Category: Brewing

Why Are There Grounds in My Coffee?

A small amount of coffee sediment can be normal with some brewing methods, but obvious coffee grounds in your cup usually mean the grind is too fine for the filter, the filter is damaged or incorrectly positioned, or coffee is bypassing the filter altogether. The exact cause depends heavily on how you brewed the coffee. …

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How to Clean a Reusable Coffee Filter

Reusable coffee filters are convenient, inexpensive to use over time, and capable of lasting for years—but only if you keep them clean. Every time you brew coffee, oils and tiny coffee particles come into contact with the filter. Most of the loose grounds rinse away easily, but some residue can remain behind in the fine …

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How Often Should You Replace a Reusable Coffee Filter?

A reusable coffee filter does not usually need to be replaced on a fixed schedule. Unlike a paper coffee filter, which is discarded after one brew, a good reusable metal or gold-tone filter can potentially remain useful for years if it is cleaned properly and stays in good condition. The better question is not, “How …

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Paper vs. Reusable Coffee Filters

Paper and reusable coffee filters can both make excellent coffee, but they do not produce exactly the same cup. Paper filters trap more coffee oils and very fine particles. That generally produces coffee that tastes cleaner, lighter, and more defined, with very little sediment. Reusable metal filters allow more oils and microscopic particles to pass …

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Bleached vs. Unbleached Coffee Filters

Bleached and unbleached coffee filters look different, but the difference in your cup is usually much smaller than people expect. Bleached filters are white because the paper has gone through a whitening process. Unbleached filters retain their natural brown color because they have not been whitened in the same way. Both can make excellent coffee. …

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Coffee Filter Sizes Explained

Coffee filter sizes can be surprisingly confusing. You walk into a store expecting to buy a box of filters and suddenly you are choosing between #1, #2, #4, #6, basket filters, V60 01 and 02 filters, Kalita 155 and 185 filters, and several kinds of Chemex paper. What do all those numbers actually mean? The …

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Pour Over vs. Drip Coffee

Pour-over and drip coffee are closely related brewing methods. In both cases, hot water passes through ground coffee held in a filter, then drips into a cup or carafe below. The main difference is control. With pour-over coffee, you control how the water is added, how quickly it flows, how evenly it saturates the grounds, …

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Best Grind Size for Drip Coffee

The best grind size for drip coffee is usually medium. It is the dependable starting point for most automatic coffee makers because it allows water to move through the coffee bed at a moderate rate while extracting enough flavor from the grounds. That does not mean every drip coffee maker needs exactly the same grind. …

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Drip Coffee Guide

Drip coffee is the everyday workhorse of the coffee world. It is simple, convenient, easy to scale from a single mug to a full pot, and requires far less hands-on attention than methods such as pour-over or espresso. Yet there is a surprisingly large difference between ordinary drip coffee and a genuinely excellent cup. A …

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How Much Coffee for 12 Cups

If you are making 12 cups of drip coffee, the amount of ground coffee you need depends on how much water your coffee maker actually uses. This is important because a coffee maker’s “cup” is often smaller than a standard 8-ounce measuring cup. Many 12-cup machines hold somewhere around 60 to 72 ounces of water …

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