True Brew - Recap

It’s 6:15am in suburbia. Alarm clocks rouse the pre-coffee zombies. As they lurch from their homes to secure that first cup Alton arrives, curious why they’re not getting that coffee at home. When one of them murmurs “home coffee bad,” Alton disembarks and offers his own brew. They’re impressed! As they drink, Alton shares something of the history of coffee before the neighborhood coffeehouse. It seems that then, people were proud of their brews, grinding and sometimes even roasting at home. Brewing is cooking, and Alton feels it’s time to take back the brew and make home coffee…Good Eats.

Alton visits a botanical garden to show where coffee starts – as the pit of a cherry-like fruit that grows on either of two varieties of the coffee tree. The Robusto tree is hearty and high yielding, but the its beans yield a brew that’s all power and no flavor. Alton regards them as the “malt liquor” of the hot beverage world. The Arabica tree, a shy and finicky mountain grower, produces just two pounds of beans a year. But these beans are far superior in all ways. Like grapes, they capture the subtleties of the regions where they’re grown. Beans from Hawaii and Central America are bright and snappy, like pop music. Those from East Africa and Yemen are brooding but still catchy – like Beethoven. Sumatran and Indonesian beans are more like funk music.

Coffee beans start green. Brewed, they’d produce a nasty drink with the flavor of grass. So first, they must be roasted. This requires the skilled touch of a master roaster who brings the beans up through temperatures, looking for the changes in color, sheen and size that signal a chemical transformation. This pyrolysis produces the complex flavors of fine coffee. First crack occurs when the water in the bean boils to steam and literally cracks open the bean like popcorn. At this point the roaster samples the beans frequently as he waits for the right balance of flavors. When he has it he decants the beans to a cooling tray.

Roasted coffee is a ticking time bomb: once roasted, it begins to go stale immediately. But freshly roasted beans give off carbon dioxide for several days, which means they’ll burst an airtight container. One solution is a coffee house, where frequent turnover means the beans don’t have time to go stale (Alton cautions against the coffee house where beans are displayed in barrels or there aren’t a lot of customers – visitors are likely to get a stale cup at these places.) For the grocery, Alton shows coffee bag with a one way valve built right into the bag – this lets gases out and prevents staleness. But once that bag is breached it’s no longer good storage. Alton moves his beans to an airtight canister and stores them at room temperature. Refrigeration and freezing, popular in some circles, cause condensation to form on the bean and that can hasten degradation.

Adrift in a raft at the water works, Alton reminds us coffee is mostly water. Good water is the foundation of good coffee, and while municipal water is usually healthy, it may not taste good. A charcoal filter can fix that; if the water is too hard or too soft or has trace minerals in it, use bottled water.

At the blackjack table, Alton tells us that 30% of the coffee bean can be extracted by water. Of that, perhaps two thirds is good – and the remaining third, really bad. The key to brewing is to control water temperature, grind size, the proportion of coffee to water, and brew time so that you get as close as possible to perfection without busting. To reach this goal, Alton devises a brewing system with separate components – a grinder, an electric kettle, and a filter carafe. This separation improves control so the brewer can get the four facets correct. To test the system, he recruits sleepy neighbor Chuck.

The correct ratio of coffee to water is important: two tablespoons per six ounces of water. Too little coffee means too much extraction from each bean – including that last third or so of unpleasant components – a bitter brew. Alton believes beans are best ground just before they’re used. Grind them too soon, and the extra surface area just means they’ll go stale faster. Finer grinds work best for quick brewing techniques, like espresso, while coarser grinds are best for slow brewing methods like a French press. For Alton’s drip system, he instructs Chuck to grind the beans for just fifteen seconds in a simple blade grinder. Once Chuck has managed the right amount of ground coffee, Alton has him fetch the electric kettle. The right temperature is just off the boil, so Alton has Chuck wait a few seconds before pouring. The ideal brew time is four to five minutes.

Just a little while later, the sleepy Chuck is transformed; he’s mopping Alton’s floor vigorously. That segues into a discussion of caffeine. Alton talks to a registered dietician to find out about the alkaloid. Caffeine works by preventing the release of adenosine in the brain. Adenosine acts to keep us calm, when it is suppressed, we’re stimulated by our own metabolism. But we do not necessary work better, just faster - the idea of efficiency is an illusion. People react differently to the alkaloid, so each coffee drinker must learn his limits.

Is there a good cup of decaffeinated coffee? Alton examines this issue. Decaffeination extracts a lot of flavor chemicals along with the stimulant. That means that ideally, the roaster starts with the highest quality (most expensive) beans. The process also requires expensive facilities. So if you buy decaf that costs the same as standard coffee, you can be sure the roaster started with sub par beans – it’s the only way he can make a profit at that price. Alton’s answer is to drink less regular coffee, or search out and buy more expensive decaf that started with the best beans. Otherwise, that cup of decaf will leave you flat.

Beans and water are ingredients and brewing is really cooking. Take the time to learn and mind the details, and you’ll brew delicious coffee every time.

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