Do you really want to stand in a long line of noisy people, never knowing which flavor to pick and pay $3 a day for 254 days a year? You’d have to be swimming in a lot of moolah and have a lot of patience to pull off something as crazy as this. Plus, you also have to beat the morning blues after getting out of bed while you collect yourself to get breakfast ready.
Auto-Drip Coffee Maker
So what’s the solution you might add? An auto-drip coffee maker or Best Commercial Espresso Machine? Not only is it convenient where you can get your coffee on the fly, but it can even give you a quality brew that you’d find at a coffee house. That is, provided you know and implement the right method for it.
The auto-drip coffee maker is a one-and-done kind of machine where you simply set it and forget it. The only problems are that you can’t control its temperature or even the water ratio while it’s pouring the beans. In other words, you can’t customize the brew to your liking.
Fortunately, there’s a way to hack your way to a great cup of joe and this post has the answers for that.
1. Clean Up Your Machine
The first step to getting great-tasting coffee is to give your auto-drip a good old scrub. For that, we suggest using UrnexCleancaf and have it run through your machine a couple of times, accompanied by a few rounds of clean water. After doing that, you can keep it this way by rinsing the machine’s basket after each use.
2. Use Just Enough Coffee
Next is to settle for the ideal coffee to water ratio, which is about 1:15. Many auto-drip machines are not made to accommodate for this size. Because if you brewed your coffee at full 12 “cup” pot with enough grounds, it will start spilling out over the basket.
So instead, just fill the machine at the 8-cup mark on a standard 12 cup machine. Whether you have a small or a large brewer, use the 2/3 full standard. The right cup measurement for coffee makers is only 6 ounces. Therefore, you’re going to need 8.5 grams of coffee for every cup.
3. Preheat Your Water
In order to extract the best flavors, the water needs to be heated at around 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit. The problem with auto-drip machines is that they can only heat up till 180 degrees and then heat the coffee only after it has been brewed.
What you should do instead is heat the water first and then use that water to brew your coffee. This brings the temperature up to 200 degrees and is great for extracting flavors.
4. Bloom Your Coffee
If you’re getting coffee from a well-known roaster, you may find that there is still some carbon dioxide trapped inside that needs to escape before you can pull all the flavor out. According to Coffee Dorks one way to tackle that is to “bloom” the coffee using a pour-over by pouring a small amount of coffee over the surface of the grounds to start the off-gassing reaction. You can do this with your coffee maker by turning it on briefly until the surface of your grounds gets saturated.
5. Don’t Let Your Coffee Sit
Many coffee makers have a hot plate where the glass carafe is and just let their coffee stay there for as long as they want. The only problem with this tactic is that if you let stay that way for a whole day, it will turn the good-tasting acidity into bitter or acrid flavors. Instead, you should just take drink it while it’s hot and fresh.