{"id":10,"date":"2009-09-21T02:05:07","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T02:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coffeewhisperer.wordpress.com\/?p=7"},"modified":"2009-09-21T02:05:07","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T02:05:07","slug":"coffee-basics-tip-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"Coffee Basics Tip #1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coffee Brewing Basics<\/h3>\n

While I am off roasting up special batches of Sumatran and Costa Rican for next week, it dawned on me that the basics of coffee making are really simple.\u00a0 There are a few easy steps that will nearly insure a good cup for anyone who wishes to follow them.\u00a0 These steps don’t require hyper premium, single origin beans or three thousand dollar espresso machines.\u00a0 These are basic things that you can do today to have a better cup tomorrow.\u00a0 I will share them with you now.<\/p>\n

Tip #1 – Something is in the water<\/h3>\n

The quality of the water is critical to how good a cup of coffee you can brew.\u00a0 If you have hard, nasty tasting water, your cup will taste similar to yak poop, no other way around it.\u00a0 Water in different areas come from underground sources like aquifers and wells, and that water soaks up a great deal of dissolved minerals.\u00a0 I’ve you’ve ever tasted really irony or limey water, you know what I mean: it is just terrible.\u00a0 These dissolved minerals don’t go away when you heat your water…. they taint you coffee cup’s flavor and aftertaste.<\/p>\n

Buy some good stuff…<\/h3>\n

We’ve all seen the condemning news reports telling us how expensive bottled water is no better than ordinary city tap water.\u00a0 That may indeed be the case, but what’s important is where<\/em> that city tap comes from.\u00a0 If you have water that is drawn mainly from rain-fed lakes and streams, you have water that is most likely soft, lacking dissolved solids we’re trying to avoid.\u00a0 If you have water that comes from wet, swampy areas (Southern Florida comes to mind) that is even better:\u00a0 this water has passed through a great deal of vegetation.\u00a0 The water takes on a bit of tannin from the wood and vegetation, which has a positive effect on the resulting cup of coffee.\u00a0 The water is slightly acid, which works magic on the coffee.\u00a0 Don’t ask me for the scientific explanation, I don’t have one.\u00a0 Just trust me, if you can get bottled “drinking water”\u00a0 from areas with surface fed lakes and rivers, then you’re on your way.<\/p>\n

Can I treat my city water?<\/h3>\n

What about a “Brita” filter or something similar?\u00a0 It is possible to pull out the bad stuff that makes your water taste funny.\u00a0 But I found these countertop\/faucet mounted filters are limited in ability and capacity. \u00a0 I found that I had to go all the way and buy a real, multistage filter to get all the stuff out.\u00a0 Like this one:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"This<\/a><\/dt>\n
This little set up makes chemically pure water<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

The filter goes for under 100 dollars, will filter about 1300 gallons of tap water and give you absolutely pure water.\u00a0 There will be no dissolved solids of any kind in the water…. much like perfectly done distilled water.\u00a0 I don’t know if you’ve ever drank water like this, but it is weird:\u00a0 It has no flavor at all, and you actually feel like you haven’t drunk any thing at all.\u00a0 There’s no “quench” from this water.\u00a0 Funny, but what it does do is yield a cup of coffee that is flavored purely by the bean.\u00a0 Nothing to color the taste, it is a case of what you brew is what you get.\u00a0 Is this preferred?\u00a0 If you could make your coffee with South Florida water, I’d say no.\u00a0 But if you have water with lots of dissoved solids in it and you don’t want to spring big money for special water, a little filter system like this is worth the trouble.\u00a0 Click on the photo to be taken to the vendor who makes\/sells these.\u00a0 I’ve dealt with them for many years and they are straight shooters.<\/p>\n

The relationship of water to your brew is very important.\u00a0 Where you get it, or more importantly how it comes to you is critical for getting the most from your brews.\u00a0 In upcoming tips, I’ll talk about making a great drip … with common coffee makers, and some no-s0-common coffee makers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coffee Brewing Basics While I am off roasting up special batches of Sumatran and Costa Rican for next week, it dawned on me that the basics of coffee making are really simple.\u00a0 There are a few easy steps that will … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226,"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffee.germar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}