Pre-Grinding Coffee
No matter how you make your coffee, one of the most important elements in the brewing process is grinding your coffee beans. The best way to grind coffee depends on a number of elements, so in this post, we’re going to go over one aspect of coffee grinding—the when. That is, when is the best time to grind your coffee to maximize its flavor? The answer: right before you brew it.
Coffee beans are like little rooms of flavor, waiting to be opened up and turned into delicious drinkable coffee. As roasted beans are exposed to oxygen, their flavors are allowed to escape. Oxygen acts as the door that lets all the aromas and flavors kept safe in the bean out. When you have a whole bean of coffee, there’s not much space for the oxygen to get in and open the door. But, when you grind the coffee, it’s like each little grind particle becomes a different room of aroma and flavor—that means there’s a lot more space for the oxygen to get in. Grinding coffee increases surface area, and the more surface area the more oxygen gets around and lets the flavors out. As soon as you grind your coffee, the rate at which its flavors escape exponentially increases, mellowing out the taste of the coffee much faster.
Of course, when we brew coffee, the whole point is to let the flavors out so we can enjoy them! That’s why grinding is a necessary part of the brewing process. But, to optimize the taste of your coffee, in most cases, it’s best to grind right before you brew. When you grind right before you brew your coffee, this gives you the best chance at getting all the coffee’s flavors into your drink. That’s why when we make coffee in our cafes, we grind everything right before we brew. This can make the cafe a bit noisier, but it’s worth it for the delicious coffee!
So, when you’re making your coffee at home, we recommend grinding it right before you brew it. If you pre-grind your coffee, this means that the coffee is oxidized faster, which can result in loss of flavor. It’s best to grind your coffee with a burr grinder (read more on the benefits of burr grinding here). If you’re ready to take the plunge into a great burr grinder for at-home use, we’d recommend the Fellow Opus grinder (learn more about it here). If you’re just getting into home brewing or looking for something at a lower price point, we recommend grinding with the Hario Slim Hand Grinder (read more about it here).
There is one caveat to the rule that it’s best to grind coffee right before brewing: if you have to choose between pre-grinding and poor grinding, it’s actually better to pre-grind. What is poor grinding? When grinding your coffee the goal is to achieve an even particle distribution. If that’s a new term for you, Cassie explains it in a recent blog here. Essentially particle distribution is just the amount of variability in size between each of those individual granules of coffee. The more uniform, the better the extraction. Put simply, if you have differently sized coffee bean grinds, oxygen will let their flavors loose at different rates, which means some grinds will be over-extracted, resulting in weak and dry flavors, and other grinds will be under-extracted, resulting in sour and salty flavors. In a situation where you have to choose between grinding coffee poorly right before brewing, or pre-grinding coffee well, it’s best to pre-grind coffee in order to optimize extraction.
So, if you’re not ready to invest in a good grinder for your home brewing setup, let us grind your coffee for you! When you buy our coffee online, you can select your grind preference, or if you buy a bag in one of our cafes we can grind it for you then.
Coffee brewing can sometimes feel like a balancing act since lots of variables affect the end result, but even a little understanding of the different elements can go a long way in ensuring you are drinking the most delicious stuff possible!
Liz Clayton
Though Liz now lives in Oxford, England, she grew up on the North Shore, and was the first ever Tala employee! She stays in touch with the Tala fam and loves squeezing in shifts every time she’s back home. Fueled by pour-overs, she now spends her time being a perpetual professional student and going on adventures in the English countryside.