I think that there is a large variation in tastes, brewing methods,
roasts, and so forth that would lead to a similarly large variation in
personal recipes for ideal coffee.
I use Starbucks Dark French Roast beans, which I grind myself every time
I make coffee. The directions on the bag suggest:
2 Tbsp (10 g) of ground beans to 6 oz (180 mL) of water
The parenthetical conversions above are Starbucks's.
I make coffee in a stove-top percolator which is an old style going back
to Goodrich's design of 1889. Percolators in general go back to Count
Rumford's design of about 1810/1814.
Tonight, as usual, I filled my "12 cup" percolator (using 2100 g of
water) and 60 g of finely-ground beans. I put it on the stove to heat
and then percolated it for 15 minutes. High-nosed coffee connoisseurs
would be aghast at that long a brewing time. But note that I use much
less coffee in the process:
5 g of ground beans to 175 mL of water
My recipe provides me with a strong, very full bodied brew that my wife
refers to as "sludge".
The ratio mentioned in the original posting would have had me use 115.5
g of ground beans and Starbucks would have had me use 116.6 g of ground
beans, not the 60 g that I use. These recipes likely provide coffee that
is higher in caffeine and thinner in body than does my brew.
Jim
On 2016-02-25 16:24, Carleton MacDonald wrote:
I have an Italian coffee grinder with a small scoop in it. I find one scoop per
100 ml of water makes fine coffee. A mug is 300 ml, so if I want two for me,
two for my neighbor and one for my son (that's all he drinks) that's 15 scoops
and 1.5 L.
I should see what 15 scoops are on the scale, though, and see if it is close to
83 g of coffee, which according to the formula would be good for 1.5 L of water.
Carleton
-----Original Message-----
From: USMA [mailto:usma-boun...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of c...@traditio.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2016 21:49
To: USMA List Server <usma@colostate.edu>
Subject: [USMA 98] New York Times: "Don't Let the Metric System Scare You"
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/23/dining/how-to-make-coffee.html?_r=0
2. Use a Scale, Not a Scoop
Now that nerd has gone from a slur to a compliment, it frees you to be more
compulsive about how you make coffee. To start, coffee should be measured in
grams, using a digital scale. It doesnt have to be expensive.
You can buy a perfectly functional digital scale for less than $15.
This suggestion shouldnt be a surprise to anybody who has bought a baking
cookbook recently. For years, pastry chefs have weighed their ingredients in
grams, and now its standard for all corners of a restaurant kitchen. If youve
baked using a digital scale, you know it is very easy to use and delivers
better results with less mess or waste.
And its not just the coffee you should weigh. Ideally, you would also weigh
your water, or at least measure volume in liters, rather than cups or ounces.
Heres why: When you brew coffee, youre working with a ratio, a certain amount
of coffee to water that you can scale up or down depending on how much you want
to make. Most Americans do this with scoops and cups, meaning the cup
measurements marked on the coffee machine. But a cup on a coffee machine is
usually five ounces (not eight), and a scoop is arbitrary (there is no standard
measurement). Its a messy system.
If you are going to the trouble of creating that ratio every morning, you may
as well do it right. A good benchmark is 55 grams of coffee to 1,000 grams (or
one liter) of water, which is the Golden Cup Ratio of the Specialty Coffee
Association of America. Dont let the metric system scare you; it actually makes
doing any math much easier.
As for the scale itself, an inexpensive one is all you need; be sure it has a
capacity of at least two kilograms. But if you want to nudge open the door of
coffee obsession, consider the Hario V60 scale ($60), which is accurate up to
0.01 of a gram, has a built-in timer and comes in Death Star matte black.
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