How To Make Ground Coffee Fast That Tastes Good

Making ground coffee that tastes good at home isn’t difficult, but it does require attention to detail. From choosing the right coffee beans to using the correct equipment and tool settings, these details will impact the strength, flavor profile, and consistency of your coffee.

Choosing The Right Coffee Beans

The beans that you choose to use  will have a major impact on the taste and texture of your ground coffee. Choosing the right coffee beans means choosing fresh, whole coffee beans with a flavor profile that you enjoy.

Freshness is important. Degassing is a process that starts happening as soon as beans are roasted. Aromatic and flavor compounds in coffee beans start to dissipate from the moment they’re roasted, resulting in stale, flavorless coffee. Using fresh beans is the best way to preserve the unique flavors of the beans you choose as well as the taste of the roast profile.

You can also improve the freshness of your ground coffee by only grinding your beans just before you brew your coffee. Grinding your coffee increases the surface area of the coffee beans and hastens the degassing process, which is why ground coffee will go stale more quickly than whole beans.

Choosing beans with a flavor profile that you enjoy will also improve the taste of your ground coffee. Most people prefer the taste of Arabica beans, which are lower in acidity and bitterness than Robusta beans.

You’ll also have to choose between light, medium, and dark roasted beans. Light roasted beans are more acidic, fruity, and sharp, while darker roasted coffee beans are rich, complex, and smoky. The taste of medium roast beans lies somewhere between these two extremes.

How you like to drink your coffee and the brewing method you’ll use to brew it will also impact your choice of bean. Light roast beans are best used for pour-over and drip coffees, while darker roasts are more suitable for espressos or cold brew, as well as coffee with lots of milk or cream added.

To grind your own coffee at home, you’ll need a burr grinder and ideally a gram scale. If you want to brew coffee with your homemade coffee grounds, you’ll also need brewing equipment such as a kettle, a coffee maker, or a French press.

Scales that weigh your coffee beans to the nearest gram will help you to get an accurate measurement of how many beans you’re grinding. While this isn’t 100% necessary, it’s a good idea to measure your beans before grinding so that you can track how many approximate servings you’ll have.

You’ll also need a coffee grinder, of which there are two primary types: blade grinders and burr grinders. Blade grinders are less precise than burr grinders, which utilize an abrasive burr to grind your coffee down into fine granules.

If you want to have more control over the size of your grind, a burr grinder will help you to achieve this. This is particularly important if you want to experiment with different brewing methods, like espresso or cold brew, which require more precise grind sizes.

The first thing you’ll need to do is measure out the coffee beans that you’re going to grind. If you’re only making one serving of coffee (or around 12 oz), you’ll probably want to use 25g of coffee beans. Pour them into the hopper on top of your coffee grinder and select the grind size you want.

Before you grind your coffee beans, it’s important to know what brewing method you’ll use because this will impact grind size. For example, if you’re grinding beans to make cold brew, you’ll need coarsely ground coffee, and you’ll have to adjust the settings of your grinder accordingly.

If you just want to make a simple drip coffee, or use your ground coffee with an existing coffeemaker, you might experiment with grind size. You can try following industry recommendations, but ultimately the grind size that results in the coffee you like best will come down to your own personal tastes.

Once you’ve chosen the correct grind setting, you can press the button on your grinder to start grinding up your coffee beans. Some coffee grinders will have a timer setting, which you can use once you get an idea of the optimal time to grind your coffee beans for.

Ideally, brew your coffee as soon as your beans are ground. Grinding just before brewing is the best way to retain freshness and create a cup of coffee that’s full of unique flavors and aromas.

To achieve the perfect grind consistency, always use a burr grinder. Blade grinders arbitrarily grind coffee beans, with some beans being hit by the blade more than once, which results in grounds of varying sizes no matter what size setting you use. Using a burr grinder is the only way to achieve a consistent grind size.

If you’re able to, it’s better to grind your coffee beans by pulsing them rather than grinding in a single extended blend. Pulsing your coffee grinder in short bursts is more likely to result in coffee grounds of an even size and surface area.

Don’t overgrind your coffee, even if you’re using a burr grinder. Overgrinding coffee can result in coffee grounds that are too fine, which results in coffees with a sour, bitter flavor. Extremely fine coffee grounds are typically only used to make espressos.

Finally, experiment with your coffee grinder and the size of your coffee grounds. Different beans, roast profiles, and brewing methods will suit different coffee grind sizes. The only way to find out what you enjoy most is by trying out different settings on your grinder.

There are lots of different ways to prepare a cup of coffee with ground coffee: using a French press, a filter machine, or an Italian moka coffee pot.

You can use a French press with around 18g of coarsely ground coffee and 300 ml of water to brew coffee in just three to four minutes. Simply push down the French press filter until you reach the coffee grounds and serve.

A filter machine or coffee maker is another very easy way to prepare coffee from coffee grounds. To prepare a filter coffee, simply add around 7g of ground coffee and 125 ml of water to your filter machine and heat until the ground coffee is fully extracted. Coffeemakers automate this process, so you don’t need to time it yourself.

Italian moka pots also offer a traditional Italian way to make coffee with ground coffee. Moka pots have two chambers. Water is heated in the lower chamber, and water vapor passes through ground coffee held in a filter and collects in the upper chamber as liquid coffee.

Following best practices for brewing ground coffee can help you to brew high-quality, flavorful coffees at home every time.

Always consider the impact of your grind size on the strength and flavor of your final coffee. Grind size has been shown to impact extraction, affecting which compounds are extracted from coffee beans and the rate at which they’re extracted. Choosing a suitable grind size is paramount to making good coffee.

Use the right coffee to water ratio. The ‘Golden ratio’ is usually considered to be one or two tablespoons of ground coffee for every 6 oz of water. However, this ratio will depend on the brewing method you use and your own personal tastes, so experiment and see what works best.

Finally, choose a brewing method that’s appropriate for the grind size and bean type you use. If you’ve got finely ground dark roast beans, they’ll be perfect for an espresso. Coarsely ground light roast beans may work better in a simple drip coffee.

When you’re making coffee from grounds at home, DO:

• Grind your coffee beans just before brewing
• Use good quality coffee beans and filter papers
• Measure the right ratio of coffee grounds to water
• Pulse your coffee beans in a burr grinder
• Choose an appropriate brewing method to match your grind size
• Clean out your equipment between uses

When you’re making coffee from grounds at home, DON’T:

• Grind your coffee hours in advance
• Use old or stale coffee beans
• Leave whole coffee beans in the hopper of your grinder
• Grind your beans in a single, extended grind
• Use faulty or unclean brewing equipment

You can use ground coffee to quickly make a fresh roast coffee at home. If you have a French press, moka pot, or coffeemaker you can use these to quickly brew a pot of hot coffee from coffee grounds.

You can also use the classic pour-over method to brew a roast coffee with very little equipment necessary. All you need to brew pour-over coffee is a good quality coffee filter and a dripper. This is a very affordable and accessible way to prepare high-quality coffee at home.

Whichever brewing method you choose to use, making roast coffee from ground coffee is usually very quick and simple. The pour-over method results in an intricate coffee full of unique flavors and aromas. It’s a popular choice for single origin beans because this method emphasizes the flavor of the individual bean.

Yes, if you don’t have any kind of device for brewing coffee you can use ground coffee like instant coffee. It’s quicker than most other preparation methods, but if you don’t strain your coffee after brewing it you might have loose grounds floating around in your cup.

Using ground coffee to make instant coffee is usually not recommended because the flavor and texture of the coffee won’t be particularly good.

Another way to use ground coffee to brew a cup of coffee without any specialist equipment is the cold brewing method, which involves steeping ground coffee in water at room temperature overnight. This will result in a better-tasting coffee that’s only marginally more time-consuming to prepare than instant coffee, although it does require advance planning.

The grind size and brewing method that you use will depend on the type of coffee you want to make. Some examples of appropriate grind sizes for different coffee beverages include:

• Coarse coffee grounds: Cold brew and French press
• Medium coffee grounds: Automatic coffee brewers and coffeemakers
• Fine coffee grounds: Espresso, Turkish coffee, and Aeropress

You’ll need different types of brewing equipment to brew each of these different beverages. For example, to make Turkish coffee, you’ll need cezve. Contemporary coffee machines are capable of brewing lots of different types of coffee, including espressos and classic roast coffee.

Yes, if you want to add milk to your coffee you can. It’s better to add milk to coffee after brewing, and you should never add cold milk to your coffee. Bringing your milk up to room temperature or using a steam wand to heat it to 140 to 160 F will improve the flavor of your milk.

As well as offering numerous health benefits, adding milk to your ground coffee will impact the flavor and consistency of your coffee. Certain types of coffee are more suited to milk than others. Dark roasts and espressos are usually much better with milk than light roasts and Ethiopian coffees.