Brewing 101

these are the basic elements of brewing experimentation

Grind Size

Not only does buying pre-ground beans means oxidation has already started attacking the flavor of your coffee, but when you buy them pre-ground, you are locking yourself into a single brew method and also trusting that the grind size is perfect for whatever brew method you've asked/purchased them to be ground for. It can take some work to dial in the perfect grind for your brewer or method. Adding to that is the need to grind differently depending on coffee origin and roast level even for the same brew method, and it's really not something that should be outsourced. Some people even have multiple grinders for different situations, that's how important grind size and consistency can be.

Water

Face it, over 80% of your coffee is water so it better be good. Not only that, but water that is too soft or too hard can affect brew draw down (time) or wreak havoc with your brewing equipment. Having the proper minerals in your water can drastically improve the flavor of your coffee and having the wrong water can leave your coffee flat or even rancid tasting.

Coffee Beans

Of course we like to use our own beans for our brews, but we also love to taste what others are doing and we definitely like to look for specially processed beans. The point is that great coffee brewing depends on really good beans and the often means fresh, small batch beans that you won't find in your big box grocery store.

Water Temperature

If you're using an electric kettle, there's almost no chance you'll miss the mark on temperature, but using a drip brewer that isn't SCA certified can be a problem and affect extraction by either not heating up to or maintaining the proper temperature throughout the brew.

Time

Leaving your ground coffee in water for too long means more of it dissolves into the water and therefore more of the bitterness and acidity that you might not want will show up, masking the tasting notes and leaving you with coffee that is "too strong" and sometimes undrinkable. Likewise, failing to give the coffee enough contact time with water means that you won't dissolve enough of it, and you'll leave all the specialness and tasting notes behind in the grounds resulting in bland flavor and a cardboard-like mouth feel. Non-SCA Certified brewers can mess this up but so can having the wrong grind size for the brew method. Too fine and you'll clog and slowdown the brew, to coarse and the water will flow through the grounds too fast and bypass collecting all that flavor.