It's cold, so let's talk about temperature in brewing coffee. Have you noticed that it's harder to extract more complex flavors from your #filter #coffee in cold weather?
Filter coffee brewing is full of variables, some of which can be easily controlled like the choice of coffee, the method of brewing (immersion, gravity filter, manual pressure) filtering your water and your recipe - the coffee/water ratio that will mostly determine the strength.
Grind size is somewhat controllable - although we all know that grinders are not always the most stable or consistent tools, you can adjust it to slow or increase the flow of the coffee or increase/decrease the surface area of the coffee. The finer you grind, the more fine you'll get, which can clog your filter and cause over-extraction, stopping your brewing.
Turbulence can be roughly controlled, think of the water interacting with the coffee - without an aggressive or gentle pour, by stirring/shaking the coffee with pressure like with a spoon or an Aeropress.
The temperature of the water we consider as a choice, we can adjust the boiler or perhaps our water heater at home or use a thermometer. In reality, we never brew in a place as warm as we think.
Let me try to explain how the lack of temperature control negatively affects your brewing.
When brewing coffee with a pouring method such as #V60 or #Chemex, we use a small amount of water, usually between 250-500ml in total. That's not a lot of thermal mass, so it cools quickly.
About 50-100ml per pour, we add a small amount of water at a time to ensure an even extraction.
We pour the water into coffee warmers or jugs, in a thin stream that is easy to pour carefully, but has a lot of contact with air and cools quickly.
Small, open-top methods like the V60 or Chemex let the heat out.
We should always properly heat our brewing equipment.
We don't heat our mixing spoon!
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4 golden rules of brewing filter coffee in cold weather
Preheat your glasses and kettles.
Use hotter water than you think you can handle.
Get the coffee hot and wet, keep it wet and warm
Have fun!
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