How to Master the Art of Making the Perfect Cup of Coffee
How to Master the Art of Making the Perfect Cup of Coffee is all about getting the right level of extraction for the roast level you have.
Under extracted coffee is sour, and over-extracted coffee is bitter.
You can easily and quickly make better coffee by measuring the density.
Don’t waste half the bag of beans trying to make a nice cup of coffee.
Density.coffee gives you:
- Better starting recipe.
- Better adjustments.
resulting in better coffee extractions.
Because as Lucia Solis says, “life’s too short to drink bad coffee“
Extracting coffee is much like cooking meat.
- Fillet steak is beautiful if seared for a few minutes on each side.
- Brisket is beautiful if slow-cooked for 6 hours.
It goes without saying, using one fixed recipe for cooking all meat is not going to produce the best result.
Coffee is no different.
- Dark-roasted coffee is not very dense. It is quite brittle, you can crush it with your fingertips. The fixed recipe is likely to over-extract and make very bitter coffee.
- Light-roasted coffee is very dense. It is hard to extract. The fixed recipe is likely to under-extract and make sour coffee.
Using one fixed recipe for extracting all coffee will not produce the best result for every coffee.
Density.Coffee provides 150 recipes, and measuring the density selects the one tailored to your beans.
Why does measuring density make better coffee?
Easy coffee recipes to make at home
150 recipes ordered from extract the least to extract the most, where the extraction required is scaled to the Roast Level.
Measuring the roasted coffee density will provide you with a much better starting recipe for your coffee extraction, compared to using one fixed recipe, every time.
If you are interested in the density range and the calculations that generate the 150 recipes, read more here.
How to dial in coffee
Grinding finer will extract more, but you can’t go far before it chokes the shot.
Grinding coarser will extract less, but you can’t go far before there is not enough puck pressure and the shot runs too fast. However, changing the measured density changes every extraction variable. It is a more effective adjustment that makes dialing in your coffee much quicker and easier.
How to use this site
You can use this site without a 100ml cylinder by starting with a default recipe and then using the Extract More or Extract Less buttons. But if you get a 100ml cylinder, empirically 68% of the time you will make a brilliant coffee on the first attempt. 95% with up to one adjustment, and 99% with up to two adjustments.
Fill in the form
Get the recipe by entering your measured density into the calculation form, click Submit.
Select method
Select from Espresso, Filter, Aeropress, or Hario Switch.
Make your initial coffee
Using the recipe provided make your first coffee.
Taste it
Empirically, 68% of the time the coffee extraction will be right first try. 95% works after one adjustment. 99.7% works after two adjustments.
All you need to decide is:
- Is it too sour, like lemon. In this case, you need to extract more.
- Is it OK, you don’t need to change anything. Some refer to this as the sweet spot, but coffee doesn’t actually contain sugar so think of this as the calm between too sour and too bitter.
- Is it too bitter. All coffee is bitter to some extent but you can reduce the bitterness by extracting less.
Adjustments
Either
- Use the Extract more button (adds 20 to the measured density).
- Use the Extract less button (subtracts 20 from the measured density).
So easy
Testimonials
I feel so lucky to find this way by accident. I just do not understand why it is not common knowledge. I feel ease of mind compared to my endless struggle to replicate god shots, now I drink god shot twice a day almost.
Guy
Love your site
Hi Richard, I thought I’d let you know that I really appreciate your efforts to illuminate the relationships of the different variables in preparing espresso. So much of the “instruction” out there in videos and blogs is an oversimplification of the process. It’s been a confusing and frustrating journey until we ultimately settled on one particular roast that we managed to dial in. Now, having the freedom to try different types of coffee (even kinds we previously thought we didn’t like) is really great! Thanks again!
Jason
I have to say this worked extremely well. Im new to the Flair (just got a Pro 2) and (good) espresso-making in general. Couldn’t get a medium roast to not taste sour for the life of me. And by sour I mean I would almost pucker up when tasting the espresso and just thinking about it I have my mouth watering in disgust as I type this. I tried the density.coffee site and on my first attempt I nailed it. No sourness at all. I’m sure I can still make improvements but it was night and day!
