"Grind the coffee finer"

Hello coffee lover, hope your week has been great. Mine had travel in it. So it was obviously awesome.

I am writing this from a cozy coffee shop in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand.

I found a coffee roaster here and the vibes here are lit. Freshly roasted coffee hits different.

Figuring out the right grind size

Last week, I was brewing the coffee from Kohi Roasters but honestly, I wasn't enjoying them as much as I would like to. I knew something was wrong. Tried quite a lot of experiments but couldn't get there.

I looked for help. After showing picture of my v60 coffee bed and asking for feedback, the barista at a local cafe told, "Grind it finer".

At Reve, Khajaguda, Hyderabad

This was the fix I needed.

It made me realize how the grind size can impact the taste of the brew.

While starting your journey with home brewing, we generally don't give a lot of importance to factors like grind size, but once you develop a taste for coffee, these things matter a lot. It’s good to invest in a good burr grinder to grind your coffee. The problem with buying pre-ground coffee is that it loses its freshness too quickly. So grinding right before you brew your coffee is a significant step up.

It’s also important to get a good quality grinder. This makes sure you have equal grinds and there is no too fine and coarse blocks in the middle which makes is under/over extract from those.

Why does grind size matter? It’s simple. The finer the coffee is ground, the more surface area for extraction.

What’s the right grind size?

Well, there are guidelines on how it should be, depending on the method you use.

And honestly, if you like the taste with the grind size you use, don't make any changes. There is no reason to overcomplicate things.

If you do have a grinder with which you can alter the size, keep this in mind:

It actually depends a lot on your palate. Some people like sour/acidic coffees, and some like them bitter, like a brick hitting their face.

That's why I named this post "figuring out the right size".

Experiment and keep a record. Refine it based on your taste.

If you use a V60 brewer, you can look at the resulting coffee bed after brewing is done and judge whether it was under-extracted or over-extracted. This is more complex than this, and I wish to dive deep into it sometime later.

From the coffee-verse

Comparing coffee grinders - Instagram

• James Hoffmann compares $50, $500 and $500,000 Coffee Grinders

How much coffee is too much coffee? - Examine.com

• Its sometimes good to keep in mind how much coffee you max out on.

What’s brewing this week

I picked some coffee beans from Third Wave Coffee and packed an Aeropess for my travel this week.

View from hill tops of Mussoorie, India

That’s all I have. Have a caffeinated weekend.

See you.

Keep on brewing!