Ah, the quest for the absolutely perfect cup of coffee. It’s what Starbucks has built their reputation on, as has Keurig, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, and any number of locally-owned coffee shops around the country.
Songs have been written, one would think, about the quest. Certainly, coffee played a major part in the writing of said songs.
Keurig K60/K65 Special Edition
Single Serve Coffee Maker
But you know why we go out to the coffee shop and pay upwards of $5 for a Perfect Cup made by someone else, right?
It’s because we have so much trouble making The Perfect Cup of Coffee at home. Sure, that’s part of the reason that the single-serve coffee machines have become so darn popular. But they’re expensive to use.
So let’s go back in time to buying your coffee in bulk and grinding your own beans. It always starts with the beans, of course.
But what about the beans make the home coffee so much harder to make than when you use the exact same beans at the Coffee House?
It’s all about the PERFECT COFFEE RECIPE that we’ve stumbled upon.
As with all good food in the kitchen (yes, we’re looking at you, chocolate chip cookie), it’s not necessary the ingredients themselves, but the math. The ratios. The delicate combination that, when mixed together perfectly, results in the ultimate of what you desire.
Introducing, the GOLDEN RATIO FOR COFFEE: 17.42 parts of water for every part of ground coffee you desire.
Think of this as making the ULTIMATE COCKTAIL. For every cocktail recipe out there, the ideal ones are 2 PARTS LIQUOR, 1 PART TART, 1 PART SWEET. How hard is that to remember? It’s a 2:1:1 ratio, no matter how big or small your cocktail glass happens to be.
So what does this mean to you, as you try to make an 8 cup pot of coffee? Well – the ratio is the ratio, regardless of the measurements being used.
You want to have eight 8oz cups of coffee? That’s going to be 64oz of water, right?
And so using our ratio of 17.42:1, that works out to 3.67 ounces of coffee to be brewed for our desired 64oz of water… assuming our math is right. Of course, you’ll want to do your own math to ensure that we’re even close to the ballpark, but it certainly sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
The experts say to weigh your coffee and water rather than to use volume. After all, some settling may occur, resulting in differences if you go simply by a coffee scoop as your base unit.
So what do you do to ensure you’re making perfect coffee? What’s your secret – leave it in the notes below…