Brew Temperature

Did you know that brew temperature can be a significant variable in how your coffee tastes?

The hotter the brew water is, the more extraction there will be, for better or worse. This gives manual brewers like pour overs, aeropress, and french press the upper hand over traditional auto drip coffeemakers which usually don’t give you the option to choose your brew temp.

Generally, in darker roasted coffee, hotter water (meaning >205˚F) will over-extract the grounds and add more bitterness than you might want. In lighter roasted coffee, cooler water (meaning <200˚F) can lead to under-extraction which will leave the coffee tasting sour.

Light roasted coffees can handle the heat and it usually best brewed at 205-210˚F.

Medium roasted coffees like the 200-205˚F range.

Dark roasted coffees prefer the 195-200˚F range.

For those of you that do manual brewing, if you have a stove top or a standard electric kettle, you may consider a variable temp gooseneck kettle that will allow you to adjust the brew temp to the coffee you’re using.