About Coffee Brewing Recipes

A recipe is a bit like a flashlight at night, guiding you until you find the sweet spot to put up a more permanent lamp.

In the bean section of our online shop, you can find guidelines for brewing and extracting coffees - our preferred recipe or preferred extraction.

Roughly, it will read something like this: 

"OUR PREFERRED EXTRACTION: 19g in, 43g out in 28 sec., water at 93.6°C"

"OUR PREFERRED RECIPE: in V60, 17.5g coffee / 250g water with a bloom of 30g for 30 sec., total brewing time of 2:30 min, water at 98°C" 

So, what are we trying to say? Preparing coffee is in fact a bit like baking a cake: to achieve a replicable result, you need to stick to a chosen ratio of ingredients. And as with baking a cake, it helps to have a scale on hand as well as a timer (use the stopwatch in your phone if your scale doesn't include one).

For espresso recipes:

> In general, we define the recipe for use with a double-spout portafilter, so making 2 single espressos or a double espresso and we use a 18g VST basket <

"19g in" => this refers to the amount of coffee in your portafilter before extracting the espresso

"43g out" => this refers to the amount of extracted beverage, so your 2 espressos

"in 28 sec." => the amount of time you should take to make the extraction, although this variable is the one you should focus on only in a second step (allow the time to vary +/- 5 seconds)

"water at 93.6°C" => the water temperature setting of your machine

 For filter coffee recipes: 

"in V60" => the filter method or type we used for the recipe

"17.5g coffee" => the amount of dry and ground coffee in your filter

"250g water" => the total amount of water used in preparing the beverage - keep in mind that hot water weighs less than cold water and add some extra water to your kettle

"bloom of 30g for 30 sec" => start by pouring the stated amount of water over the grounds, distribute the water so all grounds are thoroughly wetted and only start pouring the remaining water after the stated time

"total brewing time of 2:30 min" => extra instructions and a rough estimate of how long your extraction should take 

There are a few things to keep in mind when applying or tweaking a recipe:

- Basket and filter size: There's always a range of dosing you can apply to each basket or filter - but there inevitably comes a point where it's too large or too small

- Water: Without jumping into this rabbit hole - water quality (hardness and mineralization) will have an impact on how coffee extracts (quantity and speed)

- Trust your own judgment: Do you like how the coffee tastes? Take the recipe as a guide to dial in your coffee without wasting too many beans and go from there.

Why do we give brewing and extraction recipes? A recipe is a good starting point in dialling in your grinder as this will be the only variable you will need to change in a first step.

Once you have nailed the grind size take the next step and taste the coffee: Do you need to increase the strength or does it need more balance? You're ready to change the next variable - but stick to one variable at a time only - like the amount of water in your cup or the dose of coffee in your portafilter