☕️ Miracles of Owning a Coffee Grinder #TonyTries #HomeBarista #SK6EP2
Buying a cheap burr hand grinder provides a high quality of life improvement to your coffee experience. Coffee aromatics that contribute to flavour are progressively lost after it is ground. Therefore it is important to grind coffee just before you drink it. It also makes the ritual of coffee making more enjoyable as well.
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We here are keen on trying new hobbies to increase our repertoire of skills. Whether you’ve stumbled across this for the first time or are a regular, thanks for taking the time to look through what I have created. Read on to start your journey towards mastering skills that you are passionate about.
This is the second post in an ongoing Home Barista series which looks at making cafe-quality coffee at home. Today we are looking at the importance of a coffee grinder. Coffee grinders are a cheap addition to make your coffee experience much better and flavoursome.
From ancient times, people have always found ways to grind coffee to consume it (Photo by Ashkan Forouzani
The second purchase that I made in my quest to make cafe-quality coffee at home was a hand grinder. I managed to find a pretty good deal on a ceramic burr hand grinder on Facebook Market place for just over half the price of a new one. Although I got lucky that time, it’s important to be wary of scams that are rampant on the Facebook Market place. I wrote about how I got scammed in a previous blog post. I use the same hand grinder to this day.
From what I hear @JamesHoffmann talk about, it looks like the most important purchase is the grinder. Here is a handy video that helps you decide which grinder to buy. The more you spend, the better the quality of ground coffee up to about $500 over which you reach a point of diminishing returns (especially for home use). Therefore, if you plan to set aside a certain amount for your coffee hobby, I’d recommend first investing a large portion of that in the grinder.
Investment required: $20
Grinders provide many improvements to your coffee. here are some improvements that are immediately noticeable once you buy a grinder:
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Improvement 1: Better flavour
Coffee is at its freshest when you grind it on demand. The more time that passes after it has been ground, the more flavour and aromatics it loses through evaporation and oxidation.
Bread, apples, cookies, and coffee all suffer the same fate when they interact with oxygen: a slow breakdown of organic molecules that lead to the destruction of fresh, tasty flavors and textures. This process is called oxidation.
-Raj Jana, Javapresse Blog
The only way to combat this is by grinding on demand. When coffee is roasted, it forms a protective outer layer which locks in all the flavour. When we grind the coffee, we are disrupting this protection and exposing the flavour to the outside air. Much like an open bag of crisps, over time it starts losing its tasty properties. Therefore, just like with chips, coffee is best consumed as soon as it’s exposed to air.
Improvement 2: Adjustable grind size
Different coffee brewers have different requirements for grind size. This article shows the different styles of coffees and their grind sizes. Generally, the shorter the contact period, the smaller the requirement for grind size. Therefore, if you still grind your coffee all at once, you miss out on being able to experiment with different brew methods.
Improvement 3: Self-reliant to purchase coffee
This allows you to not have to fumble around coffee shops hoping that someone would grind the beans that you purchased in another shop.
When I first bought beans online, I didn’t own a coffee grinder. And so, I had to go from one shop to the other to see which one would grind my beans. The first place I went to said they didn’t have the capacity to do that (as their grinders were already filled with beans). They recommended a nearby cafe that may do it. But when I got there, they refused to grind outside beans. I was fumbling around until finally, one shop agreed to grind my coffee. This whole experience could have been avoided had I purchased a grinder first before I bought my first bag of coffee.
I’d love to hear from you. Do you drink pre-ground coffee? Do you have a grinder but choose not to use it? Or has it been the best purchase you’ve ever made? Your experience could benefit us all! Leave them in the comments below or Tweet at me and be sure to include the hashtag #TonyTries.
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed reading the Home Barista series (SK6). I hope this series inspires you to start a hobby of your own. Do leave a comment and subscribe if you want to be inspired to learn new skills on a week-ish basis.
Until next time,
Tony
Resources:
YouTube: Key to Perfect Coffee; Beginner’s guide to Grinders
Related blog posts: Grinder is the Best Coffee Gear
Twitter: James Hoffmann
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