Americans consume about 75% of all their caffeine as coffee. Despite how much we all love a good brew, not many people know how to make the perfect cup at home. With quarantine practices still underway, learning how to make the best cup of coffee at home is essential.
Keep reading for the eight tips you need for brewing the perfect cup of coffee. With these tips, you can enjoy your brew right from home.
Become your own barista! Save time and stay safe with these tips on how to make the perfect cup of coffee.
1. Buy Fresh Beans
The flavor of your coffee depends entirely on the beans you use. If you want to make the perfect cup of coffee, try to buy your beans within days of roasting.
Consider purchasing your coffee from a roaster like Iron and Fire. If you can, you might consider roasting the coffee yourself!
Otherwise, try to avoid buying bulk coffee from display bins. Over time, oxygen and light can ruin a coffee’s flavor. Unless the store utilizes best practices, the coffee in those display bins probably isn’t fresh.
Storage tubs also get coated with coffee oils over time. As a result, coffee can turn rancid.
Instead, look for coffee beans that are packaged by roasters who care about quality. It’s best to purchase coffee that’s sold in a vacuum-sealed bag.
Ensure Freshness
After buying your beans, you’ll want to keep them fresh until use. Consider purchasing glass canning jars or ceramics with rubber-gasket seals. Storing your coffee beans in airtight containers will prolong their freshness.
Otherwise, make sure to avoid refrigerating your coffee beans. After all, beans are porous. They’ll absorb moisture and food odors, running the coffee’s natural flavor.
You don’t want to freeze your coffee, either.
Instead, try to buy a week’s supply of coffee at a time. Store them at room temperature and away from sunlight.
2. Grind It Yourself
Make sure you have a coffee grinder at home. The trick to making the perfect cup of coffee is to grind them fresh. Make sure to only grind what you need for each morning’s brew.
3. Consider Water Flavor
The water quality can ruin your coffee’s taste as well. Try to avoid tap water with off-flavors or chlorine. Instead, you’ll want to use bottled spring water.
Many coffee lovers are also using activated charcoal and carbon filters in their taps to produce the perfect cup of coffee.
Avoid softened or distilled water, too.
4. Dodge Cheap Filters
If you’re making drip of pour-over coffee, reconsider the filters you’re making.
Cheap paper coffee filters can produce disappointing flavors. Instead, look for filters that are labeled “oxygen-bleached” or “dioxin-free.” You might want to consider using a long-lived gold-plated filter, too.
These options will maximize the flavor of your coffee beans.
5. Measure It Out
In order to learn how to make the best cup of coffee, you need to consider your measurements. For a 6-ounce cup of coffee, you’ll need about two level tablespoons of grounds. For an eight-ounce cup, try for 2 3/4 tablespoons.
Fewer grounds with hotter water can extract more coffee. However, you’re also sacrificing flavor and producing a bitter brew. Don’t skimp!
6. Know Your Temps
When your water is too hot, it could impact the flavor of your brew. In fact, hotter water often extracts bitter compounds within the coffee bean. Instead, the best water for brewing coffee is 200°F. That’s about 45 seconds away from a full boil.
You can buy a coffee maker or electric kettle that will regulate your water temperature automatically.
However, your coffee won’t hold its best flavor long after brewing. Reheating your coffee could turn your coffee bitter. Instead, drink your coffee while it’s fresh.
7. Choose Your Method
The average American drinks about three cups of coffee a day. By learning how to make the best cup of coffee at home, you could save yourself a lot of money.
As you start using these tips for how to make a good cup of coffee, you’ll also want to consider your method. There are three common ways you can make coffee at home: drip, pour-over, and French press.
For a cup of coffee that’s aromatic, complex, and of course tasty, consider pour-over coffee.
Here’s how to make your first cup:
• Bring your water to a boil using a kettle
• Grind your whole beans to the consistency of granulated table salt
• Place a filter in your brewer
• Rinse the filter with hot water to remove papery residue and warm the brewer
• Discard the water
• Add your ground to the filter
• Once the water reaches about 200°F, slowly pour it over the grounds
• Stop pouring right before coffee drips through
• Let the water drip for about three minutes
• Remove the filter and serve
French press coffee is becoming popular as well. To make French press coffee:
• Bring your water to a boil
• Ground your beans so they’re the consistency of breadcrumbs
• Add the grounds to your French press
• Add water to your French press once it’s about 200°F
• Stir the water into the grounds
• Let the water steep for four minutes
• Push the plunger down, serve, and enjoy
Of course, you can always use a drip coffee machine. If you have a machine at home, consider making espresso, too! Using the right equipment will help you make the best coffee recipes with ease.
8. Keep It Clean
As you start using these tips for how to make the perfect cup of coffee, don’t neglect your equipment.
Instead, it’s important to clean your storage containers and grinders every few weeks. Otherwise, the oily buildup from the beans could impact your coffee’s flavor. You can also run a vinegar solution through your coffeemaker to remove any mineral deposits.
Don’t forget to rinse it thoroughly before making your next brew.
How to Make the Best Cup of Coffee: 8 Tips for a Better Brew
Get brewing! With these tips on how to make the best cup of coffee, you can make a better brew. Enjoy your mornings and sip on your sweet success with these tips!
Check out the Food & Recipes section of the blog for more tips, tricks, and delicious delights!
These are great tips. My younger son follows all of them and has even bought a roaster for his beans. He also uses filtered water.
These are really some great tips and ones that I am so going to try. It has been way too long since I have had fresh ground coffee from whole beans. I also like that tip that you included about using spring water instead of tap water. I am really good about cleaning my coffee pot and I now only purchase white coffee pots so I can see that it is clean inside and out.