Master your Grind: A Guide to Better Brewing

Understanding your coffee grind is as crucial as the beans you choose. Just as you select a coffee that uplifts your spirit and delivers excellent flavors and aromas, picking the appropriate grind should be a top priority. It's an integral key in unlocking the full potential of your brew. That's why Steim cannot ignore the crimes of improper coffee grinds. We have formulated a thorough guide with all the tools and information you need to achieve grinds set to optimize your morning brews.

 

Why the Grind

It is unclear what led previous generations to initially crush coffee beans. Still, it is apparent today that bypassing this step ruins any chance of producing coffee.

Even if steeped for several hours, whole coffee beans immersed in water would only yield slightly brown water with hints of bitterness. Ground coffee is required when brewing because it opens up the wonderful flavors and sensory delights concealed inside the bean.

Generally, the more surface area a bean exposes, the easier its treasures may be extracted. In plain terms, finer grinds of coffee have their flavor and caffeine more readily available to be absorbed by water.

Yet, this does not mean fine coffee grinds are preferable for every brewing method. Too fine a grind may cause extreme bitterness or the grounds themselves to squeeze through the equipment and into your cup. Instead, a finer grind allows you to use particular brewing gear to achieve your desired coffee profile quicker than with other grinds or equipment.

Ultimately, the proper grind depends on your brewing equipment, as there is no one-size-fits-all.

 

What's the Grind

Three popular grind types are deemed standard benchmarks in the world of coffee. They are as follows:

Coarse

Resembling sea salt, coarse coffee lets water move quickly between its particles. Thus, steeping this grind for longer periods is needed for a gradual extraction, favoring methods like the French press.

Medium

Often compared to beach sand, medium grinds allow faster extraction with inexpensive equipment. As a result, medium is the most common grind among the big three for its versatility and ease of use across various brewing methods.

Fine

Similar in consistency to finely granulated sugar, finely ground coffee enables ultra-fast flavor and caffeine extraction but packs tightly together. For these reasons, fine grinds have limited use and require pressurized water to push through the grounds, such as with an espresso machine.

In addition to the three primary grinds, further categories emerged due to their enhanced performance when used with specific brewing methods or equipment.

Medium-Coarse

As the title implies, this grind is on the coarser side of the spectrum but finer than what you might use for a French press. While less versatile than others, a medium-coarse grind is ideal for sizeable pour over equipment like a Chemex.

Medium-Fine

Roughly the consistency of table salt, medium-fine grinds are immensely popular for their relatively quick extraction and high performance with many brewing procedures.

While common grind categories exist to help consumers make quick decisions, coffee grounds exist on a spectrum. Accordingly, we encourage all you coffee enthusiasts to grind your own beans and fine-tune the grounds to a level that fits your brewing procedure, creating your favorite coffee each time.

 

When to Grind

What may seem obvious regarding bean grinding cannot have its importance overstated - the closer you grind your beans to the brewing time, the fresher and more flavorful your coffee will be.

Buying whole beans helps achieve this pinnacle of freshness. Even with sound storage, ground coffee does not retain its complexities over time. Factors such as light, heat, and even oxygen strip the grounds of their flavors and aromas, leaving stale coffee to remain.

Whole beans have a much longer shelf life than ground coffee, so opt for this option if you plan on buying in bulk and storing your coffee for weeks or months.

Coffee grounds stored for extended periods don't necessarily expire or cause health concerns. Instead, they'll be worn down and less enjoyable than stored whole beans come time to brew because the outer layer protects against many environmental elements.

See our FAQ for storage tips to help subvert some of the adverse effects stored coffee may encounter.

 

How to Grind

The two leading methods for converting whole beans into ground coffee are known as blade and burr grinding.

Blade Grinding

As the name suggests, blade grinders slice and chop up beans into pieces using blades. The longer the blades are in action, the finer the grounds will become.

These devices are desirable for their low cost, making them an affordable and practical choice for casual coffee drinkers.

Unfortunately, you get what you pay for. Blade grinders are prone to chopping some beans ultra-fine while missing others and leaving them coarse. This inconsistency will mess with your brew via differing extraction rates among the coffee particles, ending in variable and uneven flavors.

Burr Grinding

Rather than risking coffee ground inconsistencies by chopping and cutting, burr grinders funnel beans between two burrs (jagged wheels) to crush them. Burrs can either be ceramic or metal.

 

Most burr grinders let users fine-tune their grind by including settings that adjust the blades to be further apart or closer together, yielding coarser or finer grinds.

The gold standard in the coffee industry, burr grinders unequivocally produce more uniform grinds. They are, therefore, vital to achieving peak flavors.

Consequently, burr grinding machines are usually more expensive than their blade-based counterparts due to sturdier and more complex interiors.

If you're on a budget but still want to reap the flavor benefits of burr ground coffee, manual hand-held burrs are a less expensive choice than automatic machines and deliver comparable results.

Additionally, many grocery stores have burr grinders available for free use! However, if you opt for this approach, be mindful that ground coffee loses its freshness faster than whole beans.

 

Choose your Grind

Each stage of the coffee experience should be pleasing, and stressing over the correct grind for your brewing procedure diminishes that enjoyment. Here's a guide to the ideal grind size for some popular brewing methods.

French Press: Coarse

Coarse grinds are superior for extractions of longer durations, such as the fully immersed French press, as they avoid over-bitterness and safeguard against grounds seeping into the final coffee.

Pour Over: Medium

Medium is a safe bet for pour-overs, but the ideal grind will vary by equipment, brew size, and coffee roast. Typically, medium-fine grinds foster better extraction from light roasts and smaller brews (1-2 cups). In contrast, medium or medium-coarse grinds favor medium to dark roasts and larger brews (around 1+ liters) because flavors are more concentrated within dark roasted beans.

Drip Machine: Medium

Like pour-overs, drip machines use percolation rather than immersion. Your coffee grind for these machines should be medium to adjust for shorter contact time with water and allow for more seamless extraction.

AeroPress: Medium-Fine

AeroPress recommends purchasing medium grounds if you cannot grind your beans, and we agree. Nevertheless, the speed of this brewing method, coupled with custom filters that significantly reduce sediment leakage into your coffee, means that a finer grind will bring about improved results. We recommend a medium-fine grind for those with access to a coffee grinder.

Moka Pot: Medium-Fine

The desirable grind type for Moka pots depends on factors similar to those mentioned for pour-overs. Lighter roasts and smaller pots benefit from finer grinds (think AeroPress level), while coarser medium grinds work well with dark roasts and larger pots. Whatever the case, medium-fine grinds are a safe bet for Moka pots.

 

Espresso: Fine

Espresso machines use highly pressurized systems to push water through ground coffee quickly, so the grind must be no less than fine to enable maximum extraction and create the familiar bold espresso flavor.

 

Optimize your Grind

The proper grind for each coffee drinker depends on their equipment, brewing size, coffee roast level, and, most importantly, their preference. We encourage you to experiment with varying grinds until you find one that best suits your circumstances and makes your favorite flavors.

Steim offers the three main grind types alongside whole-bean coffee, catering to convenience-oriented drinkers and those seeking the foremost in flavor. Browse our specialty coffees and taste the difference a perfect grind can make.