How to choose the best grind size for your coffee (2024)

FAQs

How to choose the best grind size for your coffee? ›

Larger (coarse) grind sizes need more contact time with water to extract optimum flavor. Smaller (finer) grind sizes need less contact time to extract optimum flavor. In general, we use a coarser grind for longer brewing times (4-8 minutes) and a finer grind for shorter brewing times (1-4 minutes).

If the coffee taste harsh, bitter, and your mouth feels dry with an ashy aftertaste, your likely grinding too fine. Make your grounds bigger with a coarser grind. If the coffee tastes weak, sour, or papery, you may be grinding too coarse. Try a finer grind.

Grind size helps to perfect extraction. Typically, French press brewing method requires a coarse grind. Drip, pour-over or Chemex brewing requires a medium grind. Espresso requires a fine grind.

This requires a scale, which is a worthwhile investment if you care about the quality of your coffee, but a lot of people just want to keep things simple. The simple answer is: for most home coffee brewing is 2 Tbsp. (10.6 g) of ground coffee beans per 6 oz.

The type of equipment you use to brew your coffee will determine the appropriate grind size. As a rule of thumb, the shorter the brew time the finer the grinder should be and accordingly, the longer the brew time the coarser your grind should be.

To counteract this, simply grind coarser. A coarser grind shortens the extraction time, reducing the intensity of bitter flavors. A fun and easy experiment is to purposely grind very fine for one cup and very coarse for another.

Medium Grind.

This sandy-textured coffee grind is one of the most popular grinds, perfect for drip brewing coffee makers and aeropress.

There are two different types of grind size: fine and coarse. You can extract the flavor faster from finer grounds, since there's more surface area to extract from. If your grind is too fine, you face the danger of over-extraction and a longer brew time, as the water has a hard time filtering through the fine grounds.

What happens if coffee grind is too fine? ›

When you use a fine grind in a longer brewing process, such as a French press, you will get over-extraction. This means that the brewing water has been allowed to extract too much flavor which will produce a bitter brew devoid of real coffee goodness.

As time passes by, the flavors and aromas in the beans start degrading, which means you need to extract more from each cup. As such, grinding finer or increasing your dose for the brew can help extract more solubles and compensate for the loss in flavor.

The more finely ground the beans, the more caffeine is released into the water. So it's safe to say that when it comes to caffeination, a finer grind does result in stronger coffee, while a coarser grind will always brew a weaker cup.

Coffee-to-Water Ratio

A general guideline is called the "Golden Ratio" - one to two tablespoons of ground coffee for every six ounces of water. This can be adjusted to suit individual taste preferences. Check the cup lines or indicators on your specific brewer to see how they actually measure.

Coffee's golden ratio is 1:18 (1 gram of coffee to every 18 grams of water). If you want a stronger cup, use a ratio of 1:15 or if you want a lighter cup, use 1:18. But somewhere between 15 to 18 grams of water to every gram of coffee is most common.

Grind Size, Extraction, & Flavor

The final coffee flavor will depend on how many compounds are extracted from those roasted beans into our brew – something that is a delicate balance of water:coffee ratio, brew time, water temperature, grind size, and more.

Coarse: A coarse grind is slightly finer than extra coarse and has a consistency resembling kosher salt. The grounds still appear quite chunky and are used for French press, percolators and coffee cupping brewing methods.