Coffee Brewing

1. Great tasting water is a must, it is estimated that 97% of drip coffee is water. The finished coffee cannot be great tasting if the base ingredient of water is of poor quality.
2. Choose a good brewing system. No matter the method of brewing you prefer, two elements are critical from it. Proper water temperature and even saturation of the grounds. If the water temperature that you are brewing with is not at least 185 degrees, you are simply not getting the rich flavors that the bean has locked within. The bitters and sour taste that coffee has, are what will be extracted from cooler brewing temperatures (1550-175 degrees).
3. Drip brewing methods need a filter. Gold filters work well, and should be cleaned per the manufactures instructions. If you use a paper filter, I suggest oxygen processed type. Less chance of flavors from the filter with this style. I know many of you use a Bodum style, no worries here.
4. This next step is very critical to the coffees taste that we all are striving for. The grind. Far too often we use too fine of a grind, this causes the steeping time of the grinds to increase and over extraction of the bean is the result and bitter taste will occur. Too coarse of a grind will not allow enough contact time with the grinds and a weak tasting light colored extract will happen. A good extraction or steeping time for coffee is approximately 4 minutes. If you are over or under this by 30 seconds plus, check your grind.
5. A frequently asked question about brewing is the amount of coffee to use. A simple formula to use is 1 tablespoon of coffee per 8 oz. cup of water. You can start to reduce the amount of grounds as you make more cups. 7 cups may only require 5 tablespoons, if you fill a 10 cup maker, use about three quarters of the recipe, or as you increase the water you can decrease the grounds. Coffee becomes more efficient after a certain point in your brewer, but it is different for each style.

Coffee Tasting

A very large conglomerate named after a Herman Melville character in Moby Dick, is often accused of burning the coffee they have roasted. I don't try and make a habit of defending the coffee super powers, but the beans are not burned. They may be roasted in a style that develops the bean so that the flavor is incredibly intense and it has absorbed a bold amount of the "smoky" flavor, but it is not burned. Still defending "engulf and devour," let the same cup of coffee cool for twenty minutes and then taste, the "burned" taste has transformed to a whole new taste experience (still not good). Again these tastes come from the development of the bean during the roast. I believe that if I (or many other roasters) were given the opportunity to roast the very same beans and blend to their specs, a truly different taste would appear. Then again I don't have to roast millions of pounds a week and the Brinks truck does not ever back up to our doors.
 
And so, "a bean by any other name", can be roasted to a multitude of many tastes and aromas. We at Rocky Mountain Roasting Co. choose to hand craft our roasts in the "old European method of slow roasting" (I am not sure that any body in Europe actually invented that style) because it brings home a taste that I crave in my mornings cup.