Brewing Coffee

Used for bursts of energy, or simply for the unique taste, coffee has for centuries been a popular hot or more recently cold drink around the world.

There's a plethora of different beans and brews but what has become most popular in America is drip coffee. Drip coffee is itself an evolution (or devolution depending on who you ask) of the Americano, which is espresso mixed with hot water.

Subtract the espresso, replace the ground beans with a coarser grind, add more water and you have arrived at the standard drip cup of coffee.

For this guide, you will need a coffee brewer as well as filters for it, coffee beans, a bean grinder, a scale, a measuring cup, and water.

After having purchased your preferred coffee beans, they will need to be measured to the appropriate weight before grinding, for this cup you'll want about 1 oz of coffee beans. Tare the scale with the measuring cup on it, and then pour the beans into the cup until the scale reads 1 oz.

Now that you have your beans measured out, its time to grind them. This is a single button fixed grain grinder, though yours may vary. For this grinder all i need to do is hold the button until the beans are ground and its done. Whatever grinder you may have just insert the beans and grind until you are satisfied with the size of the grain.

Now we assemble the ingredients into the brewer. First goes the filter. It should seat nice and neatly in the top of the brewer. Next we add the ground coffee beans into the filter. Keep in mind that though they are ground, its still just an oz of coffee beans.

Next we'll need to make sure the brewer has water. Though it will not use the entire reservoir. Feel free to fill it to capacity. Can't have coffee without hot water.

The brew is controlled mainly by the buttons on the front. On this model, there is a brew strength button that determines how much water is used to brew the coffee. On the regular brew setting, it will make 6 cups of coffee. On whatever model you're using, use the brew strength button to select which suits your taste best.

This brewer as well as many others have timers built into the system that will brew a fresh pot of coffee at a desired time. This is especially useful in the morning if you don't want to brew it yourself, you can get the brewer ready the day before and it will brew by itself when you need it to in the morning.

Now comes the time for you to let the brewer do its thing. It shouldn't take long for the coffee to brew, but its best to wait until its done. Most brewers are programmed to pause if the pot is removed in the middle of a brew cycle but even then you wind up with coffee burnt to the heat plate at the bottom. Best to be patient and let it work.

Once the machine is done brewing, all that's left is to pour the desired amount of coffee from the pot into your desired mug or travel container and enjoy!

Optionally, you may choose to add cream or sugar to your coffee as well. Be sure to taste it first to get an idea of how much of each you may want and add accordingly.