4 Tips for Large Batch Brewing
Merry Christmas! (For useful content, skip to the second paragraph)
I love this time of year--cooler weather (or at least occasional cool fronts here in San Antonio) and lots of time with friends and family spent celebrating! I'm sorry I've been away from the blog. It has been a wild month and a half. We (re)opened our coffee trailer, so if you want to try Tag in the wild, go to Jubilee Coffee at 4230 McCullough Ave. There is a pretty good chance I'm going to be there to serve you -- like I am right now!
If you are like me, you will be spending time with family and you will be making coffee...LOTS of coffee! So here are a few tips to make your large batch brewing just a little bit easier.
- Use enough coffee! If you weigh your coffee then this may not be an issue, but so many of the woes of bitter coffee can be fixed by simply using more coffee!
- Just because it is a big batch doesn't mean it should brew for twice as long. A little extra brew time is fine, but if your brew jumped from 2-3-4 minutes to 6-7-8 minutes, it's going to taste bitter. Try to aim for the same brew time.
- You will usually need a coarser grind when brewing a big batch. If that's not possible, then a little extra coffee will sufficiently counteract the tendency for higher extraction. Basically, if you add more coffee, you will get 20% of 100 grams rather than 24% of 90 grams. 20% of 100 tastes way better -- trust me.
- If you use a pot and notice a deep hole drilled through your grounds when you throw them away, your coffee may taste weak and bitter or weak and sour, but it will almost certainly be weak (and probably bitter). If your pot has a feature that stops the flow into the pot while the pot isn't sitting under the brewer, then play around with leaving the pot out of the brewer at the beginning of the brew. You can let the water build up on the grounds and it will form a pool of water and grounds that is much more forgiving of your brewer. Letting the water build up should give you a much fuller, sweeter cup of coffee.
If you have more questions about this, email us at info@tagcoffee.com -- I may write another blog on this topic next week! Don't forget to stock up on coffee before the gatherings begin. Use code JINGLE for 10% off our website!
-Levi