After Christmas, many have opened their first package of Lehmus Roastery coffee.
Over a particularly good cup of coffee, questions may arise, so we gathered the most frequently asked questions from the year for our roasting master Visa Tuovinen to answer. Here's some nice reading to enjoy over a good cup of coffee!
Lehmus Roastery's roaster ready for work.
When is coffee at its best after roasting?
Coffee releases carbon dioxide after roasting, meaning that the ripening process is still ongoing after roasting. In the packaging we use, the carbon dioxide is released from the bag through a valve. The coffee should be allowed to cool and settle. If you don't wait, the coffee can become pungently acidic and have unwanted flavors.
Beans intended for filter coffee are at their best a couple of days after roasting and remain optimal for a couple of weeks. After two months, more aromas begin to evaporate. Dark roasted coffees last longer, and we consider a clear deadline of six months for them. Lighter coffees change significantly in that time.
Espresso beans, on the other hand, take much longer to settle. The extraction method is delicate, so it's worth waiting up to two weeks for the carbon dioxide to evaporate properly. I once tried coffee that was ten days old, and it was still bubbling.
Pre-ground coffees are also a different story. Grinding releases all the carbon dioxide from the beans, so the coffee settles quickly. It's still worth waiting a few days before brewing.
Why is coffee sold mostly as beans - what does the grinding itself affect?
When you grind coffee, the freshest and strongest aromas disappear within 15 minutes. These aromas are on the surface of the coffee bean. The surface breaks down during grinding and the aromas dissolve when they react with oxygen. When you grind and extract coffee immediately, you get the aromas that the coffee was intended to have.
If you have two coffees of the “same age”, one ground immediately after roasting and the other ground just before extraction, you will always get a better aroma from the beans.
Does the filter paper need to be soaked before brewing coffee, and if so, why?
Paper gives water a paper taste. Poor quality filter papers in particular release paper fibers into the water. It's worth trying pouring hot water through the filter paper and then tasting the filtered water.
Non-chemically bleached paper is the best for coffee quality. However, chemically bleached papers do leach some chemicals into the coffee.
The difference is subtle and small, but if you want to enjoy your aromatic Kenyan coffee at its purest, even the small details are important.
Why is it important to keep coffee makers clean, or why should you wash and maintain coffee equipment?
Kettle scales build up in just a few months from tap water. Cleaning is important. There are many home remedies for cleaning your equipment, but homemade cleaning products are the best.
Manual extraction devices such as drippers and aeropresses must be cleaned before and after each use.
The worst mistake is to pour water into the coffee maker's tank with a coffee pot. A little coffee fat always dissolves from the pot, which affects the taste of the coffee and is difficult to clean when it hardens. I once cleaned a clogged Moccamaster, and it wasn't until the fifth pot of drained water that it even started to look clear.
Do I need to weigh coffee and water to the nearest gram? Why is it important to measure the amount of coffee correctly?
If you want a consistent extraction, you practically have to measure the coffee and water on a scale, especially if you know what specific flavor you want from the coffee.
Even if you always use the same coffee measure, there will be small variations in the dosage. The coffee measure also does not take into account the degree of roast. Dark roasted coffee is lighter than light roasted. Therefore, a scale is the best indicator of the absolute amount of coffee.
As a rule of thumb, the dosage is seven grams of coffee and 1.25 deciliters of water.
Optimal extraction is a good starting point. It can be measured with special equipment. Coffee beans can be extracted into a cup of coffee at 0–30 percent. An extraction of 18–22 percent is considered optimal. After this, it comes down to taste: one person likes to make a weak coffee, another likes to make a strong one.
---
Lehmus Roastery is offering 15% off pre-ordered coffees from its online store during its production break. Click here to visit the online store .