How to make a good coffee
How I want to approach making good coffee is by outlining the stages coffee grounds go through in hand drip coffee. Things you will need are a funnel (like a Hario V60, Kono, and many more), filtered water or mineral water (this is very important, an example is Volvic), a gooseneck kettle, a cup or a pitcher,filter paper for your funnel, and a digital scale. You can use preground coffee, or coffee beans and some grinder.
1. soak/bloom
The purpose is to de-gas the CO2 inside the coffee, so that the goodness inside may be extracted during the time water touches the coffee. Imagine you have three circles within each other. The outermost circle is CO2, within that is the goodness, and within that is bitter tasting stuff.
2. agitate in moderation
There is such thing as agitating the coffee too much during the pouring phase. There are two stages that needs to be practiced: the 'thickness' of the water pouring from the spout of your kettle, and then pouring in a circle. You want the water to dive smoothly into the coffee without splattering, because the latter agitates out the worst in the coffee. But it must be a narrow stream of water diving; when too thick the coffee in the cup tastes diluted.
Pour a circle the size of which is in the middle. In between the diameter of the funnel, and the center. Pouring too much on the outside tends to brew sour or bitter coffee. A guide to pouring is the colour of the foam that comes out when you do this second pour. The spot you pour gets lighter in colour, and since you're pouring a circle it's like you can see a tail, like pouring onto dry sand, it leaves a trail.
What I've just written are the concepts and tips to remember when doing hand drip. The recipe I follow is KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).
88 degrees C water
For every 60g coffee grounds, 1000g of water
1. e.g. 20g grounds, tare the scale to 0g, and pour 2x the weight of the grounds maximum, e.g. 40g max. What you want to see is the coffee wet, but as little dripping into your pitcher as possible. Then it's time to smell the wet coffee for an enjoyable moment of pause.
2. Wait anywhere from 30 to 50 seconds, to watch is when the wet coffee begins to sag and deflate. That is when you want to start pouring the rest.
3. In one single pour, slowly pour 330g if you used 20g of coffee grounds. The finishing time that made acceptable results for me is no shorter than 2 minutes 30 seconds. You want to remove the funnel when you see the wet coffee after finishing the pour. Waiting until the last drop also tends to make bitter coffee.