You might have thought that your trusty old coffee maker is all you need to make a great cup of coffee. You just need to buy some of those fancy pre-blended coffees at the supermarket. Although this will yield a different tasting brew, it does not necessarily mean that it is better.
If you want to achieve coffee perfection, you need to arm yourself with all of the necessary pieces of equipment.
To give you an idea of what kinds of coffee-making hardware you will need, the following are some of the more popular ones that amateur baristas and true coffee lovers use.
Coffee Grinder
Do away with the pre-ground stuff that you usually see on store shelves. If you really want to brew a great cup of coffee then you need to buy whole coffee beans and grind them yourself.
What most people don’t know is that coffee starts to get stale 15 minutes after being ground. This means the coffee starts to lose much of its flavor and aroma. This will still happen—albeit at a much slower rate—even when you store the ground up beans in an airtight container. If you want to enjoy the full flavor of coffee, grind up the beans yourself and brew them immediately.
You can choose from two types of grinders: blade or burr.
Blade grinders
If you do not have that much money to spend on this new hobby of yours, you might want to use blade grinders. On average, these grinders cost no more than $20, so they will not break the bank.
These are like miniature food processors. They have a small container with a lid, and at the bottom there is a blade that spins at high velocity. Coffee snobs scoff at the humble blade grinder.
Some claim that the resulting grind is uneven, and the most discerning actually claim that they can produce a slightly burnt taste that came from the sheer amount of friction from the spinning blades. However, if you are only starting and do not have that much money to burn on coffee making equipment, then this will do fine.
Burr grinders
These are the kinds of grinders professionals use so, needless to say, they can be quite expensive—around $60 for the cheapest ones. Unlike blade grinders, burr grinders crush and grind up the coffee beans using two abrasive metal plates. Using burr grinders results in a uniformly ground product, meaning every coffee particle is almost the same size, making it easier to extract every bit of flavor.
Another thing that is great about burr grinders is that you can adjust how coarse or fine the grind will be. This is important since different extraction methods require different grind qualities. For instance, if you will be using a French press, a coarse grind is best. However, if you will be using a drip coffee maker, then a medium grind is better.
Weighing Scale
Contrary to what most people think, coffee making is an exact science. If you think you can just eyeball the amount of coffee to use, then think again. You will need an accurate weighing scale so you can finely-tune your coffee recipe until you come up with the perfect blend.
Some may argue that you can just use teaspoons and other volumetric measuring devices and produce the same results. Unfortunately, they are not as accurate as weighing the ingredients.
Unlike the other pieces of equipment that you will need, you can just buy a cheap, digital kitchen weighing scale. These things are usually accurate enough for your intended purpose.
Timer
Most people will just load their coffee makers and leave them to do their thing. But, if you really want an exceptional cup of coffee, you need to keep a close eye on the process. There are many time constraints when it comes to brewing great coffee (the amount of time the water comes in contact with the coffee grounds, the actual brewing time required, etc.) and precision often means the difference between great coffee and “meh”.
You really do not have to buy a kitchen timer for this since smartphones these days all have some sort of timer that you can use. The important thing to remember is that timing is crucial when brewing coffee.
Coffee Brewers
There are many varieties of coffee brewers currently available, from the usual drip machines, to coffee presses and other contraptions. Here are some of the more popular types and some of their pros and cons:
Drip coffee brewers
You can see these appliances in almost all American homes and offices nowadays. The great thing about this is that you do not have to worry about a thing. Just spoon in your coffee, put water in the reservoir, flip the switch, and wait. The bad thing about these kinds of coffee maker is that you tend to let the machine do all the work, and half the fun is in working for your coffee. Additionally, if you leave your coffee pot on the hot plate for too long, your coffee will get too bitter.
French Press
This is essentially a beaker with a cover that has a plunger with a fine strainer on it. Even though it’s a relatively simple machine, coffee enthusiasts swear that it brews the best coffee.
The pros of using a French press is that it is relatively simple, just pour in the hot water and coffee, stir thoroughly, cover and let steep for a couple of minutes, press the plunger down slowly, and then pour the coffee into your cups.
Note: Use the plastic spoon that came with the Press or a wooden one if none was provided. A metal spoon will crack the glass sides of your press.
After you are done drinking your coffee, cleanup is a breeze since you only need to remove the compacted coffee grounds from the bottom of the pot.
The only negative thing that can be said about the French press is that your coffee beans must be coarsely ground (actually near the coarsest grind setting) for optimum extraction. If your coffee is too fine, it will result to over-extraction, which makes the resulting product bitter, and some of coffee particles may find their way through the filter and into your drink.
The Melitta brewer
This brewing system is functionally the same as the automatic drip coffee makers, but without the “automatic” part. Just like the French press, you need to heat the water separately and then pour it into the grinds and let the resulting coffee drip into the container waiting below.
The great thing about the Melitta brewing system is you have complete control over the amount of time the water touches the coffee. This is where the timer comes into play, as well as the exact temperature of water you need to use. Tweaking these two factors can result in you making the best cup of coffee you have ever had.
Percolator
This was once the standard brewing method, and it is making quite a comeback. Percolators are basically kettles with two levels.
The top level is where you put your coffee grinds, and the bottom is for the water. A small tube connects the top and bottom levels.
When the water starts to boil—you actually place the percolator on your stovetop—it will rise up the tube and drip into the coffee grinds. This continuous cycle will extract the flavors from the coffee as long as it is on the heat.
The problem with this type of coffee brewing is that it tends to over-extract from the coffee, and you are basically boiling the coffee over and over again, which is not advisable. Though modern electronic percolators claim to solve this “coffee boiling” problem, they still tend to produce a less-than-fantastic cup of coffee.
Espresso and specialty coffee makers
These are basically automatic coffee machines on steroids. They can do everything that your regular old coffee maker can do, only better.
These machines will allow you to make your own espressos, macchiato, and other fancy coffee concoctions right in the comfort of your own home and at a fraction of the coffee house cost. Although you will be saving a lot of money in the long run, you have to shell out a considerable amount for your initial investment for buying an espresso machine (the decent ones usually go for more than $1000).
Chemex Coffee Maker
The Chemex coffee maker is essentially a glass flask with a narrow waist that uses paper filters to brew coffee. To use this coffee maker, you just need to line the paper filters along the narrow waist, spoon in your coffee, and pour hot water over the top.
The great thing about this coffee brewer is the paper filters are thicker than what you would normally use on a regular automatic coffee maker, making it better at filtering out most of the coffee oils, giving the resulting brew full flavor without making it bitter.
By now, you have an almost expert understanding of coffee and the equipment used in the making of this wonderful beverage. What you need to learn next is how to actually brew it.