How To Brew Coffee

The following general rules apply to all brewing methods.

To get the best tasting drink, you should start with a ratio of two tablespoons of ground coffee per 6 ounces of water and adjust to your taste. Use the best possible water available. Tap water should be free of any strange flavors, odors or textures. If it is not, then use filtered or bottled water. Avoid distilled or softened water since some minerals are essential to coffee flavor. Tap water should be cold and allowed to run for a few seconds to aerate it before it goes into a maker or water kettle.

Water should be heated to just below boiling (200 degrees F.). For drip brewers, the brew cycle should be completed in 4-6 minutes. Other good methods are the “French Press” and “Vacuum pot” which brew in about 4 minutes. Avoid percolators and electric pots with brew cycles that take longer than 6 minutes. These will over-extract the coffee and cause bitterness.

Serve brewed coffee within 30 minutes or store it in a “thermal” or insulated carafe. Coffee will remain fresh and tasty in this kind of container for 45 – 60 minutes. Coffee that has been left exposed to air or left on a hot burner deteriorates rapidly. To keep coffee warm, “prime” a thermal carafe by pre-filling it with hot water ahead of time, then emptying it of the warming water and filling it with the freshly made coffee. This method also works to warm up cold ceramic mugs.

There is no purpose in re-pouring or re-perking brewed coffee through spent grounds. Any desirable flavor elements have already been extracted. Only bitter oils remain.

Re-heating brewed coffee — even in a microwave — breaks down coffee’s many delicate components, leaving only a warm beverage with a poor flavor.

The ideal size of coffee package to buy is the amount that will get used within a week.

How should large pots of coffee be brewed?

A critical first step before using any big coffee makers and urns is cleaning. They must be thoroughly washed out and rinsed after each use. Without proper cleaning, coffee sediments and oils settle on their inside surfaces. With exposure to air these leftovers grow stale. In time, this built-up material will produce bitter, unpleasant tasting coffee.

When it is time to prepare a batch of coffee, carefully measure both the coffee and the water. Each 2.5 oz. “pillow pack” package will make 12 cups of coffee. Use two packages for a 24-cup maker. Use a 12-oz. bag for a 60-cup maker. It is fine to measure out cold water into the pot the evening before coffee is to be served. But for the best flavor, open and pour ground coffee into the maker’s basket just before brewing. Avoid percolators with brew cycles longer than 6 minutes since they will over-extract the coffee and cause bitterness.

Any unused ground coffee should be stored in an airtight container. But for the best results, only open the amount needed each week. For offices, we recommend the purchase of sealed pillow-packs that will stay fresh for six months until they are opened. The less time coffee spends exposed to air before brewing, the better tasting the coffee will be.

If possible, drink freshly brewed coffee within 30 minutes, or decant it into a preheated air pot or thermos. Freshly brewed coffee in this kind of container will remain at peak flavor for up to an hour.