake.

#9: Post by **TomC** » March 13th, 2014, 4:51 pm

another_jim wrote:
But it does come with a real cool secret handshake.

The centrifuges come out next quarter! Pretty soon, we won't even have to taste the coffee. A computer will tell us if it's good and properly extracted and we'll be able to smugly go on our way. Maybe we should have refractometer battles? Folks can tweet their extract yields to each other

My point Marshall, is it takes me 20g of a chosen coffee and about 5 minutes of prep work for me to know if I've extracted a coffee properly. I don't need a $700 tool to tell me what my trained palate already can. More people should train for the later, not jump on the former bandwagon.

I'm not entirely dissing refractometers completely, if someone can show me the data that refractometer measurements can identify wear on a set of burrs before the human eye can, then I guess they'd help keep a cafe from wasting coffee needlessly. And, if someone wants to geek out, by all means, it's their money to spend. Just don't preach that it's the top of the mountain in determining quality coffee "extraction".

Alex Roberts, Owner of Roast Co, put it in very simple terms, the large majority of the "3rd wave" coffee isn't going to run out and change everything they're doing, because of a 26 year old starts a blog.

#10: Post by **MWJB** » March 13th, 2014, 5:13 pm

The VST gives you a reading, it's up to you to correlate that reading to an ideal range. There are preset targets, starting points if you will. Can you get an in the box number that isn't great tasting, yes. There are many ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, uneven drip & Aeropress extractions spring to mind. It doesn't make you infallible, you still have to brew & taste...it just tells you what you have extracted & you go from there.

For steeping with a given brewer, once you have hit a method & a preferred target, you don't need to test every time, your taste will get you there, within a margin of time. I do periodic checks on French press, Bonavita immersion cone & Sowden brews...+/-0.02% TDS/0.5% immersion yield every time.

I've never been bullied into liking a coffee, or a brewer...never bullied anyone in that manner either, but I see a lot of folk blaming beans and roasts...much of the time they could well be right, that they don't like a particular bean, sometimes I wonder if they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

The idea of 'good extraction range' is largely universal to coffee, not necessarily an ethos, bean, farm, or varietal (in one of Lockhart's studies, he quotes the coffee used as "a reputable brand, Silex vac pot grind, vacuum packed in 1lb tins", no mention of origin, varietal, process). Some can taste great over a wider range than others.

It's faster to use than you think, certainly you get a reading before finishing a cup of brewed. I appreciate it's probably not for you Jim, but I think you have some misconceptions about what it does.