What I wish I knew in the first few years of brewing are these things:
- Always have atleast 2-3 coffee bags for comparative tasting. Brew small 13-15g cups one after the other, ladle them from the main caraffe to a smaller tasting glass so they cool quickly to match your tongues’ comfort level and sip side by side. I always taste completely different flavors from each cup once I introduce another coffee into the mix.
- Don’t always trust your palate. Depending on your mental and physical condition – stress, anxiety, happiness, etc. your palate sensitivity to bitters, acidity, aroma, may swing greatly. Foreign smells may be saturating your brewing environment can also effect your perception. Dialing in and burning through coffee while you’re going through this is likely futile. Just drink your usual cup, take the Loss, and try again later.
- Brew into the most thermally stable carafe – double walled mug (Glass/Ceramic) to minimize evaporation (Retain V.O.C./Brew Weight) as well as cool-down while brewing, then ladle into a smaller cool down tasting cup – (Neat Whiskey Glass/Orea Sense Cup) or any small cup. You should think about preserving temperature for brewing and keeping and only cooling down when you’re sipping. Temperature is integral to the flavor journey, so you want to be able to experience as much of this Hot to Cool journey repeatedly and not be victim to the entire carafe cooling down.
- When dialing in with temperature, make sure your kettle is filled to the max recommended and go big - 10 degree shifts. If you brew off boil, try 90c and drop your ratio .5 from 1:17 to 1:16.5 etc. to make up for strength. It’s not mainly the strength you’ll notice, but the balance of darker / brighter flavors. If you’re new to the game, a 5 degree shift in flavor may easily be due to other factors and not only the temperature.
- Don’t aim to brew as good as others, just develop your palate so you can brew as good as yourself. You will never be satisfied long term with coffee. Maybe you get things working for a week, a month, etc. That will likely end up crashing. It’s up to you to understand what’s wrong, and how you can navigate the moment so you can brings things back to YOUR ideal cup. Something’s obviously wrong, you need to know what’s obviously right. It’s not easy and the best gear will only take you so far unless you develop strong personal preferences.
- Always have a new roaster on bar to compare and log your impressions so you know how to move forward on the next purchase.
