Tasty but Wrong

In this episode, I share one of the most disorienting brewing experiences I've had in months. I made what the numbers said was one of the worst cups I could make, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I tried a recipe from my own app using the Moccamaster, something I'd never really experimented with before. The app told me to do a bloom. I never do a bloom on the Moccamaster. So I wet the grounds, paused for 30 to 45 seconds, and let it run. When I poured that cup and took the first sip, it was bolder, livelier, and more interesting than what I usually make on that machine. Then I grabbed my TDS meter. The reading came back at 2.0. For context, the sweet spot for well-extracted coffee is somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 TDS. At a 1:16 brew ratio, I was looking at somewhere around 24 to 25 percent extraction, well outside the accepted target range. By every measurement I trust, this cup should have tasted wrong. But it didn't. That tension is what this episode is about.

I spent the rest of that morning thinking about comfort zones, constraints, failure, and what it means when the numbers say one thing and your palate says another. I talk about my ongoing failure challenge practice and what it keeps teaching me. I get into the logic of constraints and how deliberately stripping away variables forces you to see your coffee and your habits in a completely different light. By the end, I share something I wrote before recording this, a reflection on discomfort as a teacher. If you listen to this episode, you will walk away with a new way of thinking about what a "bad" cup actually is, and why deliberately breaking your own rules might be the most educational thing you can do as a home brewer.

Transcript

[00:00:05] I've made one of the worst cups I've made in months. And all I want to do right now is make it again.

[00:00:12] Here's the thing about trying new things. It's just seeing what everything is all about when it comes to getting out of your comfort zone.

[00:00:27] I tried this recipe that I made on my app, which is a story for another day.

[00:00:35] And it was with the Moccamaster.

[00:00:41] It told me to grind at about the same fineness that I usually do. And then it told me to do a bloom.

[00:00:49] I never really do a bloom on the Moccamaster. I just treated it as a drip machine.

[00:00:58] So I let it run for a couple of seconds, enough to wet the bed. And then I turned it off.

[00:01:07] And then I waited another 30, 45 seconds. Once I did that, it ran like it normally did.

[00:01:19] The cup was ready. I poured it and started to take the first sip. And it was bolder. It was livelier.

[00:01:36] And I just sat there drinking the cup of coffee from the Moccamaster. And as I customarily always do, I took out the TDS meter.

[00:01:58] And it was 2.0 on the TDS meter. If you know your numbers, you want your coffee between 1.2 on the weaker side to 1.5. But it was pushing 2.0.

[00:02:20] This was a 1:16 ratio. So this coffee, if I did the math right, was about 24 to 25 percent extraction.

[00:02:36] I looked at the numbers, and then I kept sipping the coffee. And I was like, what just happened here? Am I liking an over-extracted coffee?

[00:02:52] I think this was a dark roast too. I can't quite remember, it's a little fuzzy.

[00:03:02] And I just sat there wondering about all the things I usually do when it comes to coffee. Measure, pour, use this particular grinder for this particular reason. Comfort zone. Status quo. Things we always do when we make coffee.

[00:03:31] And I started thinking about the failure challenge. How it's supposed to push me, get me out of my comfort zone, and expand my coffee knowledge and understanding. And it did.

[00:03:53] I've done a couple of failure challenges on this channel many times before. And they all teach me something. I always learn something from them, mainly because I'm doing things beyond what I usually do.

[00:04:19] For the most part, I'm learning something from most of them. Something I'll carry with me as I continue to brew. Not all of them work. I did this French press recipe, followed it to a T, four minutes, the whole thing. And when I tasted it, it was just okay. But I would say six or seven out of ten, I'm learning something from.

[00:05:06] I am still questioning the way I do things. And it's very empowering to try to understand all of it. How we measure, how we make sure the water is the right temperature, how we try to make the best cup possible. And then we start thinking about the things we probably shouldn't do.

[00:05:49] And then I think about failure again. How I wouldn't be where I'm at if I didn't fail at a lot of things. Think about that. I'm sure you've gone through it too. You didn't really want to go through the failure part of it, but you did. And when you look back in hindsight, all the things you learned because you pushed yourself, got out of your comfort zone, did something you wouldn't have done otherwise.

[00:06:36] Think about this. If you'd actually succeeded in most everything you've done in your life, you probably wouldn't have tried other things. And that's how I'm here right now. I try different things. I like different things. I fall in and out of love with things.

[00:06:59] And I'm here talking to you about coffee, and how changing a couple of variables, the subtraction of what we're used to, the constraints of what we're used to, will make you a better coffee brewer. It'll make you a better person. More objective. More free about what you do with coffee.

[00:07:30] I keep thinking about that cup, even though it was a couple of days ago. I haven't remade it yet, but I will in the next day or so. Because of how surprising it was, how well it worked, and how I can now approach it in a way that actually makes sense as I keep pushing forward.

[00:08:00] That makes sense. Sometimes I just ramble. But it's allowed me to get to this point where, for the Moccamaster, I now know I can probably go a little bit coarser on the grind and still do the bloom the same way.

[00:08:37] And it'll be just as tasty as it was before. It's trippy how little different things like that give you new skills you can share with others and use in your own toolbox to keep making better coffee.

[00:09:05] So I didn't want to gloss over this, but I do want to talk about the whole logic and idea of constraints. When you have everything you need to make a fantastic cup of coffee. Gear, instruments, knowledge, grinders, books, notebooks full of notes, all in order to just make a decent cup.

[00:09:47] But something about taking away a variable or two puts you in a place where you're like, what the hell just happened here? This doesn't make any sense. But when you start to take away, when you start to experience something you never really imagined, that's when the magic really shows up.

[00:10:20] That's when it's like, wow, I didn't know that was possible. Because of what I'm used to. The gluttony of all the gear and stuff I do have. And I'm wrestling with this more than anything. Even though I say don't do this, don't do that, you're going to do what you want to do. That's fine. You're your own person. But I go back and forth between what I can do, what I have done, and how much more of anything I actually need.

[00:10:58] But when you take away and really see things for what they are, it kind of grounds you. You become more creative. You start to open your eyes. And it's different because you haven't done it all the time. You're just used to staying in your same sandbox.

[00:11:24] When I was thinking about this episode, I usually do some writing beforehand. And toward the end of the writing session, something hit me. So I'm not going to read it verbatim, but I want to share it as we wrap up here together.

[00:11:58] Being uncomfortable isn't fun. It's uneasy. It's something I honestly feel is one of the most necessary things we need in life. But the discomfort is what grows us and lets us make our own decisions about what matters most. Things on your own terms. Figuring it out. And that part right there is the most refreshing part. Your own limitations teaching you what you like and what you don't.

[00:12:40] I think I've said that in some form over the last few minutes, but it really just puts it out there. Because that's the beauty of all of this. Someone may say do this recipe, someone else may say do that. But at the end of the day, when you strip it back, do things your own way, try to figure it out the way you want to, that's when you start to learn and gravitate toward your own understanding. Your own doctrine.

[00:13:22] That's the beauty of this. I didn't look at these recipes and ask who made them or whether they were going to be fine. You made that recipe. Why did you make it? Did you take something away? Did you follow the constraints? Did you actually identify what they were? Is there something you're taking with you in your toolbox to keep growing? Because that's all we're doing. We're just shaping the way we do things.

[00:13:59] I'll leave you with this. I was talking to someone online in the comments and they said, yeah, this is how I brew my coffee. They get a bag, go through five different protocols, and then from there let the coffee speak to them. Pretty cool.

[00:14:26] I don't go to that extreme, but it doesn't matter. Because that's their way of understanding their coffee. Their ritual of trying to get it right. And when you really think about it, if you're asking yourself what can I cut and what can I not cut, you're already eliminating something. So go more extreme with it.

[00:14:57] Go beyond your comfort zone. And I think that's where we're going to keep learning and making great coffees for ourselves.

[00:15:10] This is Oke at Everyday Beans signing off. Talk to you later. Let me know what you think. Bye.