The one piece of feedback that changed how I brew at home

A friend who roasts coffee for a living watched me make a pour over last year and just said 'your grind is way too fine for that bean.' She told me most people overcompensate by grinding finer when the coffee tastes sour, but often the real fix is going coarser and letting the water flow faster. I had been fighting with a 3 minute brew time on a light roast Ethiopian that I could never get to taste right. I changed my grind setting from a 12 to a 17 on my Baratza Encore and suddenly my cups went from bitter and muddy to bright and clear. Now I actually taste the blueberry notes people talk about instead of just getting a generic coffee flavor. Has anyone else had a simple tweak like that completely turn around how you approach something?

4 comments

4 Comments

terryk1010d agoTop Commenter

HOLD UP. 3 minutes for a light roast Ethiopian? That's wild. I've been grinding way too fine this whole time.

sageadams10d ago

Wait, @terryk10 what kind of grinder are you using? Because honestly, a 3 minute brew on a light Ethiopian sounds about right if you're using a proper burr grinder and a medium-coarse setting. I went through the same thing - grinding way too fine and getting this awful bitter, astringent cup. Light roasts need that longer contact time to pull out all the sweetness and fruit notes without over-extracting the harsh stuff. Have you tried backing off your grind size to where it looks like coarse sea salt? That'll probably get you closer to the 3 minute mark and you'll taste a world of difference. Just takes some trial and error to find that sweet spot.

susanm569d ago

Jumping in to say YES, same exact thing happened to me. I was grinding my Ethiopian light roast super fine and getting this sharp, bitter taste. Backed off to coarse sea salt and suddenly I got those sweet berry notes everyone talks about. Night and day difference, seriously.

river3209d ago

My Ethiopian Yirgacheffe was EXACTLY like this. I was grinding it like table salt and getting this horrible burnt rubber taste. Then I went to a coarse grind - like kosher salt size - and my brew time went from like 1:45 to almost 3:30. Suddenly I was getting this bright lemon and blueberry thing happening. Made me feel SO dumb for wasting half a bag of good beans. It really is crazy how just changing the grind one step can flip the whole flavor profile. Now I always start with coarse and work down instead of the other way around.