More and more people love to grind their own coffee: we love that too! But it has to be properly done and we are here to help with that! Read on!
Up until a few decades ago it was usual to only buy your coffee in whole beans – often from for the roaster itself – and then to grind them at home. This was especially true in Italy: every grandparent still have his or her manual coffee grinder at home!
Whit the evolution of packaging and its ability to preserve the coffee aroma and qualities, the sale of grounded coffee has become more and more popular. We followed the trend too, you already know all of our ground coffee blends!
Lately, the tradition of grinding one’s own coffee has made a comeback. We are great supporters of this trend as we like old traditions coming back to life! Plus, no matter how high quality a packaging is, a freshly grounded coffee is always the best option to have! This because around 15 minutes from the grinding the aromas start dissolving. By grounding it right after the preparation, you are sure to maintain all of them!
Grinding your coffee
Here’s a few of our best secrets for the perfect ground coffee:
- Use your grandpa manual grinder. We are old school, but the manual grinder is always preferable to an automatic one. If your grandpa doesn’t want to lend you his, you can buy your own! A good one is around $150 but it will last forever! So just load your grinder and start spinning that handle!
- Pick the right grinding size. You know a coffee is perfectly grounded when its texture looks like the table salt one. You can leave the coffee a little coarser if you’d like to, but you should avoid grinding it more finely as the smaller parts could go up in the filter during the coffee making process and end up in your espresso cup.
- Chose when to grind it. Some think that the best time to grind your coffee is just right before you prepare your espresso. Some other think that you should leave the ground coffee to breath for a few seconds before putting it in the moka. Realty is that it depends on the roasting of that specific coffee. If the roasting process recently occurred, then you should wait a few seconds before using it. Remember that it is always best to use coffee that has been roasted at least 2 or 3 days prior the use.
- How much of it to use? It depends on how much coffee you want to end up with of course! For each cup you want to have (espresso cups) you have to consider 2 tbsp of whole beans. Also, if you prefer a strong coffee you should increase that quantity. If you’d like a milder taste, you should decrease it.
I don’t have a grinder! Can I still grind my coffee?
Sure you can, and here’s how:
- Use your blender. Just put your coffee bean in the blender and start it until you reach the desired texture. Blender will give you a medium-coarse texture that is perfect for a French coffee maker.
- Use a Mortar and Pestle. The ancient method: place coffee beans in the mortar and start crushing them! You can get whichever texture you prefer with his method. But we have to warn you: it’ll be hard work!
- Use the hammer. This is really your last resort, but it works. Place your beans between two layers of parchment paper and start hitting with the hammer until you reach the desired texture!
If you want to grind your coffee you have now everything you need to know! The only missing thing is the blend of whole beans that is perfect for you: which one of the Caffe Aiello whole bean blends are you going the choose?
