Melitta Home Brew

Rule #1 in buying coffee is purchase only as much coffee as you are going to drink in a week.  Like fine chocolate, specialty coffee begins a slow stale after seven days.  Try to purchase your beans from sustainable micro roasters like us, Yo el Rey Roasting, in your area or order ours on-line at yoelrey.com and we’ll ship it out to you.

Storage becomes moot this way and you can leave your weeks supply on the kitchen counter or in the cupboard in the bag.  If you do wish to store the beans, do so whole bean, in Tupperware, in the freezer.

Never buy “flavored” coffee.  Ever.  It is after market chemical spray.  Each coffee varietal has its own set of intrinsic flavor characteristics, just like wine grapes.

We roast and drink and sell Fair Trade, Organic coffees exclusively.

Our roast profile is medium.  Which means to a milk chocolate color where the beans are not burnt black and oily.  Organic means the coffee trees and thus the beans (or seeds) were grown without pesticides.  So there is only the intrinsic natural flavor of the bean and origin terroir or soil.

Fair Trade basically means fairly traded, anti-slave shop commodities.  The farmers are guaranteed a minimum price per pound for their beans.  However this also means the farmers are treated better; are going to be happier; are going to take better care of their crop; which means a better coffee tree and an even better cup of coffee.

Try to reeducate your palate by moving away from dark roasted or burnt coffee and move to medium roasted beans.  Coffee is actually very similar to wine.  As a Cabernet wine from Cab. grapes grown in France taste different from Cabernet wine grown from Cab. grapes in California’s Napa Valley, coffee beans have similar unique flavor characteristics based on geographic origin and terroir.

Dark roasting burns those amazing flavors and aroma notes of blueberry and almond or chocolate, etc. out.  Medium, low temperature roasting locks in those essential flavors.  And the end result is a delicious sensual packed cup of coffee or espresso.

[From now on, now that you know, coffee should be considered as thoughtfully as wine.   AND…you wouldn’t put cream and sugar in your glass of wine, WOULD YOU?
You would sell yourself short.  Same goes for coffee. ]  So please at least try your next medium roasted coffee without cream and sugar.  I bet you like it.

For home brewing equipment I will suggest throwing out all your fancy or not so fancy plastic, fully automated equipment and starting over.
No, don’t.  Save it and compare with a taste test later.  I suggest going back to the basics which will save you a lot of unnecessary money spent on equipment and will make a better cup of coffee.

Use a manual lever mill grinder to begin with, or a home bur grinder (not a blade).  The blades do not grind evenly, they hack the grounds around into lopsided chunks.  You want even size grounds for even extraction.

I use a manual mill grinder from the late 1800’s or early 1900’s.  I found it on eBay for about $40..  It takes about sixty-three revolutions of the arm.  Easy and nearly silent compared to the high pitch scream from some of the electric grinders that are so hard to bear first thing in the morning.

Use a porcelain Melitta Cone.  (Not plastic.  Plastic leaches toxins, especially when heated).  You can find them for under $20.

Use biodegradable brown, or unbleached, coffee filters.  Boxes of 100 are around $4.00.

Use the tea kettle you already have or a pot and heat up some water just prior to boiling.  (If it’s the kettle, just at the fist rumblings of the whistle).  The water temperature should be around 195 degrees or pre-boil.  Otherwise you will scorch the grounds.

Preheat the porcelain cone and your coffee cup in the oven on very low temperature as you are heating up the water on the stove.  (I use two coffee cups.  One I will drip the coffee into, the other as a measuring utensil).

Measure out your beans while your water is heating and the cone and cups are warming.  The standard ratio for coffee to water is 2 to 6.  Two ounces of coffee to six of water.  (But it is your cup of coffee so manipulate it how you like).

Grind the beans only when the water is nearly ready.  (Never purchase or pre grind coffee beans.  Ever.  They begin an accelerated stale the second they are ground).

When the water is ready pull everything out of the oven.  Put the cone on your coffee cup and drop in the filter.  Run some of the hot water through the filter over the sink to alleviate any paper flavor taint to the filter.  Pour the fresh grounds into the filter.  Then your measured hot water.  Use a small whisk or a spoon and gently stir the wet grounds to reduce clumps for full flavor extraction.

Drink.

*Don’t forget about the taste test…
Old shelf-life and roast-profile-in-question, mass produced coffee and plastic, and or automated brew equipment  VS.
Fresh micro-roasted coffee and manual brew equipment

Try to make it so they both are ready at the same time.  Then taste for yourself.