Which Coffee Grind For Which Coffee?

Coffee seems simple on the surface, but once you start to look deeper it is filled with complexities. Once you start down the road to the "perfect" cup of coffee, there are many options to consider. The first thing to understand is that this is a personal journey. No one can tell you what tastes best for you - that is something you have to discover for yourself. But, there are many, many different voices and opinions on the simple cup of coffee.

This article will focus on one of the key elements that go to making up coffee, the type of grind. Coffee grinding is one of the first steps towards that cup of coffee (after choosing the beans), but it can be a very important one. As a ship's captain will tell you, if you start out one degree off course, you will end up miles away from your destination. Similarly with grinding coffee, starting with the wrong grind will make it impossible to end up with coffee that matches your flavour demands.

The first thing to consider is the brewing method you intend to use. A brewing method which leaves the ground bean exposed to hot water for longer, should have a ground bean which is larger. This is because we don't want too much flavour to seep out of the bean, as this will create a bitter taste to the end coffee. If the grind was smaller, too much hot water would be in contact with the ground bean, and allow too much flavour. Thus, longer brewing methods use a "course" or rough grind.

Alternatively, a brewing method which only exposes the ground bean to the hot water for a short time, such as espresso, requires a fine grind. Here, we want the most flavour extracted as quickly as possible, so the smaller ground bean needs as much surface area available to the water.

Here is a list of brewing methods and which type of grind is best matched.

Brewing Method: Grind

Espresso: Very fine

French: Press Medium

Caffettiera or Moka Pot: Medium

Drip Maker: Coarse

Percolator: Coarse

Turkish Ibrik: Very fine

Vacuum Pot: Coarse

Now we know the kind of brewing method, and thus we have discovered the grind type required. The next thing is to actually grind the coffee. Similar to brewing methods, there are also many different ways to grind coffee:

Chopping: Blade grinders or food processors will use a blade in a chopping action to continually slice the beans into smaller and smaller pieces. Once these pieces become small enough, the coffee is considered "ground" - although it's really just chopped again and again. The big disadvantage of the chopping method is the difficulty to produce a consistent grind size. Some beans will end up finely ground, and some coarsely ground. The longer you leave the chopping action running, the finer overall grind you will get - but there is no guarantee that all beans will be chopped the same.

Burr Grinding: Burr grinders push the coffee beans between two revolving elements. The key benefit of burr grinders is the uniformity of grind they can produce. This is set by the operator selecting the "gap" between the two grinding elements. Once the coffee is small enough to fit in the gap, then it can escape into the hopper - thus all the output from a burr grinder will be of a similar size.

There are two types of burr grinders - wheel or conical. The conical burr (so called because of the cone shape of one of the elements) are preferred over wheel grinders as the conical grinder can successfully operate at a lower speed. The lower speed means there is less heat, and the coffee grounds are therefore not heated in the grinding process. Any excess heat at this stage can lead to the bleeding of flavour from the coffee.

For the highest control over one of the vital steps to making great tasting coffee, a conical burr grinder is recommended. A high quality conical burr grinder will allow for precision when selecting your grind size, and simple control over the output.

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