This is undoubtedly one of the home barista's most often asked questions.
Coffee making is the art of making. As you should already know, there are more than 800 aromatic compounds in a small coffee bean, and any single thing you do will affect the overall flavor.
Without further ado, let us dive deeper into these possible causes of a coffee sour taste.
Under Extracted Coffee
One of the most common causes of sour coffee is under extraction. Extraction is the mechanism by which the coffee taste evolves during brewing by water from coffee grinding.
Typically, the flavors are derived from ground coffee under extraction. As coffee beans' acidity is first produced and extracted in the first step of brewing, they typically taste sour under-extracted coffee. When extraction starts, the brew typically tastes sweeter in the later part of the brewing process, with more sugar being made from ground coffee. Otherwise, an unpleasant sour taste contributes to extraction.
You must handle all three variables to provide a balanced extraction.
Premature brewing time leads to under-extraction of the coffee as the brewing time is too limited to thoroughly remove the flavor from the ground coffee.
The low temperature of the brewing process contributes to under-extraction when the temperature is insufficient to thoroughly remove the flavors from the coffee.
When you grind the coffee beans coarsely, water filters through the ground coffee at a quicker rate, leading to under-extraction of the coffee. The grind size of your ground coffee is highly reliant on your system of brewing. For eg, a finement-melting grinder is advised to postpone the brewing process by using an espresso pump where high-pressure water is pushed through the ground coffee. Instead, a coarse grinding size is advised if you use a french press of ground coffee immersed in hot water.
You should monitor and test these three variables to obtain a successful extraction and create your favorite brew flavor.
Light Roasted Coffee Beans
Different types of coffee roasts create different tastes.
In general, the light roast has the highest acidity compared to medium to heavy roast. Many of the home baristas love light roast as they find it painfully bitter with a thin body of the coffee. If you want a more pleasing body with a growing bittersweet aftertaste, we suggest a medium-dark roast.
How to Reduce Sour Taste in your Coffee
Here are some of our tips in a nutshell if you're already producing the unpleasant taste of sour coffee.
If you're brewing your coffee with a coffee drip or an espresso pump, use a much finer grind size for your ground coffee to prolong your brewing time.
If you're brewing your coffee via the French Press, it's suggested to start with a broad grind size as the finer ground coffee is trapped in the plunger filter. Therefore to counteract the bitter taste, you should stretch the brewing time to 4 minutes.
Trial and Test
Coffee making is a matter of trial and testing. And if you've got the best coffee beans, you need to learn how to make a healthy extract to make a perfect cup of coffee.
We hope that you have learned from this report. What are the hidden extraction techniques? Please share with us in the comment sections below.