How To Choose The Best Coffee Grinder and Coffee Maker for Gourmet Coffee

Coffee Grinding Tips and Brewing Tips For Gourmet Coffee

If you have made the effort to get the very best coffee beans, freshly roasted and ready for brewing, then you should make sure that you use the proper coffee grinder and coffee maker to ensure full enjoyment of your gourmet coffee.

Coffee brewing equipment comes in many forms, so choosing the right equipment is not always easy. In addition, coffee grinders, coffee makers, and other coffee brewing equipment has been evolving in recent years as more gourmet coffee lovers decide to prepare the very finest coffee.

A French Press coffee maker–also called a Cafetiere, Bodum, or Plunger Pot–is generally recommended as the best way to enjoy a Kona coffee’s finest flavors and aromas. However many people prefer automatic drip coffee makers (autodrip coffee maker) mainly for its convenience.

Also see: The Top Ten Coffees in the World

Automatic drip coffee makers employ the filter-drip method of coffee brewing–the heated water is drained onto a bed of roasted, ground coffee and then seeps through the coffee grounds, absorbing the coffee’s flavor materials that give coffee its flavors and aromas. The coffee beverage then pass through a paper filter into a coffee pot.

Drip Filter coffee is also commonly made without a machine by simply pouring hot water over the roasted, ground coffee that is placed in a filter.

Increasingly popular are pod coffee makers that brew individually packaged coffee pods. Also increasingly popular are coffee K-Cups–small pre-packaged plastic cups with fresh sealed coffee (usually a coffee blend) that is brewed in a special K-cup brewing machine. The K-Cup was developed by Keurig and is now widely available.

The coffee K-Cup has a coffee filter inside the sealed plastic container holding ground coffee beans and with a tin foil lid. After being placed into the Keurig brewer, the coffee K-cup brewing machine punctures the foil lid to inject hot water, and also pierces the bottom of the K-Cup, thus allowing the freshly prepared beverage to flow into a mug.

Prominent companies who sell single serve coffee makers (single cup coffee brewers) and pod coffee makers that may brew coffee pods or coffee K-Cups K-Cups include Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (Green Mountain coffee K-Cups), Cuisinart (single serve brewing system), Timothy’s World Coffee(Timothy’s K-Cups), Keurig (Keurig coffee K-Cups), Braun (T-Disc Single Serve Coffee Maker), Tassimo (Suprema single serve system coffee makers and espresso makers using T-Discs), Gevalia (Signature blend T-discs), and Senseo which offers Senseo coffee pods and the Senseo coffee pod system.

Keurig sells seven commercial models of K-Cup brewers as well as five household models of K-Cup coffee makers including the Breville, Elite, Special Edition, Platinum, and Mini. Also available is an environmentally sensitive re-usable filter called the My K-Cup. This allows users to supply their own ground coffee to be brewed in the K-Cup style.

Of course many prefer to simply grind and brew their own whole bean coffees, and some people even roast their own coffee beans. When it comes to grinding coffee, however, the very best choice of a coffee grinder in order to enjoy the very best flavors and aromas of the coffee beans, is a conical burr grinder.

A conical burr grinder uses a burr to crush the whole coffee beans between a stationary surface and a moving grinding wheel. Burr coffee grinders give a more consistent coffee grind size than blade coffee grinders, and the best type of burr grinder is a conical burr grinder because it operates at lower speeds than a wheel burr grinder and this preserves more of the coffee’s flavors.

Now back to the topic of brewing. The reason that a French Press coffee maker–typically a cylindrical glass container with a round, tightly fitted metal screen filter/plunger–is considered the best coffee brewing method is that the roasted and ground coffee is allowed to soak directly in the hot water, and no paper filter is used.

A paper filter removes many of the coffee’s volatile oils that contain a large part of the coffee’s essence, particularly the body, and also elements of the coffee’s taste and aromatic vapors.

Gourmet coffee connoisseurs tend to want to enjoy all of the best qualities of a specialty coffee such as Kona coffee or Ethiopian coffee in order to appreciate its main characteristics–body (mouthfeel), aroma, acidity, sweetness, bitterness, and aftertaste/finish, and so avoiding the use of a paper filter is paramount.

To brew the coffee you need to first remove the plunger from the French Press and place the ground coffee in the bottom of the glass container. Generally a course grind size is used in the French Press brewing method.

After adding the hot water to the French Press you might want to stir or shake it up a bit to make sure all of the coffee is saturated. One of the great things about the French Press, aside from being able to retain all of the coffee’s natural body since no paper filter is used, is that you have full control of the water temperature as well as the brewing time.

Three to five minutes is a typical French Press brewing time though it depends upon the coffee grind size, the amount of coffee used, and the desired strength of the Hawaiian Kona coffee. When the coffee is ready push the plunger down in order separate the extracted coffee from the coffee grounds.

One other brewing method worth mentioning is the Cold Water brewing method which involves soaking the ground coffee in a relatively small amount of cold water for around fifteen hours. After soaking, a filter is used to separate the coffee from the grounds.

The strong, concentrated coffee produced by the Cold Water Method may be stored for ready use and mixed with hot water when desired. Some coffee connoisseurs claim say that coffee brewed with the Cold Water Method has a very delicate, pleasing taste.

However you decide to brew your gourmet coffee, make sure and get top quality fresh roasted premium coffee beans, grind them with a conical Burr grinder, brew carefully, and savor the delicious tastes and aromas.