This post is a detailed discussion of the effects of coffee grinder seasoning on particle size distributions.
Seasoning Grinder Burrs and Grind Quality
Grind Quality and the Popcorning Effect
I often heard worries in the coffee community about a difference of quality in the coffee grind size distribution when grinding with a full hopper versus a single dose of coffee in an otherwise empty hopper. The idea behind this is that coffee beans forced through the rotating grinder burrs have no choice but to …
An App to Measure your Coffee Grind Size Distribution
[Edit May 11 2019: If you would like to contribute to further the development of this application, or to a similar future application to measure roast colorimetry, you can do so on my Patreon page.] [Edit April 25 2019: Please note this is not an iPhone or Android app, and I have no plans to …
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Some Strategies to Keep your Coffee Fresh
[Edit October 28 2019: I now strongly recommend against using oxy-sorbs or any oxygen scavenger bags with coffee. I will eventually write a detailed post about this, but it can impart a really bad taste to coffee; for now you can find more information here.] There are few things more annoying than discovering some of …
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A Recipe to Brew High Extraction Coffee with the Siphon
Today I am finally sharing a recipe for the siphon brewer. I will use a bit of technical jargon at times in this blog post. If you encounter a word you're not familiar with, I recommend you consult Mitch Hale's glossary. The siphon method is far from being appropriate for most people's daily routines, as …
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Testing a Model of Extraction Dynamics
In a recent post, I presented a mathematical model for the dynamics of coffee extraction that is based on a few simple hypotheses. One of these is that the rate of extraction decreases exponentially. The rate at which it decreases can depend on many things: the type of coffee, the roast, the amount of agitation …
A More Accurate Way to Calculate Average Extraction Yield
I recently wrote about the detailed explanations and calculations behind the equations we use to estimate average extraction yield from coffee concentration (often called TDS) measured with refractometers. If you have not seen this discussion, I highly recommend reading it before you start reading this blog post, as it introduces a lot of the concepts …
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Measuring and Reporting Extraction Yield
Since I received the VST Coffee Lab III refractometer thanks to Vince Fedele's generosity, I started logging the concentration (in % TDS) of every coffee I brew. This allows you to calculate the average extraction yield of your brew, which represents the fraction of your coffee beans by mass that was dissolved in your brew …
Measuring the Concentration of Espresso Shots
If you are wondering why it is widely recommended to use syringe filters when you measure the concentration of espresso shots with a refractometer, or how bad exactly a measurement would be if you don't use such a filter, I highly recommend this recent blog post by my friend Mitch Hale. And while you're there, …
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The Dynamics of Coffee Extraction
[Edit January 30, 2019: After receiving some feedback about this post, I would like to address a few things that I think were not clear enough. I’d like to thank Scott Rao for his comments. First, when I use language such as “over-extraction”, and “under-extraction”, I don’t mean that the associated extraction numbers are necessarily …
