In Ethiopia, the former Abyssinia, for many centuries coffee has been boilt in a clay carafe, the Jebana. On this high plateau of the African home of the Arabica bean, water already boils between 92 and 96C. Coffee brewed at 94C is very different from brews at other temperatures, see table 3: www.coffeeresearch.org The idea is to prepare coffee in the ancient range of 92-96C, since a temperature-controlled water bath lets us do that anywhere in the world without boiling coffee on a plateau. But we also get the chance to prepare coffee of a yet unknown quality: precise coffee mills, sieve shakers and particle sieves let us prepare coffee grounds, that are much more even. Coffee refractometers then let us analyze the brew within seconds after preparation; we get a composite value, that reflects the extraction of the houndreds of substances, that make up the coffee taste. It lets us see how much extraction our parameter choices have caused and gives us ideas for possible parameter changes for the next coffee preparation, so that coffee might even get better. Everybody can set up a water bath with PID temperature control. There are plug-in units for sous-vide cooking for 150 USD. That way you can brew coffee in the 92-96C range, a range also recommended by coffee specialty organizations like the SCAA and SCAE. With PID espresso machines that would be an easy thing to do, but their pressure of 10-15 bar also produces different substances, that would make the brew taste ...
Tags: french, press, bain-marie, PID, temperature, control, water, bath, magnetic, stirring, coffee, filter, plunger, pot, degree, extraction, chemistry, extract, controller, controlled, bodum, cobama, wasserbad, kaffee, bereiter, pressfilter, Abyssinian, Ethiopia, Abyssinia, Arabica, Jebana, Gebana, boil, ancient, quality, plateau
