Specialty Coffee Rules That Don't Matter

In this episode, I dive deep into the common rules that beginners are taught in specialty coffee and share my honest take on which ones actually matter after years of brewing experience. I walk through about 20 different coffee "rules" that are often presented as gospel truth, from always grinding fresh right before brewing to using precise ratios and specific water temperatures. Throughout the discussion, I share how my approach has evolved from being incredibly rigid about these guidelines to understanding when they're helpful and when you can break them.

I explore everything from grinder preferences (I'm a flat burr grinder person) to my current 1:15 brewing ratio sweet spot, water filtration experiments with Third Wave Water, and why I've completely stopped stirring my coffee after seven years. Listeners will learn practical insights about blooming techniques, pulse pouring methods, dark roast appreciation, and why some of these "rules" are more like helpful starting points rather than absolute requirements. By the end of this episode, you'll have a better understanding of which coffee fundamentals truly matter and the confidence to trust your own palate when brewing your daily cup.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 2:03 Grinder Types & Equipment Preferences
• 3:21 Brewing Ratios & Consistency
• 4:29 Water Quality & Measurement
• 6:08 Water Temperature & Blooming
• 8:23 Pouring Techniques & Control
• 10:40 Equipment & Dark Roast Appreciation
• 13:08 Filters & Brew Time Flexibility
• 15:22 Advanced Techniques & Measurements
• 19:47 Coffee Freshness & Final Thoughts

Transcript

[00:00:00] We live, we live, we live right now. Today is Friday, February 9th. No, it is not February 9th. It is May 9th, 2025. We're doing pretty good right now. This one's gonna be fun. I love these mostly fun.

[00:00:30] You may be asking why this has so many random, different topics about coffee, because I think about coffee all the time and I'm always wondering what I'm gonna be talking about in these talks. Don't get me wrong, I do like the other stuff too, like the thought-out YouTube videos and all that stuff, but these talks, these podcasts, these interesting takes - these are more fun. These are a lot of fun.

[00:01:00] So today's topic: Common rules beginners are taught in specialty coffee. Let's just say coffee in general - specialty coffee standards, right? But we're gonna talk through these. It's about 20 of them. Hopefully it's not 20 minutes of me rambling about what I do, what I don't do, and why I don't do it.

[00:01:30] Let's go through the first one: Always grind fresh right before brewing. I was really big on that whole thing and it's really important, it's really critical. But now since I actually roast my coffee, it is critical. But a lot of times the coffees are extremely fresh, so sometimes I will grind the coffees a day or two ahead just depending on the situation. I'm just impatient to taste it. But I think I don't really do that. I still kind of mostly do that right before I actually brew. So that was a good one.

[00:02:03] Use a burr grinder, not a blade grinder. Yep, still do that. So use a burr grinder. More of a flat grinder, burr grinder person than a conical. I have had some conical. I do have a conical for my hand grinders. I have my other grinder that's in the garage now. Forgot the name of it, but I'm a flat burr grinder kind of person. I do notice a difference in it.

[00:03:00] But I am liking the way my coffees are coming out on the hand grinder, too. But blade grinder - not really, not much. I will always tell people to start off with a burr grinder because a blade grinder is just inconsistent and almost instantly you'll taste the difference between a burr grinder versus a blade grinder. Surprises people don't want to spend money on grinders, which is interesting. I mean, you're almost there, right? But it's just that convenience thing, which is perfectly fine.

[00:03:30] I actually find that some of my better clients are people who like their coffee ground. Maybe a story for another day, but that's what I've noticed.

[00:03:45] Stick to a precise brew ratio. I kind of do, I kind of play around with it. I was starting off like a 1 to 18 ratio person and then the coffees started tasting like crap. And then I started going down to the extreme part of 1 to 10, 1 to 8, 1 to 9. And for many years now, I've really settled on the 1 to 15 ratio. I've been playing around with 1 to 16, which does a really good job, too.

[00:04:15] But yeah, I think the reason why I think it's important or critical is because it's good to be consistent. I mean, bottom line, I think that's the really biggest thing about it. It's about being consistent. You know how your coffee is going to taste depending on the grind size, depending on the roast degree, but for the most part, that's the part that's familiar to you. Different coffees may call for different ratios, but for the most part, that's kind of like where my sweet happy spot is.

[00:04:45] Weigh both coffee and water with a scale. Yeah, that's not going away. Like I said, I've done it many times where I've still measured, meaning that I'll have like a scoop or two to kind of keep my measurements right. And then I'll probably have a cup where I actually do some measurements out of the Mr. Coffee machine or I just use the little scales that's on the actual craft.

[00:05:15] But yeah, I'm gonna measure all the time. It's just part of that whole consistency thing. But don't get me wrong, there's been times where I just put it together and just kind of hope for the best, and for the most part it's fine, it'll work.

[00:05:30] Use filtered water. Well, lately in the past five months I've been using, back to using Third Wave Water, which is cool. I like it a lot. It does help me to figure out what my coffees are and it gives me an honest assessment of what I'm drinking. I know you can go really crazy with it with different types of waters, and I've even played around with mixing the Third Wave waters depending on the situation, depending on the coffee, to kind of bring out different things.

[00:06:00] I do like playing and manipulating the whole coffee experience that way beyond the whole water temp, pouring technique, and also grind size and all that good stuff. But yeah, I think that's still critical in all of this, and I do taste the difference, especially if I switch back from time to time when making my wife's coffee, which I use tap water, and she doesn't care, so that's what I do for her.

[00:06:30] Number six: Use the right water temperature. I play around with that. Golden temp, as they say, is 195 to 205, which is kind of true. It kind of really does work out really well. But it's okay to play around with different things. I think lately I've been doing at 190 and even playing around with 185. As you know already, I played around with 150, 160. I think 160 is a really cool temperature.

[00:07:00] I don't really play around with anything above 205. Lately - not lately, but for a very long time - I used to play around, used to stay in a realm of 210, 211 quite a bit, and I may play around with that again, but I just do what I do today. We'll just see how it comes out. It's always good to just play and do different things. You don't know what you're gonna really get out of these coffees sometimes when you kind of just do the same thing over and over again.

[00:07:30] So those are some of the things that I think about quite a bit when I'm brewing coffee. Anytime that I'm like, "Let me change it up here, let me see some of the things that I can do to kind of spice it up." I'm sure you go through that too. If you don't, let me know. If you do, let me know.

[00:07:45] Always bloom your coffee for 30 to 45 seconds. Yeah, I kind of do that most of the time. Sometimes I forget, it might go even longer. I minute and a half from time to time. But I tend to always mostly bloom my coffee. I didn't give a crap before until I did the experiment about blooming and then playing around with it with the Mr. Coffee and just playing around with different recipes that called for no blooms.

[00:08:15] I've noticed that the coffees are a lot more pronounced, more developed, better to me. And I don't know why that is. And it's funny because I'm an engineer by trade and by play, if that makes any sense, but I'm always wondering why things are what they are. But at the end of the day, it kind of really doesn't matter. If it's better that way, it's better that way. So that's why I kind of do the things that I do.

[00:08:45] And I've noticed that the coffees are tasting a lot better for at least a 30 to 45, even a minute amount of time for a bloom, and then you pour the rest of your coffee whichever way, whatever recipe that you want to go about it. But I think I've found a decent way to actually brew a cup of coffee without a bloom, but it depends on the coffee.

[00:09:00] Pour control: stages of pulses, don't dump water in. Yeah, I'm still playing around with that. I do lately. I've been doing like four to five pulses again, just because I like a clean bed, just the way it looks, and I think the coffee does taste a little bit better. But I do want to do another experiment where I'll do two to three pulses, see how the extraction is, see how the flavors are against my five to six, seven, eight, nine pulses, see if that matters.

[00:09:30] And I also want to play around with let it draw all the way down and there's nothing in the bed and then doing that again. Sometimes I get a little frightened if there's water not consistently on the bed, so I just want to see how it actually turns out. And I'll share that with you whenever I do that experiment of pulsing completely, draw down, then waiting like 10 seconds and then kind of doing it again.

[00:10:00] So we'll see how that works and all that stuff, right? But pulsing and circle pour, center pour, and all that stuff - I think it matters. But I don't think we need to be too crazy about it because for the most part, the coffee is what it is, right? You can get different things out of the coffee, but at the end of the day, the way it's harvested, grown, processed, and roasted, at least for you at that time, that's just kind of like what it's gonna turn out to. I mean, minus the whole French press and AeroPress type of thing. Again, I'm just talking about pour-over.

[00:10:40] Use a gooseneck kettle for precision. Yeah, I still do that. Why not? It works. Mostly I'm a pour-over guy, 80, 90 percent pour-over guy. Espresso once, twice a month. Sometimes I'll do a French press, sometimes I do an AeroPress, but it's just easier just to use the gooseneck and the Fellow Pro, whatever the hell it may be called, is awesome. I gotta say that's one of my favorite kettles.

[00:11:00] I did have a Bonavita gooseneck. It worked really well, but the amount of precision and amount of control that you can have with a kettle - and that's what it is. I don't know, people hold a kettle like this. Just lift some weights, just pour the kettle like a person that can hold it no matter how heavy it is. But that's just me on my soapbox when I see specialty coffee - a lot of people holding kettles kind of crazy. You don't need two hands on the kettle, just one.

[00:11:30] But yeah, you still need that. I think that's still critical for the most part. I'm gonna be trying out a couple of brewers that are single-pour brewers, so I don't think the kettle matters as much, and we're gonna see how it tastes. And I think those brewers are gonna really be really good for a majority of people who just want that, they know it's better, like the pour-over devices, but they don't want to do that whole ritual. So some kettles or whatever you may have may just be perfectly fine.

[00:12:00] Avoid dark roast and pour-over. Dark roast is too early. Hell no, I love dark roast. I'm sorry, you can get a lot of sweetness out of dark roast. You can get a lot of character flavor out of dark roast - not all of them, but for the ones that are like the African, even some of the Colombian, some of the ones that are a little out there with their initial taste, you can get some decent flavors out of those.

[00:12:30] And now I love dark roast. I actually like dark roast with the fast filter, believe it or not. I like it more on the fast filter than on the whole light roast type of thing that people love to do. And yeah, I love it. It's great. It's great for pour-over. I think people should experiment more with it, a lot more, just because it's one of those things where you don't know really what you're missing until you really try a decently roasted dark roast and you can really play around with what you're tasting and all that stuff. And yeah, so no, that's no. I did stay away from it for a long time until I started to really enjoy dark roast.

[00:13:15] Light roast should be brewed with longer times. I don't know really what that means. Probably just take your time with the light roast, but I've noticed that light roast you can extract it. So I think you can brew it whichever way that you want to, and you can extract the heck out of it. Try not to curse as much. Try. But yeah, you can extract the crap out of it, and when you extract the crap out of it, you can really get some interesting complex acidity, not sweetness, least to me.

[00:13:45] And yeah, so I think I don't know where that whole long roast or long brew comes from. It is kind of finicky, it is, I'm not gonna lie. But at the end of the day, if you're able to extract it, you can kind of do the same things that you want to do for coffee in general.

[00:14:00] Use the right filter type for your brew method, don't swap. I swap all the time. I think sometimes when you think about coffee, sometimes you have these rules and things that people tell you to do, don't tell you to do, kind of give you an idea of it. That's fine in the beginning, but at the end of the day, it's one of those things where you're gonna have to trust yourself and push yourself and kind of get it to the place where it does make sense for you to just get out of your comfort zone, because I think that's gonna be the biggest thing.

[00:14:30] And I think different filters - you can use the Hario V60 for, I will say, 80 to 90 percent of the filters anyway. You just put it in there, it fits, and then you can just make your coffee and just keep going from there. So I think experimenting, trying different things out, helps out quite a bit, and it gets you out of the whole thing of just keep buying more gear.

[00:15:00] I buy a lot of gear, all these portable devices, all these different waters. Yes, I'm curious, but it also helps you out so you can make a more educated decision on if you want to buy it or not. So but yeah, you can play around with filters. That's, I think that's gonna be the biggest thing in everything that you do.

[00:15:15] Keep your brew time within a target range. Two to three minutes, that's kind of good for V60. I think that's good to do and all that. But it's one of those things where you don't have to do that all the time. It's a good measurement, especially for people that don't have refractometers. I think that's critical and all the things that we're trying to do. But at the end of the day, I think it's one of those things where your coffee, do your own recipe. If you like it, great. If you don't, cool. If you want to grind finer, go finer. If you want to grind coarser, go coarser. Just do what you need to. At the end of the day, it's about what you taste. It's not about what I think you need to taste. It's just the things that I believe that you probably want to taste in this whole thing.

[00:16:00] Rinse your paper filters. Yeah, of course, why not? But sometimes I don't care, sometimes I'm just moving and grooving, and it is what it is. So I don't think you have to all the time. I think we're used to what we're tasting and we'll go from there, right?

[00:16:15] Don't stir, it extracts too much. I don't stir at all. I think it's been about seven, eight years that I stopped stirring. If I'm doing a challenge, I'll probably stir depending on the situation, depending on the constraints. But for the most part, you don't need to stir. Stirring is inconsistent. You may say you're counting three or four times, whatever, or you're gonna count seconds and all that stuff. It's not consistent. It throws you off too much.

[00:16:45] And I think that's one of the reasons why I stopped stirring, and it agitates the grinds a little bit too much, too. So I don't think it's needed. I don't think people stir as much as they should, as they do, or have done before in the past. But you don't need to. It's a waste of time. You can extract your coffee and then you can be more consistent. So I would say you don't need to stir. If you still stir, cool, but that's just me on my soapbox right now.

[00:17:15] Dial in your grind size based on methods: coarse for French press, fine for espresso. Espresso, you got to play around with the espresso machine, you got to play around with the grinder. So at the end of the day, you're gonna have to just work it the way that you need to for that particular situation, right? But for French press, a lot of times French press I go fine, and I try to go as coarse as I can for V60.

[00:17:45] Again, taste, flavor - what are you getting out of the coffee? Those are the things that you can play around with. So I think it's very critical that you just play around with it because at the end of the day, it's your mouth, it's your palate. So don't fall too close into those rules, even if you don't have a refractometer. Trust your palate. So yeah, I've stayed away from that for a very long time. I did feel a little apprehensive about it, but now I just do what I need to for whatever I want to taste in a cup of coffee.

[00:18:15] TDS and extraction percentage to define a good cup. No, it helps you out to kind of define what is sour, what is bitter, but then after a while you start to taste what you want to taste or push the coffee the way you want to push it. So I think it helps out initially to kind of give you a good starting place of like, "Okay, this is what I'm tasting and everything," but it does help, but don't depend on it.

[00:18:45] I use it all the time, but I don't use it as much as you may think I do, just because I just want to see where things are at from time to time, especially when I'm doing like a flavor challenge or a challenge in general, just to see, to give you that correlation of extraction and flavor, see where it relates. But I've been doing a lot better about understanding coffees with my palate, even more so of knowing what is bitterness, what is sourness, what is just what that coffee tastes like. So there you go.

[00:19:15] Never reheat your coffee, it ruins the flavor. I mean, yeah, I don't really do that. I like it when it's cold anyway, and when it's room temp. But I never really heat up coffee. I did it once before and it did actually help out quite a bit when I did like a cold brew type of challenge. But it doesn't matter. If you want to heat up your coffee, heat up your coffee. It's your coffee.

[00:19:45] We're almost done. Don't brew with pre-ground coffee. Still, yeah, use what you got. If you have pre-ground coffee, just deal with it. If you like it, you like it. But I will say this: more than likely, if it is pre-ground, you're probably gonna have to actually add a little bit more coffee in order to get some more flavors out of it because you don't know actually how long it's been sitting there, a lot of times, especially with older coffee.

[00:20:15] That's one of the things I have noticed is that in order to get that flavor back, you're gonna have to actually brew a harder, concentrated coffee, which is perfectly fine because you're still gonna get the flavors and everything that you want out of it if you do it that way. It's still gonna be lackluster, but just if you have pre-ground, just do it and see what you like about it, see what you don't like about it, and keep it going.

[00:20:45] Okay, here's the last one: Only use freshly roasted coffee. No, that's not true. Seven to 21 days - coffee doesn't really start getting good until seven to ten days, and a lot of times you have it too early, you're wondering what the hell it is. Some coffees are better than others, but sometimes even a month, month and a half, two - I have tried coffee that was roasted for like four, six, nine months here and there.

[00:21:15] I'm not going to say go that far. If you're gonna have to go that far, go ahead and freeze the stuff. But at the end of the day, sometimes we get too crazy with this whole freshly roasted type of thing, and it's very critical, it's very important. Yeah, we want that to be as fresh as we can, but at the end of the day, it's one of those things where you kind of use what you have, and for the most part, it is fresh.

[00:21:45] I can roast coffee anytime I want to. A lot of times I don't even look at roast dates on bags if I actually buy them, which is kind of weird. But it needs that time to kind of get good, degas and all that. So I will say that's more like a myth. You do want to have an indication of how fresh your coffee is to see what you can and cannot do with it. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because if you already have it, you're gonna brew it, and when you brew it, you're gonna play around, experiment, do different things like that to kind of bring the best out of the coffee anyway.

[00:22:15] So this is a long one. Hopefully I can cut it down, but we'll see. But this is Okia Everyday Beans, and I like this. Probably next time I'll do like ten minutes - I mean, ten minutes, ten questions, and then we'll chop it up and go from there. But these are a lot of fun. So let me know what you think, let me know the things that you do or don't do, and then we'll go from there. But at the end of the day, it's your coffee. We're talking about coffee. Shout out to you later. Bye.