Prima Coffee Advanced Brewing Course

Prima Coffee Advanced
Brewing Course
Extraction Principles
Tasting Coffee
The Relationship Between Grind Size and Water Volume
Flow and Agitation
Practicum
Making Coffee Is About Extraction
+ Coffee is first roasted until it is brittle enough to be broken apart, and porous
enough to absorb water.
+ Coffee is then ground into small particles, creating exponentially greater surface
area for the solvent to extract from. The finer the grind, the faster the particles
can be fully extracted.
+ When we brew coffee, we are using forms of energy and the solvent, over time,
to extract dissolvable materials and flavor compounds from the ground
particles. These forms of energy include heat energy (hot water) and kinetic
energy (pressure, flow, stirring or swirling)
+ There are many flavor compounds found in coffee, as demonstrated in
the Specialty Coffee Association's flavor wheel (on right). In general, these
flavor compounds in tend to extract in order of their molecular weight, similarly
to the order in which they're organized on the wheel. Kind of like the track in this
next figure. Acids and sweet compounds tend to extract first, and as
extraction carries on, harsher, heavier compounds are extracted later. Those
heavier compounds are ones we associate with bitterness, astringency,
smokiness or even ash. Undesirable flavors exist on each end of the track, but
when combined in the right way, these compounds should come together to
create balance. In the end, we're extracting as much as possible from coffee
to achieve counterbalanced representation of acid, sweetness, dryness
and bitterness.
+ The ultimate goal in brewing any coffee is to extract the particles as
much as possible and as evenly as possible without extracting
too many undesirable flavors.
+ Coffee contains up to around 30-32% extractable material. In my experience, the
best tasting coffee usually lands around 19%-24% extraction by weight. That is,
the percentage of material dissolved from the grounds into the water. We can
measure this with a tool called a refractometer and uses light to detect the
amount of dissolved solids in a few drops of liquid, then we do a bit of math to
figure out how much material was removed from the grounds.
How Far Is Too Far?
+ Coffee brewing would be simple if all we had to do was extract the grounds of all they're worth. But this
almost never provides the greatest results. When we do extract too much, we call this flavor 'over-extraction'.
+ Over-extraction generally occurs when some areas of the coffee grounds are subjected to harsh kinetic
energies for too long. These localized areas of the coffee bed, or 'channels' release a class of compounds
called polyphenols that we attribute to astringent flavors.
+ Due to the irregular shapes of grounds and the way the particles fit together, it is ultimately impossible for
water to move through grounds perfectly evenly. Good brewing technique is all in how much of that
channeling you can mitigate. The more channeling that occurs during a brew, the lower the extraction, and
the more polyphenols we’re going to taste in the cup.
+ "Fortunately for us, polyphenols are mostly very large molecules, which makes them heavier and harder to
extract from coffee particles, compared to smaller molecules like caffeine and the various acids we enjoy. This
makes it possible to extract the good molecules, while avoiding the polyphenols that cause this astringent
sensation." (Coffeeadastera.com)
+ How do we achieve a high extraction without making the coffee taste bad? We extract evenly.
Learning to Taste
Coffee
+ 'Good' and 'Bad' provide no
The Importance direction.
Of Objectivity In
+ Objective tasting allows us to
communicate the characteristics
Taste of our likes and dislikes clearly, and

provides a path forward to dialing in
to our preferred taste.
+ The only way to dial in coffee is to
recognize what good and bad coffee
tastes like.
+ Objectivity in taste is extremely fun.
+ Splitting a shot of espresso or batch of coffee into multiple portions
during an extraction allows us to taste the types of flavor
compounds extracted in each stage. This practice helps our pallets to
recognize focused characteristics of under-extracted, well-extracted,
and over-extracted coffees.
+ Set up a pour over with a 20g dose and 300ml (g) of water. Target a
grind size that looks something like table salt. Brew the first 100ml
into one cup and the next 200ml in another cup. These two cups will
respectively exemplify dramatic under and over-extraction.
Click to add text
Acidic Sweet Astringent

Salty Fruit-like Bitter
Bitter Savory Watery
• Consider how much coffee you're brewing, and accommodate
your water volume with an appropriate particle size. This is one
of the most difficult skills to master in coffee brewing.
• Small amounts of water percolate quickly and have less
extraction potential as a solvent (less space to hold dissolved
material) Large amounts of water take longer to percolate
through coffee grounds, and have more extraction potential
(more space for dissolved material)
The Relationship • The more surface area of coffee is exposed, the faster the rate
of extraction.
Between Grind • The less surface area of coffee is exposed, the slower the rate
of extraction.
Size and Water • Grind size has accommodated the water volume when the 'right'
Volume amount of material is extracted from the coffee grounds, and the
coffee tastes great as a result.
• Grind size intuition takes practice. Start by following a roaster's
detailed recipe for a specific coffee, adjusting your grind size until
you've matched the total brew time specified in the recipe.
Record your grind size, dose and the flavors in a journal.
• The dripper and filter being used also play a part in the decision,
since each combination of dripper and filter impedes the flow of
water it their own way. Try to stick with one combination when
starting out. Find something that works for you and stick with it.
This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY.

Grind Size Examples
Single Cup - 300ml 2 Cups - 600ml 3-4 Cups – 800-1000ml
• Agitation is turbulence from the kettle's stream or your
hand from stirring or swirling. It's what's physically moving
the grounds around. Flow is the water's path around the
grounds.
• Evenly distributed water flow and agitation are the single most
important considerations you can make while brewing a pour
over. What separates 'good' coffee from 'great' coffee is not a
Evenness of Flow special recipe, it's in the technique of how evenly agitation and
water flow are distributed through the grounds.
and Agitation • Evenness of agitation and flow is synonymous with evenness of
extraction. The more impartial the energy applied to each
particle of coffee, the more even the extraction will
be. Maintaining an even extraction raises the threshold of over-
extraction, allowing you to extract more from the coffee
grounds before extracting too many undesirable flavors.
This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA.

• Consider your pour. Are you spreading the stream evenly across
the bed? Are you holding it in one place too long or neglecting
certain areas? Are you bouncing your arm up and down?
• Pour from a height just below the point where the water begins
to splash at the surface. This extends turbulence deeper into the
bed of coffee, not just the top layer.
Pouring For An • Choose a flow rate from your kettle that allows turbulence to just
Even Extraction reach the filter through the grounds, but also isn't so slow that
the stream becomes incoherent before it hits the slurry.
• Move the stream quickly, but not too fast across the bed. Give
the stream just enough chance to pummel through the grounds
without disturbing the integrity of the flat bed. When percolation
is complete, the grounds should appear to make a flat, even
surface.
This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-NC.

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Taste of our likes and dislikes clearly, and

Acidic Sweet Astringent

This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY.

This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA.

This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-NC.

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