A hearty cuppa Joe: Make the water work harder.

Just a few tricks to try if you want that robust hearty percolator flavor from your filtered coffee. This method works best with automatic drip coffee makers that use Melitta-type #4 paper filters.

1. If available, use the Aroma or Robust setting on your drip coffee maker. This option cycles the pumping action on and off, creating multiple "bloom" intervals to extract more flavor from the ground coffee.

2. If your coffeemaker has a brew strength knob, turn it to Strong and leave it there. Contrary to the advice of coffee experts, any other setting dilutes the coffee as it brews. If you like a milder cup of coffee, brew it full strength and dilute it in the cup or mug with boiled and slightly cooled water.

3. Throw away that reusable "permanent" coffee filter and use paper filters. Buy them in bulk from Amazon and the cost is about 2 cents a pot, a worthy investment in exchange for better flavor, healthier coffee and much less cleanup. A paper filter sucks up the undesirable flavor elements and significantly decreases the amount of cafestol that ends up in your cup. Properly brewed and filtered coffee contains at least as much antioxidant as tea.

4. After you measure in the coffee, remove the basket from the coffee maker and gently shake it side-to-side about 10 times to level off the ground coffee. Gently tap the basket against the counter top about 10 times. Repeat until the ground coffee has been gently packed into the bottom of the filter with a level top. Combined with the Aroma or Robust setting described above, this step increases the contact time between the water and the coffee.

Enjoy! And if you know any other tips and tricks, share 'em!

benbradley said:

At the local hackerspace there's a Keurig coffee maker. I've used the standard one-use coffee packets and some blends are really good, but there's also a small metal strainer thing the same size that you can put your own blend in, and there's someone who has made such special blends to be used in it (I've had a cup, it's interesting stuff). Are there paper filters for that thing? Can a regular paper filter be cut up and used with it?

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