How to Make Cafe-Quality Coffee at Home

This post is contributed by Thomas Keisling, an expert in roasting and brewing coffee.

The major differences that prevent you from brewing coffee as good as your local barista. 

Coffee is a wonderfully complex drink that when done right makes it look as easy as pouring hot water over ground coffee. There’s a bit more to it though, but after following these guidelines you might even be able to show your barista a new trick. 

Whether we’re talking about espresso, cold brew, or filtered hot coffee the majority of our drink is water. In fact 95-98% of any brewed coffee drink is water. It would make sense then that the quality of water we are using will GREATLY affect the final flavors in our cup. 

It is not enough to just use filtered water to brew great coffee. Thankfully the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) makes all the requirements of water quality easily accessible in a easy to read chart. 

 

Characteristic	Target	Acceptable Range
Odor 1	Clean/Fresh, Odor free
Color 2	Clear color
Total Chlorine	O mg/L
TDS 3	150 mg/L	75 – 250 mg/L
Calcium Hardness	4 grains or 68 mg/L	1-5 grains or 17 mg/L – 85 mg/L
Total Alkalinity	40 mg/L	At or near 40 mg/L
pH	7.0	6.5 – 7.5
Sodium	10 mg/L	At or near 10 mg/L

The biggest mistake home brewers have is using too strong of a filter for their water. For example if you’re using a Zero WATER brand filter this brings down the total TDS (Total Dissolved Solubles) to 0 and we see in the acceptable range is at the lowest 75mg with the target range being 150.

 

Coffee tasting dull, flat, boring? Does the fruity characteristics not shine? Is the body lacking? You’d be surprised how much of that can be attributed to water quality. 

If you’re reading this chart and thinking you’re in way over your head here are some tips to help achieve these benchmarks without breaking a sweat. 

Fiji bottled water hits all these benchmarks. A bit pricey to buy for every coffee you’re about to brew but a great way to have quality brewing water when in a pinch. Its also very useful if you want to compare using tap water, 100% filtered water, and water that the SCA says is best for coffee brewing. You’ll be amazed at the difference between all three when just the water source is changed. 

While using the above method gets you water thats in the acceptable range this next method will actually get you water that hits the TARGET benchmarks. 

THIRD WAVE WATER. This company makes capsules that you add into either distilled or Reverse Osmosis water and it adds all the minerals you need to extract all those amazing flavors from your favorite Single Origin. They come in ready to use 1 gallon or 5 gallon sticks and are as easy adding and shaking before you’re ready to brew. https://thirdwavewater.com/

Last but not least and this is the method I use at home when all the above are not readily available. 

Using a combination of filtered and tap water. Through trial and error I have found that a 75% filtered water mixed with 25% tap water achieves very usable results. Though coffee brewed with this way is not going to be near the quality of the above mentioned it does produce very great tasting coffee. Try and taste for yourself. Plus it’s free.

The next thing you’re probably doing different than your local coffee shop is the recipe. When thinking about the word recipe and what that means we can easily relate to cooking. Too much salt, not enough salt? Raw vs well done? We know these things change the final flavor of the food we’re eating but what does a typical coffee recipe look like? 

How much coffee do we use? How much water do we use? Do we just pour all the water on top of ground coffee? 

Typically coffee brewers use a specific ratio of water to coffee. 1-15 to 1- 17. 

This means that for every 1 gram of coffee we’re using 15-17 grams of water. Yes your local coffee shop is using a scale to measure not only the amount of coffee but also the amount in water. For one person I recommend 24grams of coffee to 400 grams of water. For two people I recommend 48 grams of coffee and 800 grams of water. 

A typical manual brew method (french press, chemex, pour over, even using a automatic brewer) should take between 3-6 minutes. The water temperature is 195-205 degrees F. boiling point is 212 so after reaching boiling point remove water from the heat source for 45 seconds and this will get you to the target temperature.

The first 30 seconds of your brew should be adding a little water to the coffee grinds, enough to fully saturate all the grinds but not anymore. This process is called blooming and is essential to creating good coffee. Remember we’re measuring everything out, so your cup is either on a scale or the total water is premeasured already. After the 30 second bloom pour the remainder of the water onto the coffee. When doing a pourover we typically use a kettle with a gooseneck to help us pour slowly but if you don’t have one concentrate on pouring slowly. Start from the center of the ground coffee and work your way towards the edges in a spiral motion. Restart at the center and repeat. Never let the top of the ground coffee not be within hot water until done pouring all water. All water should be poured within 2:30-3:30 with the water fully dripping through all the ground coffee and into your cup by 6 minutes. 

Last but not least your grinder. Your coffee grinder should have either conical or flat burrs, never use a blade grinder for grinding coffee. For optimal results and flavor, always grind only the amount of coffee needed right before use and store coffee in a cool, dry, airtight container. Once you open a fresh bag of coffee we recommend using all that coffee within 4 weeks for best results. For most recipes a coarseness similar to the size of grains of sand is best. Going coarser, or having larger pieces of coffee will make for weak coffee, speed up the brewing time, and not extract enough flavor. Going finer, or having smaller pieces of coffee will make for too strong of coffee, slow down the brew time, and that can extract unwanted flavors. Tweak your grind size to make your recipe fall within the recommended total brew time. Remember coarser=faster brew times and finer = slower brew times. Now you can enjoy that cup of coffee!