Many people like to take pictures of the brewed noodles and leave messages to Front Street: "Does the coffee brewed like this taste good?"
Seventy percent of the final taste of a cup of coffee is affected by the coffee beans themselves, and thirty percent comes from water and multiple key parameters. Because of this, some people often say: As long as the coffee beans are good and fresh, it will taste good no matter how you brew it.
There is nothing wrong with this. For experienced people, it is easy to brew a satisfactory cup of coffee. However, for novices who want to learn coffee by themselves, if they want to quickly check the success or failure and strive for excellence on this basis, they need an indicator to provide reference. Front Street believes that this indicator is firstly the taste, and secondly the feedback on the powder pit after brewing.
What is a powder pit? Is it useful to check the powder pit when brewing coffee by hand?
A large part of the reason why Pour over(V60) coffee is attractive is because of its controllability. The person who picks up the kettle can change the parameters and adjust the water flow to form a dynamic extraction with the coffee powder. The powder pit we see is the state formed by injecting all the hot water and completing the penetration.
The ideal powder pit has a uniform and neat powder wall. The shape of the filter cup is tapered, and the overall appearance is rounded. At the same time, the coffee particles are as fluffy as honeycombs. Basically, if this state can be achieved, it means that the technique has passed the test. Although the powder pit is not directly related to the taste, it can reveal many details to us during brewing, such as the thickness of the coffee powder, the size of the water flow, the speed of the circle, the freshness of the beans...
If the coffee you brew always tastes bad, you have no direction for a while, and your fan pit is far from the "ideal state", then Front Street suggests you look for clues from it and investigate the reasons behind it one by one. (We need to reach a consensus here. Front Street’s brewing recommendations for novices are a powder-to-water ratio of 1:15, a grinding degree of 70-80% through a No. 20 standard sieve (the thickness of granulated sugar), a water temperature of 90-93°C for medium-light roasting, 86-89°C for medium-dark roasting, and a brewing time of 1 minute 50 seconds to 2 minutes 10 seconds.)
① Mud pit
As the name suggests, "mud" means that the powder pit is in a mud-like state. After brewing the coffee, it looks wet with sporadic foam. The reason is obvious. The coffee is ground too finely. In this case, the brewing time usually takes longer than expected, resulting in a bitter taste in the coffee. If you are still troubled by this problem, you can browse Front Street’s sharing on grinding degree:Why is it said that the biggest “pitfall” of hand punching is the grinding scale.
② Haiyan Pit
"Sea salt pit" and "mud pit" are the two most common cases when Xiaobai plays coffee for the first time, because he has no idea about the grinding degree. He only knows that the coffee beans must be ground into powder. As for whether it is coarse or fine, it all depends on feeling.
This situation is completely opposite to the first powder pit. We can see that the particles distributed under the filter cup are the size of sea salt, far exceeding the grinding requirements for hand brewing, and the brewing time will be shortened, so the coffee is easily under-extracted and lacks aroma. It is either caused by the scale of the grinder being too large, or the grinding equipment is not up to standard (such as using a food processor) and needs to be adjusted based on time.
③ Dimples
Many novices can actually make the powder bed form a deep enough hole, but the only drawback is that the powder wall they build will be partly concave and partly convex. This is because the water column is not injected vertically, causing the water flow to tilt forward. Especially the direction facing the hand kettle is subject to greater force, so it sinks and the areas that are not flushed become convex. If the coffee you brew always lacks clear flavor, tastes dull, and has uneven coffee pits, you must pay attention to adjusting the water injection method to make the hot water drop more evenly.
④ Flat bottom pit
The main reason for a flat-bottom pit is that the powder bed is flat and there is almost no coffee powder attached to the upper part of the filter cup. This situation is usually because we are used to pouring water to the edge of the filter cup, allowing all the originally piled coffee powder to wash away. Not only is it easy for the hot water floating on top to slip away along the edge, but the center of the coffee powder accumulated at the bottom will also be under-extracted, so the taste is generally lacking.
This pattern often occurs when you finish brewing coffee. It is best to adjust the circle method when filling water in the later stage, so that the water drop point is concentrated in the circle, and ensure that it does not exceed the height of the previous stage of brewing, so that the hot water is always "wrapped" by the coffee powder.
⑤ Fault pit
Fault conditions are generally divided into two forms. The first one usually comes from more cautious friends. They are used to using small water flow to circulate in a small circle and continuously impact the center in a straight line. The coffee powder on the periphery that has not been washed by the water flow will be adsorbed on the edge of the filter paper, forming a thick wall. This results in an unbalanced performance of high extraction rate in the center and low extraction rate around the edges, and the taste ends up with a "bitter bitter, sour sour" ending.
If you want to bring out the flavor of the coffee and keep it safe and stable, Front Street recommends that after the steaming is completed, continuously increase the circle range from the center to the periphery. During the process of raising the water level, use the water column to wash away the powder layer and try to extract the coffee powder evenly. As the liquid level rises, less and less coffee powder can adhere to the filter paper. The liquid level reaches 3/4 of the filter cup. When the powder bed is about to be exposed, pour water in a circle along 1/2 of the radius of the liquid level. Be careful not to exceed the water level in the previous section.
⑥ White wall fault pit
This kind of fault appears as the division of the powder wall. Although the coffee powder in the filter cup has built up to a certain height, the connection between the powder wall and the bottom is obviously broken into two parts. This kind of situation is usually because the water flow around the outer circle is larger, which makes the impact stronger, so it is directly poured onto the powder wall, and then the broken place will "make way" for hot water, resulting in insufficient extraction. For specific solutions, please refer to this article on Front Street "Why did the powder bed break into two pieces after brewing coffee?」。
