Hercules Coffee - Brew Better Coffee


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	Brew Better Coffee - The Big Two Here's where you start. Without the Big Two, you're lost. There's no hope for good coffee. 1 - Fresh Coffee Let's start with what's acceptable to consider coffee "fresh." If the bean is green, that is not roasted, it'll stay fresh for six to eight months. That's what I have in my garage just waiting for your order. Once the bean has been roasted and it's in your greedy little coffee-loving hands, it'll stay fresh for about two weeks. You may be able to stretch a couple extra days out of it, but that's why I like to sell small batches. Once the coffee has been ground (now pay attention, this is IMPORTANT) the coffee will stay fresh for about one minute. That's right, a mere 60 seconds. What does all of this mean to you? I will only use fresh green beans. I also promise to deliver or mail coffee within two days of roasting. This gives you about 12 days to drink that stuff. That's my end of the bargain. Now, you need to hold up your end if the coffee is going to taste great. You need to have a grinder and use it JUST BEFORE you begin to brew your coffee. If you want it to taste its best, brew within 60 seconds of grinding. Storing Your Coffee All coffee you purchase fresh from Hercules Coffee comes in a plastic/foil zipper bag. You'll notice that the bag has a valve built into the front. This valve allows the carbon dioxide to escape from the freshly roasted beans while not exposing the beans to unnecessary oxygen which will cause them to go stale faster. To store your coffee, simply keep it in the bag and keep it in a pantry or somewhere away from direct sunlight and excessive heat. Don't put your freshly roasted coffee in the refrigerator or the freezer. The process of cooling down the beans does not hurt them, but when you remove the beans from the fridge or freezer to make coffee, you will get condensation on the beans which will alter the taste (for the worse). 2 - The Coffee Grinder Make no mistake, this is where the brewed coffee starts. You need a grinder to enjoy great coffee at home. You'll notice that I do not sell coffee pre-ground. Reasons for this are explained above. It's often said that a skilled barista (coffee maker person) can make better espresso with a $500 grinder and a $200 espresso machine than with a $200 grinder and a $2,000 espresso machine. This is how important a good grinder is to making quality coffee. The type and style of grinder you use depends on the brewing method you plan on using and, of course, your budget. There are two categories that coffee grinders fall into: blade grinders and burr grinders. Blade Grinders If you already have a coffee grinder and it cost in the neighborhood of $20, you can bet it's a blade grinder. You can tell it's a blade grinder because it looks like a small food processor with high speed blades that spin around when you press down on a button. If you're planning on using a drip coffee maker, you can probably get by with this type of grinder. The best thing about blade grinders is their cost. You can pick one up on sale for about $10 or maybe pay up to $30 for one. If you see two blade grinders side by side and the price is not the same, get the cheaper one. They're mostly all created equal. The worst thing about blade grinders is the complete lack of any means to determine or control the size or consistency of the ground coffee. If you're making espresso, you want finer particles than if you're making press pot coffee. With a blade grinder, you're pretty much just guessing at the particle size. Beyond that, if you were to guess correctly about the average size of the coffee grounds, a blade grinder still produces extremely inconsistent particle sizes. Your ground coffee will consist of relative boulders and powder. This is not a good thing when the consistency of particle size is important. Again, for many drip coffee applications or when a paper or polyester filter is to be used, you may be able to get by with a blade grinder. Burr Grinders As the name implies, a burr grinder does not use blades, but uses burrs to crush the coffee into the desired particle size. A coffee grinder's burrs are usually shaped like doughnuts with sharp teeth cut into them. Burrs come in sets of two, one stationary burr usually the top burr which can be moved toward and away from the rotating burr, usually the bottom burr. The ability to move the burrs closer together or farther away from each other makes the grind consistency much greater with a burr grinder. You might expect that burr grinders come in a variety of shapes and sizes and they do. They also come in very different levels of quality and adjustability. The two varieties of burr grinders are "stepped" grinders and "non-stepped" grinders. A stepped grinder allows you to change the grind setting only to a finite amount of different levels. With a non-stepped grinder, you can set the grind level wherever you please. Oh, by the way, you can also get a burr grinder that's powered by you. Remember those old manual grinders like your parents probably used to have? Well, those can be pretty good too, but they take a lot more time and effort to make your morning cup (better living through technology, right). A pretty good manual grinder will set you back about $60-$80. One of the best brands around is Zassenhaus from Germany (you can buy them at Sweet Maria's). You may be asking yourself now whether you need a stepped or non-stepped burr grinder. If you're going to be making espresso, you should be thinking non-stepped. They cost more, but the ability to change the ground particle size infinitely can be invaluable in espresso making. Good quality non-stepped espresso grinders start around $300 and can cost $700 or more (that's for a pro-sumer model, not a straight-up commercial grinder that may cost $5K). If you're not planning on making espresso, a stepped grinder may be the best bet. It's good to be able to change the particle size from press pot to drip to Aeropress, but the minute adjustments are not nearly as critical as they are with espresso. A good non-stepped burr grinder could cost as little as $50 or as much as $400. If you've got cash coming out of your mattress and you are prone to upgrade-itis, get the best non-stepped grinder you can and still sleep at night (because of buyer's remorse, not from too much coffee). It'll come in handy later when you decide you want that $10,000 espresso machine. How Fine Do I Grind? I talked about grind adjustability. Why would you want to adjust the grind? Well, let me tell you, it's all about surface area. The finer you grind your coffee, the more surface area the coffee particles have. The more surface area, the faster the coffee extracts from the beans into the hot water. The coarser you grind, the more slowly the coffee extracts. To take this relationship a step further, the longer you extract coffee, the more bitter it will be. That's why many people strive to extract their coffee in the least amount of time possible. Say...25 to 30 seconds. Sound like espresso? Well it is; and that's why you grind so fine for espresso and that's why you need so much water pressure to make espresso. Espresso uses an extremely fine grind, so the coffee extracts very quickly. In order to get the water in and out of the ground coffee you need a lot of pressure. These relationships between grind size, extraction time, and taste are very important when you're trying to make your coffee the absolute best it can be. Here's where the brew methods I'll describe stack up from coarsest to finest: Coarse Press Pot Manual Pour-Over / Automatic Drip Aeropress Espresso Fine It takes some time messing with your grinder and brew equipment to figure out exactly how fine or coarse you need to grind in each coffee situation.
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