Have you ever tested the effects of water temperature, all things held constant, in a blind tasting? It is eye-opening! Thanks again to Dr. Samo Smrke for giving me the scoop on the results of the sensory tests he has been a part of with regards to water temperature in espresso. Don't forget to smash that like and subscribe! Cheers
You should probably re-do this without any prior knowledge, i.e. without knowing if any of these are brewed at different temperatures, can you detect any differences and if yes, then order them by preference.
I’ve been a strong supporter of temperature not being as cut and dry as most would assume. I think a good follow up you should try is different temperatures at different grind settings. Especially with a expressive coffee/roast profile you can find vast differences between two cups that both taste “good”
I know that espresso at 120°c don't tast as good as when it's at a bit lower temperature, (I have an old ascaso pro steel that only have a 100°c temperature switch so it overshoots with up to 20-25°c, I will change the temperature switch to a 90 or 95 one as a easy fix but I plan to add proper PID control sooner or later)
I think another interesting experiment would be to dial in the same coffee (via grind size, probably) at 4 different temps, then do a side-by-side of the 4 dialed-in brews (different temps, and presumably different grind sizes) to see which favorite is your favorite.
This is pretty much what I do dialing in espresso find a good grind size that tastes good at my goto temp 80C and then start increasing the temp to see if it alters the flavor for the better. We used to buy 5 pound bags at a time and do just that, but not anymore with layered shots.
Hugo is the best cameraman. It took me 11 days to get to this video and I'm glad I did. Lance, I really like you have no problems admitting you were wrong in the past based on new publications, discoveries, experiments.. There's plenty going on in this hobby and way too many people stand blindly behind their ideas refusing to question them. People like you are moving us closer to the better cups. Thank you.
I've been playing around with low-temp brews for a long time now, and honestly I RARELY brew above 93C anymore as a result. It's a bit fussy, but when I brew larger batches (35g of coffee) out of my Stagg XF, I actually do my bloom and first pour at 92C, and then cool the water down all the way to ~59C to finish the brew. And then further sacrilege, I do full bypass and add water to the finished brew if it tastes a bit too tight to get better separation of flavors. The resulting cups tend to have more clarity and be a bit more juicy than those brewed wholly at higher temps, and the bypass honestly opens up the cups in an amazing way, it's worth trying if you haven't. My unscientific hypothesis is that it's not the TDS that you're targeting when it comes to water temp, but rather what compounds comprise that TDS. To me, it seems like higher temps extract different compounds than lower temps, or at least the same compounds at different ratios, so while temperature might not have a huge impact on TDS, it does have a huge impact on the taste of your brews. And once you have the compounds in the cup that you enjoy, stretching your total yield can actually have a very positive effect that doesn't make the coffee taste any less extracted. Happy experimenting!
@@nebojsabeljanski2126 It really depends on the coffee, and on your taste preferences. I would say you could add an amount equivalent to stretching your brew ratio by an additional 0.5 : 1, taste, and then repeat as necessary until you land on something you like. If you have access to a scale like an Acaia that displays final brew ratios, or the patience to weigh your brew output, you'll notice that your actual brew ratio in cup is tighter than the ratio of coffee to water used to brew. For example, if I were to brew my 35g of coffee with 545g of water (roughly a 15.5 : 1 ratio), it's likely my actual yield resulted in something closer to a 13.5 :1 ratio (something like 475g of brewed coffee in my carafe). Usually the sweet spot will lie somewhere between the actual brew ratio in your carafe and the ratio you were targeting, unless your original brew ratio was off for the coffee. So in this example, I might add an additional 7.5g-30g of water in 7.5g increments. But often times I'll push it even further just to see what I get for fun, and sometimes that can lead to some pleasant surprises, and some good lessons learned about the ratios that particular coffee likes. Sometimes just a few grams of water make a huge difference, and other times you have to stretch your ratio a surprising amount to hit the cup you were aiming for. Hope that helps, and happy brewing!
@@HigeYatsu yes i agree. coffee taste sometimes can be very complex and by adding waters helps to diverse the taste to our tongue. I thought I was quite low brewing at 73C and you do 59C. I might give it a try. Thanks for sharing
Great, fun video to watch. This is exactly what I have been playing around with every day with espresso for the last 6 months with my wife as the test subject. Hard to do, but once everything else is standardized, it seems like her comments are: Low temperature is "Smooth but lacking in tobacco tastes". High is "Like a coffee shop, tobacco like tastes, some harsh flavor" (like over-extraction). In the middle is "Complex, full flavored, little to no harsh flavor". Variables that mess with the results include pre-infusion times, extraction flow rate, and extraction to coffee ratio. I am still working on this. If I make only one change somewhere, from day to day she picks up on it in her description. We once went on a wine trip together and she was able to tell in blind tasting what vineyards wines were from. Not your typical coffee drinker.
Hugo is the best camera man =) Hi Lance, how are you? I'm from Brazil and discovered your channel a few weeks ago, I'm really enjoying your videos and your passion for coffee. Congrats! And... I prefer 95 degrees. lol
I've experimented with coffee brewing temperature and have discovered that the lower the temperature the sweeter the brewed coffee is and for single origin coffee I can taste more of the various unique flavor profiles of each single origin coffee. Plus I also experimented with decanting brewed coffee before serving like with wine and have discovered that the coffee aroma and notes is more pronounced and the flavor of the coffee more distinct and flavorful. I welcome you all to experiment with decanting coffee like with wine prior to serving to see if it improves the taste of your coffee brew.
I use a French press and always decant. I use the Hoffman French press method and water that's just under boiling. I'm seriously considering getting myself a kettle to adjust water temperature. (Currently it's the microwave at 3:30/500ml water. Don't judge.)
Hey Lance, as a follow up, I think it would be worth trying this experiment but at a lower brew ratio. If the hypothesis was initially that hotter temperatures dissolve more compounds I would imaging there is a saturation point (think of a logistic curve). It would be interesting to see how extractions change at different ratios assuming each temperature reaches saturation at different points which I guess might impact flavor.
It‘s good to remind ourselves to always question things. Especially when brewing coffee I also found that given things aren‘t always given and that some experimentations can pay off. Thanks for this ❤
Sour compounds need somewhat above 88° to extract, bitters need about 92°. Since they are fast dissolving they have huge impact on taste but not on TDS. What drives TDS are long chained sugars which are sweet but tasteless. This kind of stuff was done back in 1996 by Ted Lingle and is still valid. The basics of chemistry do not change from day to day...
Thanks so much for the effort to test these things so that we can all enjoy our coffee journey. As an engineer I find so often the things we can count don't count, and the things that count can be hard to count. Other scenarios of the partial derivative "one thing at a time" approach is when the system shows high sensitivity to a combination of variables but low sensitivity to them changing in isolation. This could be a combo like temp + grind or temp + extraction time. Really fun to think about. Thanks.
I haven’t read through all 340+ comments, but I was surprised you didn’t mention Jonathan Gagne’s work in your video too. He has a lot to say about temperature, advection, diffusion, and so on (of all the different chemicals in coffee), they all have different diffusion rates, so different temps change all of those in differing ways… iow, drink it at whatever brew temp makes it tastiest totally fits with that knowledge, given how different temps affect different chemicals that you may/may not like in coffee. I know you’re a big Gagne fan, hence my surprise! Hugo’s a very fine camera operator!
Respect for this video. It's important to find that middle-ground between research and day-to-day experience. I've lowered my brew temp a bit, to 93, and I'm happy with the results. It feels the most consistent. At 95+ I lost fruit, maybe because I'm sensitive to coffee bitterness. So maybe tuning temp to palettes makes sense.
So, early in my speciality coffee journey, I kept my water at boiling temperature reguardless of which roast levels the beans were. Lol Anyway, overtime I've learned / preferred to keep my temperature at around 190 F for darks, 195 F for mediums, and boiling point for lights; I think because of the need for extreme heat ( among other things) have made me like light roast less. It can be tricky getting temps right, but the effects are so massive! Thanks for another videos Lance! :)
This is super interesting! Well done on the shorter video format - it was clean and to the point. I think what Im struggling with now is do I need to be cupping for temp for every coffee that I buy and then cup grind levels at the optimal temp to bring out the best flavors of the bag. Feels like I would go through half the bag testing permutations that would not carry over to the next bag. There’s so much fun to be had with experimenting but the downside is the amount of coffee used to experiment.
This is the most helpful video I have seen for a long time. I was scratching my head wondering why my light roasted Ethiopian tasted less bitter with higher temp on Aeropress. Now everything makes sense. Can't thank you enough!
I always thought about temperature as a way to tweak the charactaristics of which compounds are dissolved but not neccesarily their intensity, like changing the color of a light, but not neccesarily the brightness. Interesting to see the results here. And also, wow that Hugo has got some pretty amazing camera skills.
Love the conclusion. As a newbie my palate is not very sensitive so I’m realizing I can get away with doing things more relaxed because it makes no difference to my taste anyways 😅 coffee is a stress reliever for me, no sense in making it a stressful experience
Wouldn’t the brewing method also be a factor in how the temperature differences change as well, since the water will start to cool as soon as it leaves the source, combined with the amount of time it drains through the coffee? I love this scientific approach, great stuff as always!
This corroborates the tastings I've done at home where within 3C/6F differences there wasn't much detectable but within 4-5C/9-10F you could start to detect a difference. I have some theories on this but without access to equipment to separate compounds I wouldn't be able to say much. Really cool idea to explore further just to see what classification of compounds get extracted from sifted particles of the same size and shape at what temperatures.
As a grad student... a tip of the hat to you for humility. It is the foundation of science. Also, I've heard the same things, and now I get to do a ton of experimenting with water temp and my Robot (I love a good experimentation session). Related... perhaps this explains the variability in opinions on whether or not the Robot needs pre-heating. The designer insists it doesn't, yet some folks insist it does. This video allows for the possibility that everyone is correct, depending on the coffee, how it was roasted, and your individual palette. It's also somewhat frustrating because if you're not considering form factor, aesthetics, etc., in other words, if your primary objective is taste, then it makes a showdown between, say, a Robot and a Flair 58 even more a matter of personal taste. I found it quite fascinating that you preferred the Flair 58 without the heater (though the temp uptick at the end is interesting... I wondered about turning it off before pulling the shot to avoid that). I love my Robot, but I'm still Flair 58 curious. Your comments about the Robot vs. the Flair with regard to roast levels (I don't like dark, I usually gravitate toward medium roasts and sometimes light roasts) engaged my confirmation bias on my choice of the Robot... but now I need to make friends with someone who has a Flair 58 so we can do some experimenting (either way, I'm still pretty thrilled with the Robot, I bought it used from a friend and I've used it nearly every day).
Amazing video and good results!! That's how I always did it for the past 6 years. I start at a random temperature and kept changing the grind size/temperature every day, noted it down, and then follow the combination that gave me the best result for every bean. Nothing is constant but following a rule of thumb of a certain temperature for each roast is good to avoid losing beans. For example; using 98 degrees celsius water for dark roasts.
hugo is the best cameraman, also this approach of anecdotal evidence suported by properly studied evidence IS GREAT content. You being a respected professional self-aware of your previous opinion and been capable of changing them upon new evidence is great, kudos for that!
Higher temperatures increase the rate at which compounds dissolve even though solubility doesn't always increase. My guess is that most of the bitter compounds are less water soluble than the acids and sugars. Brewing at a higher temperature will leach out more of these bitter compounds in less time. Grinding finer will have a similar effect. That's why the Aeropress inventor recommends brewing at around 80C when using an espresso grind for the Aeropress.
I’m writing this with the utmost sincerity. Your hair looks INCREDIBLE! (Not that it ever looks bad.) But I felt the urge to comment how great it looks in this video. 🤙🏽
✌🏼✌🏼✌🏼 percolation and immersion are very different though. The application could be the same but in full immersion you can break the gas bubbles earlier which could remove the bitterness. So the change in agitation plays a bigger roll
Thanks, I'm grateful for your approach and putting yourself out there. It must take so much courage to be authentic and honest. I'd be very curious to see a blind taste session of this same settings where you taste with your coffee brother James Hoffmann. For to my knowledge, he's also been in the camp of brewing with boiling water. (He actaully argued that the water cools down quite drastically anyway in whatever brew device you use so the coffee won't meet 100 degrees water anyway.) So yeah, I'd be interested to hear what he'd take home from such an experiment. Or have you two spoken about your findings yet?
Great comment. I have been using boiling hot water in my kettle for all my brewing with light roasted coffee bases on James’ and Lance’s recommendations and recipes. When I do use the boiling hot water straight from the kettle into a clever dripper, the temperature of the slurry is usually about 94-95 Celsius at most. I haven’t tried to measure a slurry temp while doing a v60 pour over, but maybe I should…
Love the video and want you to keep on this line of exploration: My memory of the history: David Schomer used to preach something like 203 degrees Fahrenheit. Approximately 95 centigrade. Then people started dialing in different temperatures with different beans and roasts. PID temperature control became huge for home and commercial machines. All the “god” shots I’ve had were produced by temperature stable machine and baristas who took the time to dial in grind/bean/roast/temperature. In Seattle it seemed like a constantly fluctuating process that was impacted by ambient humidity and barometric pressure. At home, using press pots, mostly the espro, I get consistently good flavor when I get the pot to stabilize at around David’s temperature with the beans I enjoy. Mostly medium roasts. I always grind smaller than recommended as a like a little grit in the cup. In the olden days the synnesso both at Seattle SCA event consistently had the best shots and the baristas would gather round and dial in the shots. So I’d be really interested if you continued experimenting with different beans and roasts!
Double checked: Dave Shomer brewed his expresso at 203.5 degrees Fahrenheit 95.277 centigrade. I think it would be cool if you did this test on his Dulce and his vita.
Its nice to see the testing being done in a more exact method. The difference in bitterness reflects EASILY in a timed seeping of English Tea. In a 2 minute extraction, the bitterness in flavor is deeply prevalent in a hot water vs boiling temp. Now when I drink non-espresso (because I cannot control temperature with my machine) The Moka Pot also does VERY well in obviousness between a fast extract (high heat) vs slow extraction (minimal heat).
Would have been cool to do a wild control like 60c to gauge it. Great video. I actually have found lately that I’m enjoying my brews at 94-96c more than 96-98c. So ya very subjective but great little video.
Interestingly, the temperature doesn't have any impact on the extractions but the taste. It would be interesting to understand why the taste is not correlating to the extractions
The taste comes from the sours and bitters which are fast dissolving early in the extraction. A high TDS depends on how much long chain sugars you are extracting. These sugars are sweet but nearly tasteless...
Hey Lance, great video as always! Unrelated note, but have you seen Mikki’s DIY Obsession here on RUclips? He’s done some really cool modifications to the aeropress to get true 9 bar espresso.
This fits with my espresso experiences exactly. Below about 92, there start to be problems; above that, there can be big differences, but nonobvious and nonlinear.
Interesting. I find medium to light I just keep it at 205 (96) and whenever I go darker (not oily or super dark) I'll just turn it down to 198 (92) and I'm happy
Thanks for the nudge. I have t touched the temp dial for a very long time. Had a coffee varietal didn’t like much… bumped up 5 degrees and it’s much improved That said. I won’t be playing with temp unless I’m dissatisfied with the variety or the roast
I've done this experiment when I got my Sage Dual Boiler last year (because when you give me a variable to fiddle with, I will fiddle with it). For lighter roasts the higher temperatures were a smidge more bitter, but tasted way more impactful. At lower temps they just seemed a bit dulled down. Square Mile's Sweet Shop at lower temps was nice and fruity, but at higher temps it was like getting your head smashed in with fruitiness, which is what I like. For darker roasts there was only an increase in bitterness and not that much improvement to the overall flavour. Would be fun to see a lab break down the concentration of aromatic compounds in coffees brewed at various temperatures. That would be a more objective way to see if there's actually a difference in aromatic compounds based purely on differences in brew temp vs trusting a human's taste.
LOVE this one. Something that takes what we all assumed as fact, and turned it on its head. This is how we learn to brew better! And Ugo is the best camera man 😉
Keep digging and exploring Lance! Love this type of content. Good work as always. Also, without sounding too weird. I find people slurping coffee kind of satisfying 😂 I think it just makes me crave a cup.
I would be interested in learning more about how kettle temperature relates to slurry temperature in a pourover, and what the impact (or lack thereof) is of e.g. a declining temperature in the slurry versus a more consistent temp.
Excellent video. Can it be that temperature plays a role to a certain cut off point to where the differences are minimal. Like an exponential scale, it tapers off.
Hugo is the best cameraman! And it´s indeed nice to see him before the camera as a second opinion. For me, temperature is a little bit tricky because I feel the Rest of my parameters are not on point (cheap grinder, switching coffees often). If you have to make a ranking of the most important parameters in coffee brewing. Where would you place the water temperature?
Very interesting evaluation of brew temperature. I am especially interested in how the temperature effects are with espresso. The shorter exposure time could be a major influence with temperature and extraction, taste. I have used a ROK maunual espresso maker . Temperature is a major topic for manual machines. I preheat, preinfuse, slow ramp and full pressure to achieve great shots. It has been a given that light roasts are not an option due to higher temperatures required for extraction. Now, is this true and can extended preinfusion compensate?
Literally anyone else posts this video... scroll past it. Lance posts it - "well that's what I'm learning about now..." *drops everything* Hugo is the best cameraman
It's interesting that we just write bitterness off as a desirable flavor. I love bitter flavors in general (big Campari fan, for example), so it's something I also enjoy in my coffee.
I think it's mostly due to the fact that non-specialty coffee's are mostly characterized by bitter flavors and with specialty coffee/third wave coffee people want to highlight that coffee can be so much more. Making bitterness associated with 'bad' coffee
I was just thinking about the effect of brew temps during my daily brewing and you come up with this. You're now Uncle Lance to me instead of just Lance :)
I've always dialed water temp in just like grind size; individually for each coffee. I always see the "off boil for light roast" recommendation as well, and for some coffees I do go there, but for other light roasts I stick down at 205 F/96 C. It depends on the roast, the pour pattern, the ratio, the age of the beans, and the user preference for the taste. In general I do brew lighter roasts higher temp than darker roasts but they vary wildly and can overlap in the temperatures I use for each. I use 205/96 as a first temp and base changes off taste from there.
Good on you for doing the science! Well not exactly science, but far more scientific than before. If temperature is less impactful than you imagined, then there;s one other major factor: time. For any amount of coffee, from one bean to a hundred. Grind it and pass hot water through it at pressure… and I am convinced that it is the amount of time to which the water is exposed to the grinds that determines the overall character in the cup. This should roughly correspond to weight of course, but I think scales are not needed if you’re good about time.
To be fair, I always do the science. I just don't put it on camera. It's not as entertaining. I always test alongside either Dr Smrke or Dr Gagne. Always. Only statements I make steeped in subjectivity is taste. But I digress. Time is much less important than ratio.
To me it does taste like the higher temperature extracts more. I think cupping and the longer steep time might even things out maybe. But I remember doing a cupping with my kettle set to 205f (probably pours about 203f and brews even lower due to the cup lowering the temp) and it wasn't giving me the flavours I got out of the same coffees cupped using the kettle set to full boil 212f. Some coffees tasting at like 5 minutes were very different than tasting them again cooled at like 10 minutes, could be due to the temperature differences but I think the steeping time also had an effect. Would be interesting to try this same test but with a pour over or something where it doesn't continue to steep (or stop the cupping brew by filtering out the grounds) after maybe 4 minutes
Interesting experiment, I started doing a simpler but colder temperature surfing on my Gaggia Classic (starting the shot when the boiler turns off) and I found that I enjoyed the shots more. Now, I am not sure about the exact temperature, and I think my machine is running hotter than usual, but it opened my eye to being open to tweaking variables counter-intuitively.
Thanks for the vid. I use a lever press and I heat the water to boiling. I always find the second cup tastes better probably because the group head is hotter and therefore the water is closer to 100C with the second cup.
Could also be due to retention (older coffee) in your grinder on the first shot. But If not, you might be right about the group being more temperature stable for the 2nd shot (depending on your machine).
Ugo is the best!!!! How do ya think days off roast factors in? I’ve still been in the school of thought that the further off roast a coffee is the hotter I need my water to ensure getting the most out of “what’s left” so to speak. I think I generally like just knowing my water is right at or fresh off boil as that is a pretty easy constant to lean on. I did used to like espressos brewed at lower temps, but often times the hustle of needing to move a line compelled me to utilize the heat to again get a lot of flavor in a shorter span of time. As a result I began leaning heavily on the “resting” coffees practices. Love your work homie!
I just started messing with temperature. On my PID espresso machine, the factory setting was about 95C, I knocked that back to 93 and was amazed at the difference. The 93C shots were wonderful, major difference. I'm sure it would also be impacted by source of bean, I was using an Ethiopian medium roast. I should also add that I live at 777 meters above sea level, water here boils at 95.5 C, don't know if that matters, but....
Hugo is the best cameraman!;) When you do pour over at 95 or whatever, do you keep the kettle at that set temperature between pours or do you bring it up to temperature once and then keep it off, having a decreasing brew temperature?
Nice! This is a data point that goes directly against a recent study that concluded that brew temperature at the same extraction yield (EY%) didn't affect taste. In that study 3 temperatures were studied (90, 93, 96 C iirc). So it's very possible that differences in taste may only appear with larger temperature gaps. What I think is becoming clear is that taste depends on the exact distribution of compounds and not just the EY%. Personally I have to brew some medium-roast beans at as low as 70C to avoid bitterness from them. Others do well at 80C or 90C.
@@LanceHedrick Yes, I'm aware you mention that small temp differences don't have much of an impact. To quote the study in question (Batali et al 2020): "Although the TDS and PE both significantly affected the sensory profile of the coffee, surprisingly the brew temperature had no appreciable impact [at least over the range of temperatures tested]". Some experienced folks on r/Coffee have been using that study to assert that brew temperature should /not/ be changed, since it doesn't affect taste (which is what a simple read of the study might imply). I suppose what needs to be clarified is the takeaway message from the study ("brew temp doesn't matter over 87-93C") vs your video ("large differences in brew temp matter").
@creamyhorror well first, I know one of the scientists from the study. That study is far from bullet proof as regards the sensory side. Needs to be updated with a lot more parameters. Second, my conclusion is moreso for people to experiment. That study didn't use nearly a wide enough array of coffees nor a wide enough array of tasters. It's almost a wash imo.
Also, Dr. Smrke confirmed that higher temps can mute aroma and cause bitter components to stand out (likely moreso with darker roasts). So, even though EY might be constant, there is a threshold. Anyway, just to say don't trust without question a paper just because it is peer reviewed when it comes to coffee. Sensory panels and the coffee used are two massive things that aren't taken much into account when studies are formulated.
That ‘stache though. This experiment is interesting. I haven’t done the side by side like that, but for me, I can’t really tell much difference between 90 and 100 in filter coffee. For espresso, that’s different. I had been brewing my regular dark roast at 93 for the longest time, then tried out 90 and it was quite a bit less bitter. The light roast I like is much less sour going from 93 up to 96.
Awesome video, I love anything with blind tastings more objective results. My method is always to start hot and lower the temperature in till it tastes the way I want it to. If it's clearly a darker roasts I'll just start at 95 or so but usually I'll start a boiling and lower if it tastes a little too bitter.
I always prep my videos with an absurd amount of blind cuppings. I just only occasionally add them to videos because the slurping pisses some people off haha! And I start at 90 with darks. If you read the caption, I discuss this briefly.
Hmm, maybe I don’t need to try so hard to get my Flair 58 as hot as possible, this is good news! Though I still end up wanting it a bit warmer in the cup. Thanks for your myth busting!
@@LanceHedrick Oh yes, I've noticed how much prep you put into your videos, I know you're extremely rigorous in your behind the scenes prep. I didn't mean to imply that that wasn't the case. I just meant in general with coffee content. Some other content creators are more subjective, and you're content is always objective and thorough which is something that I really appreciate.
green tea, black tea, white tea, herbal tea optimally brew/infuse at different temps not just boiling water temp which some say makes certain teas bitter.
I brew with an inverted aeropress from the hottest tap water sometimes. It’s pretty hot but not scalding hot, max of 150 degrees Fahrenheit. I pre heat the aeropress and the mug before hand and brew for 6 minutes. It often tastes better to me than the hotter brew water with a 3-4 minute time.
Can't wait to watch you review that limited edition white Mara X!
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Lately I'm experimenting with different bloom and brew temp. When I do 60-65 °C bloom and 100 °C brew I always taste the brew not just less bitter, but also many times I get some delicates notes which I simply don't when I do with 100 °C bloom. It can be done with two kettles, but because I only have just one I warm it up to 65 °C, pour the bloom, then instantly put the kettle back and switch it on. With my usual brew amounts it takes 2-2:30 to reach 100 °C which anyway ideal bloom time. I'm not sure why it's happening. The bitterness could be more easily explained, although one could argue that because I brew with 100 °C later the same bitter compounds should be extracted. Maybe outgassing is more gentle because of the lower temperature so the extraction is more even? And later the bed is saturated so channeling is less likely? But the most interesting is the more taste notes and/or aromas coming out with the colder bloom. Sometimes they are just more strong than with the 100 °C bloom, but many times there are notes which I can simply cannot taste with 100 °C bloom.
I enjoy the cupping videos and experimentation. I doubt I’ll ever get a refractometer but I do want to experiment myself and that’s why I’m anxious to get two NextLevel Pulsar brewers and do side by side tests.
Cool trial! Question, do you think results would be more pronounced in a percolation brew vs an immersion brew. Immersion brews assume in the EY calc that the TDS of solution is about the same as TDS in grounds, so it's at reaction equilibrium. I think the bitterness is from the slower extracting alkyloids that aren't quite at equilibrium, but the faster extractables are already in solution after the steep, regardless of temp. For a percolation brew, espresso or pourover, the assumption is that extractables are selectably removed with fresh water, through increased time or temp, and you might get a larger variance in TDS and taste difference. Just a thought!
Water temperature do affect how our coffee taste. Im talking about pour over coffee ya. As example, im brewing colombia Finca el paraiso rose, medium-light roast. It have floral and fruity taste note. By using 91'c. The flavour more to floral and bittersweet. But, i want to reduce the bitterness a little bit. So, i just decrease the water temperature to 90'c and yes, that bitterness gone. i just adjusting the water temperature to adjust the level of bitterness/ sourness in my coffee after i archive my desire total brewing time for brewing recipe that i am using.
Interesting stuff. One workflow consideration for me is that I don't have a temp controlled kettle. So unless I want to sit with a thermometer in my kettle after I boil (spoiler: I don't), pouring right off the boil lets me know I'm hitting about the same temp each time. I like having one less variable to worry about.
I brew between 90°C (medium roasts) and 95°C (light roasts). Depending on the bean, grind setting, brewing method it can be everything in between. There is a sweet spot for every roast batch of course.
I'm a light roast drinker and usully brew just off the boil, but if I ever buy a medium roast I always brew it at 90C because I found it reduces bitterness. I might experiment with temperature a bit more with lighter roasts though - especially when I feel I'm not getting the best out of the coffee.
Perhaps its not even about extraction, but at what temperatures do different reactions of the molecules extracted react at. Think of Mailard reaction as a reference in complexity. I think I might need to measure the temperatures of my way in making coffee again.
Is there a metric other than extraction yield that we can use? Something that more specifically shows which compounds were extracted rather than just the total? That seems quite valuable at this point in coffee testing, with extraction yield having provided as much explanation as it can.
This is super interesting, so many things are unfortunately not black & white. It seems to really come down to testing and tasting different brews, whether it's dialing in grind size, temperature, etc. hmmm, I guess I just HAVE to brew more coffee.....darn
I have a Delonghi Dedica that brews noticeably colder shots than most typical machines (I read it’s about 80C) and my shots tasted sour/under extracted. But since I managed to find a workaround to brew at higher temperatures I’ve definitely tasted less sourness.
Ugo is the best cameraman! Hugo? Jugo? I’ve been playing with temps some lately too. In my flair 58 I put in boiling water bc it’ll reach about 201F by the time I’m ready to pull my shot. It’s made a good difference. Pour over I’m trying to get hotter too but that’s bc I think my dripper is cooling the water down
Have you ever tested the effects of water temperature, all things held constant, in a blind tasting? It is eye-opening! Thanks again to Dr. Samo Smrke for giving me the scoop on the results of the sensory tests he has been a part of with regards to water temperature in espresso. Don't forget to smash that like and subscribe! Cheers
You should probably re-do this without any prior knowledge, i.e. without knowing if any of these are brewed at different temperatures, can you detect any differences and if yes, then order them by preference.
I think there could be an interesting video done at SCA Portland after or before hours with a few people with this comparison
Always good to re-evaluate long-held ideas. This is where progress is made! 🤗
I’ve been a strong supporter of temperature not being as cut and dry as most would assume.
I think a good follow up you should try is different temperatures at different grind settings. Especially with a expressive coffee/roast profile you can find vast differences between two cups that both taste “good”
I know that espresso at 120°c don't tast as good as when it's at a bit lower temperature,
(I have an old ascaso pro steel that only have a 100°c temperature switch so it overshoots with up to 20-25°c, I will change the temperature switch to a 90 or 95 one as a easy fix but I plan to add proper PID control sooner or later)
I think another interesting experiment would be to dial in the same coffee (via grind size, probably) at 4 different temps, then do a side-by-side of the 4 dialed-in brews (different temps, and presumably different grind sizes) to see which favorite is your favorite.
This is pretty much what I do dialing in espresso find a good grind size that tastes good at my goto temp 80C and then start increasing the temp to see if it alters the flavor for the better. We used to buy 5 pound bags at a time and do just that, but not anymore with layered shots.
Hugo is the best cameraman. It took me 11 days to get to this video and I'm glad I did. Lance, I really like you have no problems admitting you were wrong in the past based on new publications, discoveries, experiments.. There's plenty going on in this hobby and way too many people stand blindly behind their ideas refusing to question them. People like you are moving us closer to the better cups. Thank you.
he is the BEST! and thank you for the kind words, friend!
I've been playing around with low-temp brews for a long time now, and honestly I RARELY brew above 93C anymore as a result. It's a bit fussy, but when I brew larger batches (35g of coffee) out of my Stagg XF, I actually do my bloom and first pour at 92C, and then cool the water down all the way to ~59C to finish the brew. And then further sacrilege, I do full bypass and add water to the finished brew if it tastes a bit too tight to get better separation of flavors. The resulting cups tend to have more clarity and be a bit more juicy than those brewed wholly at higher temps, and the bypass honestly opens up the cups in an amazing way, it's worth trying if you haven't.
My unscientific hypothesis is that it's not the TDS that you're targeting when it comes to water temp, but rather what compounds comprise that TDS. To me, it seems like higher temps extract different compounds than lower temps, or at least the same compounds at different ratios, so while temperature might not have a huge impact on TDS, it does have a huge impact on the taste of your brews. And once you have the compounds in the cup that you enjoy, stretching your total yield can actually have a very positive effect that doesn't make the coffee taste any less extracted.
Happy experimenting!
How much water do you add as a bypass in the final brew?
@@nebojsabeljanski2126 It really depends on the coffee, and on your taste preferences.
I would say you could add an amount equivalent to stretching your brew ratio by an additional 0.5 : 1, taste, and then repeat as necessary until you land on something you like. If you have access to a scale like an Acaia that displays final brew ratios, or the patience to weigh your brew output, you'll notice that your actual brew ratio in cup is tighter than the ratio of coffee to water used to brew. For example, if I were to brew my 35g of coffee with 545g of water (roughly a 15.5 : 1 ratio), it's likely my actual yield resulted in something closer to a 13.5 :1 ratio (something like 475g of brewed coffee in my carafe). Usually the sweet spot will lie somewhere between the actual brew ratio in your carafe and the ratio you were targeting, unless your original brew ratio was off for the coffee. So in this example, I might add an additional 7.5g-30g of water in 7.5g increments. But often times I'll push it even further just to see what I get for fun, and sometimes that can lead to some pleasant surprises, and some good lessons learned about the ratios that particular coffee likes.
Sometimes just a few grams of water make a huge difference, and other times you have to stretch your ratio a surprising amount to hit the cup you were aiming for. Hope that helps, and happy brewing!
@@HigeYatsu Thank you. I'll certainly give it a try!
@@HigeYatsu yes i agree. coffee taste sometimes can be very complex and by adding waters helps to diverse the taste to our tongue. I thought I was quite low brewing at 73C and you do 59C. I might give it a try. Thanks for sharing
I'm curious what roast level your beans usually? Very intriguing. Thanks.
Great, fun video to watch.
This is exactly what I have been playing around with every day with espresso for the last 6 months with my wife as the test subject.
Hard to do, but once everything else is standardized, it seems like her comments are:
Low temperature is "Smooth but lacking in tobacco tastes".
High is "Like a coffee shop, tobacco like tastes, some harsh flavor" (like over-extraction).
In the middle is "Complex, full flavored, little to no harsh flavor".
Variables that mess with the results include pre-infusion times, extraction flow rate, and extraction to coffee ratio.
I am still working on this. If I make only one change somewhere, from day to day she picks up on it in her description.
We once went on a wine trip together and she was able to tell in blind tasting what vineyards wines were from. Not your typical coffee drinker.
Hugo is the best camera man =) Hi Lance, how are you? I'm from Brazil and discovered your channel a few weeks ago, I'm really enjoying your videos and your passion for coffee. Congrats! And... I prefer 95 degrees. lol
I've experimented with coffee brewing temperature and have discovered that the lower the temperature the sweeter the brewed coffee is and for single origin coffee I can taste more of the various unique flavor profiles of each single origin coffee. Plus I also experimented with decanting brewed coffee before serving like with wine and have discovered that the coffee aroma and notes is more pronounced and the flavor of the coffee more distinct and flavorful. I welcome you all to experiment with decanting coffee like with wine prior to serving to see if it improves the taste of your coffee brew.
I use a French press and always decant. I use the Hoffman French press method and water that's just under boiling. I'm seriously considering getting myself a kettle to adjust water temperature. (Currently it's the microwave at 3:30/500ml water. Don't judge.)
Hey Lance, as a follow up, I think it would be worth trying this experiment but at a lower brew ratio. If the hypothesis was initially that hotter temperatures dissolve more compounds I would imaging there is a saturation point (think of a logistic curve). It would be interesting to see how extractions change at different ratios assuming each temperature reaches saturation at different points which I guess might impact flavor.
It‘s good to remind ourselves to always question things. Especially when brewing coffee I also found that given things aren‘t always given and that some experimentations can pay off. Thanks for this ❤
Sour compounds need somewhat above 88° to extract, bitters need about 92°. Since they are fast dissolving they have huge impact on taste but not on TDS. What drives TDS are long chained sugars which are sweet but tasteless.
This kind of stuff was done back in 1996 by Ted Lingle and is still valid. The basics of chemistry do not change from day to day...
These intro's are really putting out the vibe lately, and im here for it
all thanks and love to Hugo, the cameraman! haha
Thanks so much for the effort to test these things so that we can all enjoy our coffee journey. As an engineer I find so often the things we can count don't count, and the things that count can be hard to count. Other scenarios of the partial derivative "one thing at a time" approach is when the system shows high sensitivity to a combination of variables but low sensitivity to them changing in isolation. This could be a combo like temp + grind or temp + extraction time. Really fun to think about. Thanks.
I haven’t read through all 340+ comments, but I was surprised you didn’t mention Jonathan Gagne’s work in your video too. He has a lot to say about temperature, advection, diffusion, and so on (of all the different chemicals in coffee), they all have different diffusion rates, so different temps change all of those in differing ways… iow, drink it at whatever brew temp makes it tastiest totally fits with that knowledge, given how different temps affect different chemicals that you may/may not like in coffee. I know you’re a big Gagne fan, hence my surprise! Hugo’s a very fine camera operator!
Respect for this video. It's important to find that middle-ground between research and day-to-day experience. I've lowered my brew temp a bit, to 93, and I'm happy with the results. It feels the most consistent. At 95+ I lost fruit, maybe because I'm sensitive to coffee bitterness. So maybe tuning temp to palettes makes sense.
I have the same experience
Are you brewing as pour over, or espresso? I think it might make more of an impact for espresso maybe.
So, early in my speciality coffee journey, I kept
my water at boiling temperature reguardless
of which roast levels the beans were. Lol Anyway,
overtime I've learned / preferred to keep my temperature at around 190 F for darks, 195 F for mediums, and boiling point for lights; I think because of the need for extreme heat ( among other things) have made me like light roast less. It can be tricky getting temps right, but the effects are so massive! Thanks for another videos Lance! :)
I never thought of this until very recently! Thanks!! Hugo is the best cameraman!
This is super interesting! Well done on the shorter video format - it was clean and to the point. I think what Im struggling with now is do I need to be cupping for temp for every coffee that I buy and then cup grind levels at the optimal temp to bring out the best flavors of the bag. Feels like I would go through half the bag testing permutations that would not carry over to the next bag. There’s so much fun to be had with experimenting but the downside is the amount of coffee used to experiment.
This is the most helpful video I have seen for a long time. I was scratching my head wondering why my light roasted Ethiopian tasted less bitter with higher temp on Aeropress. Now everything makes sense. Can't thank you enough!
A compact, insightful video. One simple question revised and presented with great personality. This is some awesome stuff!
thank you so much!
I always thought about temperature as a way to tweak the charactaristics of which compounds are dissolved but not neccesarily their intensity, like changing the color of a light, but not neccesarily the brightness. Interesting to see the results here. And also, wow that Hugo has got some pretty amazing camera skills.
Yoo this is totally spot on
Love the conclusion. As a newbie my palate is not very sensitive so I’m realizing I can get away with doing things more relaxed because it makes no difference to my taste anyways 😅 coffee is a stress reliever for me, no sense in making it a stressful experience
I love the message here. Ugo is the best camera man!
Yet another nugget of gold for the coffee world. Thank you sir
Another amazing video. Really killing it lately. Keep up the great work!
That was for Hugo. Lance, you're okay too...
😘😘😘 😂😂😂
@@hugoferrazporto Sorry I misspelled your name! Corrected :)
@@jakeg1117 all love 💕💕
i love the video length of 10-20 minutes.
also you have the best camera man. in general, your video quality is really really good
Wouldn’t the brewing method also be a factor in how the temperature differences change as well, since the water will start to cool as soon as it leaves the source, combined with the amount of time it drains through the coffee? I love this scientific approach, great stuff as always!
Hugo is the best cameraman ;)
Can't wait to do this blind test with my buddies. Thanks Lance
This corroborates the tastings I've done at home where within 3C/6F differences there wasn't much detectable but within 4-5C/9-10F you could start to detect a difference. I have some theories on this but without access to equipment to separate compounds I wouldn't be able to say much.
Really cool idea to explore further just to see what classification of compounds get extracted from sifted particles of the same size and shape at what temperatures.
This channel should have a lot more subscribers.
Thank you!
As a grad student... a tip of the hat to you for humility. It is the foundation of science. Also, I've heard the same things, and now I get to do a ton of experimenting with water temp and my Robot (I love a good experimentation session). Related... perhaps this explains the variability in opinions on whether or not the Robot needs pre-heating. The designer insists it doesn't, yet some folks insist it does. This video allows for the possibility that everyone is correct, depending on the coffee, how it was roasted, and your individual palette. It's also somewhat frustrating because if you're not considering form factor, aesthetics, etc., in other words, if your primary objective is taste, then it makes a showdown between, say, a Robot and a Flair 58 even more a matter of personal taste. I found it quite fascinating that you preferred the Flair 58 without the heater (though the temp uptick at the end is interesting... I wondered about turning it off before pulling the shot to avoid that). I love my Robot, but I'm still Flair 58 curious. Your comments about the Robot vs. the Flair with regard to roast levels (I don't like dark, I usually gravitate toward medium roasts and sometimes light roasts) engaged my confirmation bias on my choice of the Robot... but now I need to make friends with someone who has a Flair 58 so we can do some experimenting (either way, I'm still pretty thrilled with the Robot, I bought it used from a friend and I've used it nearly every day).
Thank you 💛
Amazing video and good results!! That's how I always did it for the past 6 years. I start at a random temperature and kept changing the grind size/temperature every day, noted it down, and then follow the combination that gave me the best result for every bean. Nothing is constant but following a rule of thumb of a certain temperature for each roast is good to avoid losing beans. For example; using 98 degrees celsius water for dark roasts.
hugo is the best cameraman, also this approach of anecdotal evidence suported by properly studied evidence IS GREAT content. You being a respected professional self-aware of your previous opinion and been capable of changing them upon new evidence is great, kudos for that!
Higher temperatures increase the rate at which compounds dissolve even though solubility doesn't always increase. My guess is that most of the bitter compounds are less water soluble than the acids and sugars. Brewing at a higher temperature will leach out more of these bitter compounds in less time. Grinding finer will have a similar effect. That's why the Aeropress inventor recommends brewing at around 80C when using an espresso grind for the Aeropress.
I’m writing this with the utmost sincerity. Your hair looks INCREDIBLE! (Not that it ever looks bad.) But I felt the urge to comment how great it looks in this video. 🤙🏽
This also explains a lot about cold brewed coffee as well. Thx Bro!
Tales Coffee has been exploring this recently. Testing temperature in regards to roast profiles. Glad to see this idea is getting out.
✌🏼✌🏼✌🏼 percolation and immersion are very different though. The application could be the same but in full immersion you can break the gas bubbles earlier which could remove the bitterness. So the change in agitation plays a bigger roll
Hugo is the best cameraman and thank you Lenz for always pleasuring us.
Thanks, I'm grateful for your approach and putting yourself out there. It must take so much courage to be authentic and honest. I'd be very curious to see a blind taste session of this same settings where you taste with your coffee brother James Hoffmann. For to my knowledge, he's also been in the camp of brewing with boiling water. (He actaully argued that the water cools down quite drastically anyway in whatever brew device you use so the coffee won't meet 100 degrees water anyway.) So yeah, I'd be interested to hear what he'd take home from such an experiment. Or have you two spoken about your findings yet?
This! I'm very curious to see how these kettle temps translate to brew bed temp. I feel like that number would be far more important.
Great comment. I have been using boiling hot water in my kettle for all my brewing with light roasted coffee bases on James’ and Lance’s recommendations and recipes. When I do use the boiling hot water straight from the kettle into a clever dripper, the temperature of the slurry is usually about 94-95 Celsius at most. I haven’t tried to measure a slurry temp while doing a v60 pour over, but maybe I should…
Love the video and want you to keep on this line of exploration:
My memory of the history: David Schomer used to preach something like 203 degrees Fahrenheit. Approximately 95 centigrade.
Then people started dialing in different temperatures with different beans and roasts. PID temperature control became huge for home and commercial machines. All the “god” shots I’ve had were produced by temperature stable machine and baristas who took the time to dial in grind/bean/roast/temperature. In Seattle it seemed like a constantly fluctuating process that was impacted by ambient humidity and barometric pressure.
At home, using press pots, mostly the espro, I get consistently good flavor when I get the pot to stabilize at around David’s temperature with the beans I enjoy. Mostly medium roasts. I always grind smaller than recommended as a like a little grit in the cup.
In the olden days the synnesso both at Seattle SCA event consistently had the best shots and the baristas would gather round and dial in the shots.
So I’d be really interested if you continued experimenting with different beans and roasts!
Double checked: Dave Shomer brewed his expresso at 203.5 degrees Fahrenheit 95.277 centigrade. I think it would be cool if you did this test on his Dulce and his vita.
Its nice to see the testing being done in a more exact method.
The difference in bitterness reflects EASILY in a timed seeping of English Tea. In a 2 minute extraction, the bitterness in flavor is deeply prevalent in a hot water vs boiling temp.
Now when I drink non-espresso (because I cannot control temperature with my machine) The Moka Pot also does VERY well in obviousness between a fast extract (high heat) vs slow extraction (minimal heat).
Oh Yeah, Great Video btw. Incredibly informative, and a LOT shorter than expected. Maybe I have gotten used to your longer videos. Ha!!
I like that you learned to get the general and the close-up cameras to match
Would have been cool to do a wild control like 60c to gauge it. Great video. I actually have found lately that I’m enjoying my brews at 94-96c more than 96-98c. So ya very subjective but great little video.
Appreciate you trying to do the 12’ thing but I gotta say I love a good deep dive!
As a newbie into better coffee brewing at home, it's so nice to hear this.... 😊 ☕️
Interestingly, the temperature doesn't have any impact on the extractions but the taste. It would be interesting to understand why the taste is not correlating to the extractions
The taste comes from the sours and bitters which are fast dissolving early in the extraction. A high TDS depends on how much long chain sugars you are extracting. These sugars are sweet but nearly tasteless...
This video is so great - great info, rigorous, humble, clear, succinct. Knocked it out of the park by miles. ❤️👌❤️
Hey Lance, great video as always!
Unrelated note, but have you seen Mikki’s DIY Obsession here on RUclips? He’s done some really cool modifications to the aeropress to get true 9 bar espresso.
This fits with my espresso experiences exactly. Below about 92, there start to be problems; above that, there can be big differences, but nonobvious and nonlinear.
Interesting. I find medium to light I just keep it at 205 (96) and whenever I go darker (not oily or super dark) I'll just turn it down to 198 (92) and I'm happy
Thanks for the nudge. I have t touched the temp dial for a very long time. Had a coffee varietal didn’t like much… bumped up 5 degrees and it’s much improved
That said. I won’t be playing with temp unless I’m dissatisfied with the variety or the roast
I've done this experiment when I got my Sage Dual Boiler last year (because when you give me a variable to fiddle with, I will fiddle with it). For lighter roasts the higher temperatures were a smidge more bitter, but tasted way more impactful. At lower temps they just seemed a bit dulled down. Square Mile's Sweet Shop at lower temps was nice and fruity, but at higher temps it was like getting your head smashed in with fruitiness, which is what I like. For darker roasts there was only an increase in bitterness and not that much improvement to the overall flavour.
Would be fun to see a lab break down the concentration of aromatic compounds in coffees brewed at various temperatures. That would be a more objective way to see if there's actually a difference in aromatic compounds based purely on differences in brew temp vs trusting a human's taste.
Hugo is the best cameraman. I’d be curious to see if temp plays a different role with darker roasted coffees.
I think Lance touches on his findings with dark roast in the description box.
LOVE this one. Something that takes what we all assumed as fact, and turned it on its head. This is how we learn to brew better! And Ugo is the best camera man 😉
Keep digging and exploring Lance! Love this type of content. Good work as always.
Also, without sounding too weird. I find people slurping coffee kind of satisfying 😂 I think it just makes me crave a cup.
I would be interested in learning more about how kettle temperature relates to slurry temperature in a pourover, and what the impact (or lack thereof) is of e.g. a declining temperature in the slurry versus a more consistent temp.
Excellent video.
Can it be that temperature plays a role to a certain cut off point to where the differences are minimal. Like an exponential scale, it tapers off.
Hugo is the best cameraman!
And it´s indeed nice to see him before the camera as a second opinion.
For me, temperature is a little bit tricky because I feel the Rest of my parameters are not on point (cheap grinder, switching coffees often). If you have to make a ranking of the most important parameters in coffee brewing. Where would you place the water temperature?
Wise words to live by Lance. Thanks as always for the great content!
Hugo is the best cameraman! I'm one who has never enjoyed a cup off boiling. I like anywhere from 93 to 96.
Very interesting evaluation of brew temperature. I am especially interested in how the temperature effects are with espresso. The shorter exposure time could be a major influence with temperature and extraction, taste. I have used a ROK maunual espresso maker . Temperature is a major topic for manual machines. I preheat, preinfuse, slow ramp and full pressure to achieve great shots. It has been a given that light roasts are not an option due to higher temperatures required for extraction. Now, is this true and can extended preinfusion compensate?
Literally anyone else posts this video... scroll past it. Lance posts it - "well that's what I'm learning about now..." *drops everything*
Hugo is the best cameraman
Lance the legend! Thank you for your insightful content sir and yes, Hugo is the best cameraman
It's interesting that we just write bitterness off as a desirable flavor. I love bitter flavors in general (big Campari fan, for example), so it's something I also enjoy in my coffee.
I think it's mostly due to the fact that non-specialty coffee's are mostly characterized by bitter flavors and with specialty coffee/third wave coffee people want to highlight that coffee can be so much more. Making bitterness associated with 'bad' coffee
Probably was a light roast and not so bitter that it was unbalanced / unpleasant.
I was just thinking about the effect of brew temps during my daily brewing and you come up with this. You're now Uncle Lance to me instead of just Lance :)
Interesting. I have definitely noticed before that I prefer my Aeropress brewed with pretty low temperatures. Looking forward to seeing how this goes.
hope you enjoy!
I've always dialed water temp in just like grind size; individually for each coffee. I always see the "off boil for light roast" recommendation as well, and for some coffees I do go there, but for other light roasts I stick down at 205 F/96 C. It depends on the roast, the pour pattern, the ratio, the age of the beans, and the user preference for the taste. In general I do brew lighter roasts higher temp than darker roasts but they vary wildly and can overlap in the temperatures I use for each. I use 205/96 as a first temp and base changes off taste from there.
This video was one of my favourite of recent because it’s some thing I can relate to
Good on you for doing the science! Well not exactly science, but far more scientific than before. If temperature is less impactful than you imagined, then there;s one other major factor: time. For any amount of coffee, from one bean to a hundred. Grind it and pass hot water through it at pressure… and I am convinced that it is the amount of time to which the water is exposed to the grinds that determines the overall character in the cup. This should roughly correspond to weight of course, but I think scales are not needed if you’re good about time.
To be fair, I always do the science. I just don't put it on camera. It's not as entertaining. I always test alongside either Dr Smrke or Dr Gagne. Always. Only statements I make steeped in subjectivity is taste.
But I digress.
Time is much less important than ratio.
Oh! And thanks for watching!
@@LanceHedrick So then. 28 grams out from 14 grams in, over a duration of seven seconds, should taste very much the same as if pulled in 30 seconds?
@@LanceHedrick some of us love science.
Thank you! Question, question, question! And, most especially, question ourselves!!!
To me it does taste like the higher temperature extracts more. I think cupping and the longer steep time might even things out maybe. But I remember doing a cupping with my kettle set to 205f (probably pours about 203f and brews even lower due to the cup lowering the temp) and it wasn't giving me the flavours I got out of the same coffees cupped using the kettle set to full boil 212f.
Some coffees tasting at like 5 minutes were very different than tasting them again cooled at like 10 minutes, could be due to the temperature differences but I think the steeping time also had an effect. Would be interesting to try this same test but with a pour over or something where it doesn't continue to steep (or stop the cupping brew by filtering out the grounds) after maybe 4 minutes
Interesting experiment, I started doing a simpler but colder temperature surfing on my Gaggia Classic (starting the shot when the boiler turns off) and I found that I enjoyed the shots more. Now, I am not sure about the exact temperature, and I think my machine is running hotter than usual, but it opened my eye to being open to tweaking variables counter-intuitively.
Thanks for the vid. I use a lever press and I heat the water to boiling. I always find the second cup tastes better probably because the group head is hotter and therefore the water is closer to 100C with the second cup.
Could also be due to retention (older coffee) in your grinder on the first shot. But If not, you might be right about the group being more temperature stable for the 2nd shot (depending on your machine).
Ugo is the best!!!!
How do ya think days off roast factors in? I’ve still been in the school of thought that the further off roast a coffee is the hotter I need my water to ensure getting the most out of “what’s left” so to speak. I think I generally like just knowing my water is right at or fresh off boil as that is a pretty easy constant to lean on. I did used to like espressos brewed at lower temps, but often times the hustle of needing to move a line compelled me to utilize the heat to again get a lot of flavor in a shorter span of time. As a result I began leaning heavily on the “resting” coffees practices. Love your work homie!
I just started messing with temperature. On my PID espresso machine, the factory setting was about 95C, I knocked that back to 93 and was amazed at the difference. The 93C shots were wonderful, major difference. I'm sure it would also be impacted by source of bean, I was using an Ethiopian medium roast. I should also add that I live at 777 meters above sea level, water here boils at 95.5 C, don't know if that matters, but....
Hugo is the best cameraman!;)
When you do pour over at 95 or whatever, do you keep the kettle at that set temperature between pours or do you bring it up to temperature once and then keep it off, having a decreasing brew temperature?
Nice! This is a data point that goes directly against a recent study that concluded that brew temperature at the same extraction yield (EY%) didn't affect taste. In that study 3 temperatures were studied (90, 93, 96 C iirc). So it's very possible that differences in taste may only appear with larger temperature gaps. What I think is becoming clear is that taste depends on the exact distribution of compounds and not just the EY%.
Personally I have to brew some medium-roast beans at as low as 70C to avoid bitterness from them. Others do well at 80C or 90C.
I literally quote that in my video. My video is in harmony with said study
@@LanceHedrick Yes, I'm aware you mention that small temp differences don't have much of an impact. To quote the study in question (Batali et al 2020): "Although the TDS and PE both significantly affected the sensory profile of the coffee, surprisingly the brew temperature had no appreciable impact [at least over the range of temperatures tested]". Some experienced folks on r/Coffee have been using that study to assert that brew temperature should /not/ be changed, since it doesn't affect taste (which is what a simple read of the study might imply). I suppose what needs to be clarified is the takeaway message from the study ("brew temp doesn't matter over 87-93C") vs your video ("large differences in brew temp matter").
@creamyhorror well first, I know one of the scientists from the study. That study is far from bullet proof as regards the sensory side. Needs to be updated with a lot more parameters. Second, my conclusion is moreso for people to experiment.
That study didn't use nearly a wide enough array of coffees nor a wide enough array of tasters. It's almost a wash imo.
Also, Dr. Smrke confirmed that higher temps can mute aroma and cause bitter components to stand out (likely moreso with darker roasts). So, even though EY might be constant, there is a threshold.
Anyway, just to say don't trust without question a paper just because it is peer reviewed when it comes to coffee. Sensory panels and the coffee used are two massive things that aren't taken much into account when studies are formulated.
Also that study was on espresso. And dark roast coffee. Fin.
That ‘stache though. This experiment is interesting. I haven’t done the side by side like that, but for me, I can’t really tell much difference between 90 and 100 in filter coffee. For espresso, that’s different. I had been brewing my regular dark roast at 93 for the longest time, then tried out 90 and it was quite a bit less bitter. The light roast I like is much less sour going from 93 up to 96.
Awesome video, I love anything with blind tastings more objective results. My method is always to start hot and lower the temperature in till it tastes the way I want it to. If it's clearly a darker roasts I'll just start at 95 or so but usually I'll start a boiling and lower if it tastes a little too bitter.
I always prep my videos with an absurd amount of blind cuppings. I just only occasionally add them to videos because the slurping pisses some people off haha! And I start at 90 with darks. If you read the caption, I discuss this briefly.
Hmm, maybe I don’t need to try so hard to get my Flair 58 as hot as possible, this is good news! Though I still end up wanting it a bit warmer in the cup. Thanks for your myth busting!
@@LanceHedrick Oh yes, I've noticed how much prep you put into your videos, I know you're extremely rigorous in your behind the scenes prep. I didn't mean to imply that that wasn't the case. I just meant in general with coffee content. Some other content creators are more subjective, and you're content is always objective and thorough which is something that I really appreciate.
I did this a while ago for French press and details I like it between 88-90C. Definitely worth trying out.
green tea, black tea, white tea, herbal tea optimally brew/infuse at different temps not just boiling water temp which some say makes certain teas bitter.
I brew with an inverted aeropress from the hottest tap water sometimes. It’s pretty hot but not scalding hot, max of 150 degrees Fahrenheit. I pre heat the aeropress and the mug before hand and brew for 6 minutes. It often tastes better to me than the hotter brew water with a 3-4 minute time.
Can't wait to watch you review that limited edition white Mara X!
Lately I'm experimenting with different bloom and brew temp. When I do 60-65 °C bloom and 100 °C brew I always taste the brew not just less bitter, but also many times I get some delicates notes which I simply don't when I do with 100 °C bloom.
It can be done with two kettles, but because I only have just one I warm it up to 65 °C, pour the bloom, then instantly put the kettle back and switch it on. With my usual brew amounts it takes 2-2:30 to reach 100 °C which anyway ideal bloom time.
I'm not sure why it's happening. The bitterness could be more easily explained, although one could argue that because I brew with 100 °C later the same bitter compounds should be extracted. Maybe outgassing is more gentle because of the lower temperature so the extraction is more even? And later the bed is saturated so channeling is less likely?
But the most interesting is the more taste notes and/or aromas coming out with the colder bloom. Sometimes they are just more strong than with the 100 °C bloom, but many times there are notes which I can simply cannot taste with 100 °C bloom.
I enjoy the cupping videos and experimentation. I doubt I’ll ever get a refractometer but I do want to experiment myself and that’s why I’m anxious to get two NextLevel Pulsar brewers and do side by side tests.
Hugo is the best camera, man. 📹😉
Great video, thanks!
Cool trial! Question, do you think results would be more pronounced in a percolation brew vs an immersion brew. Immersion brews assume in the EY calc that the TDS of solution is about the same as TDS in grounds, so it's at reaction equilibrium. I think the bitterness is from the slower extracting alkyloids that aren't quite at equilibrium, but the faster extractables are already in solution after the steep, regardless of temp. For a percolation brew, espresso or pourover, the assumption is that extractables are selectably removed with fresh water, through increased time or temp, and you might get a larger variance in TDS and taste difference. Just a thought!
I love your philosophy on coffee man. Good stuff!
Water temperature do affect how our coffee taste. Im talking about pour over coffee ya.
As example, im brewing colombia Finca el paraiso rose, medium-light roast. It have floral and fruity taste note.
By using 91'c. The flavour more to floral and bittersweet. But, i want to reduce the bitterness a little bit.
So, i just decrease the water temperature to 90'c and yes, that bitterness gone.
i just adjusting the water temperature to adjust the level of bitterness/ sourness in my coffee after i archive my desire total brewing time for brewing recipe that i am using.
Really interesting video Lance! Thank you for digging into stuff like this!
Interesting stuff. One workflow consideration for me is that I don't have a temp controlled kettle. So unless I want to sit with a thermometer in my kettle after I boil (spoiler: I don't), pouring right off the boil lets me know I'm hitting about the same temp each time. I like having one less variable to worry about.
Great video as always!:)
Would love to see a video from you about care and maintenance for espresso machines at home, water treatment etc
I brew between 90°C (medium roasts) and 95°C (light roasts). Depending on the bean, grind setting, brewing method it can be everything in between. There is a sweet spot for every roast batch of course.
I'm a light roast drinker and usully brew just off the boil, but if I ever buy a medium roast I always brew it at 90C because I found it reduces bitterness.
I might experiment with temperature a bit more with lighter roasts though - especially when I feel I'm not getting the best out of the coffee.
Thanks for this, much appreciated… and well done with the humility, we don’t get enough nowadays…
Very interesting video! Thanks for doing these. Hugo is the best cameraman 😊
Perhaps its not even about extraction, but at what temperatures do different reactions of the molecules extracted react at. Think of Mailard reaction as a reference in complexity. I think I might need to measure the temperatures of my way in making coffee again.
Is there a metric other than extraction yield that we can use? Something that more specifically shows which compounds were extracted rather than just the total? That seems quite valuable at this point in coffee testing, with extraction yield having provided as much explanation as it can.
This is super interesting, so many things are unfortunately not black & white. It seems to really come down to testing and tasting different brews, whether it's dialing in grind size, temperature, etc. hmmm, I guess I just HAVE to brew more coffee.....darn
I have a Delonghi Dedica that brews noticeably colder shots than most typical machines (I read it’s about 80C) and my shots tasted sour/under extracted. But since I managed to find a workaround to brew at higher temperatures I’ve definitely tasted less sourness.
Ugo is the best cameraman! Hugo? Jugo? I’ve been playing with temps some lately too. In my flair 58 I put in boiling water bc it’ll reach about 201F by the time I’m ready to pull my shot. It’s made a good difference. Pour over I’m trying to get hotter too but that’s bc I think my dripper is cooling the water down
Great video Lance! Hugo is the best cameraman.