Coffee comes in five descending stages: Coffee, Java, Jamoke, Joe, and Carbon Remover.
– In Glory Road, Robert A. Heinlein
Beans…? Well maybe not. What we commonly refer to as beans are actually seeds of the coffee berry. I will probably post some detail about growing and roasting in the future, but for now let’s just concern ourselves with grinding or not grinding. There are two basic schools of thought here. The first is to buy your coffee pre-ground, and related to this have the seller grind your seeds while you wait. Second is to buy the seeds and grind them yourself at home. The proponents of pre-ground don’t want to mess around. They want (or maybe need) to get to the coffee as quickly as possible. The folks that think of themselves as purists will frown at this practice, preferring to grind the seeds themselves. They have lots of reasons ranging from having more control over the flavour, to insisting that it is integral to the process and art of making coffee. The oils responsible for the coffee flavour we all crave are released when the seeds are ground. If you grind ten minutes before brewing you lose some flavour; if you grind the night before even more flavour; if they were ground at the store last week… forget about it. For those people two types of home grinders are in common usage: Blade type and Burr type. Burr type grinders are generally thought to provide a more consistent, adjustable grind, and do less damage to the beans and thus are favoured by the aficionados, but they do cost more money. For those really wanting simplicity and a truly intimate connection with their coffee an alternative is to use a mortar and pestle, however that really is time consuming, and control over the consistency of the grind is very difficult.
Regardless of how you arrive at ground coffee there are five basic styles of coffee grinds that you should be aware of. Coarse grind has very distinctive large grounds of coffee, much like heavy grained salt. Medium is gritty in nature and similar in texture to sand. Next comes Fine, which is smooth and finer than granulated sugar or ordinary table salt. Extra Fine is finer than granulated sugar but not yet powdered. And finally we have Turkish grind – The finest grind; which looks and feels like powdered cocoa. So what grind do I need you may ask?
Automatic drip machines that utilize either a flat bottom or a steel mesh filter should use a medium grind of coffee.
Automatic drip machines with a paper cone filter should use a fine grind.
French Presses and Percolators should use a coarse grind.
Espresso machines require extra fine grind.
And of course a Turkish maker requires a Turkish Grind.
Finally vacuum brewers require a vacuum grind which is a coarse grind that has all traces of residual powder removed.
Jamaican green beans photo courtesy MNG & Megan Rundle
TO GRIND!
You be bringin’da beans