The Daily Grind

Some may refer to the daily grind as what they have to do every day to make through to tomorrow.

At Colorado Craze, we look at the daily grind a little differently. We look at it as how you want to brew your coffee and the amount of grind needed for your brew style.

When you go to the grocery store, the big-name companies will almost always have ground coffee only, no whole bean. Most of the specialty coffees will have whole bean and ground. The question is how ground is that ground? What is it best grid for; cold brew, French press, drip filter, espresso…?

Cold brew and French Press require a courser grind similar to course sea salt, while expresso is on the other end of the grind scale almost like powdered sugar.

Why the differences in the grinds? I’m glad you asked!

First a little salesmanship, if you notice in our store we offer “whole bean” which will allow you to grind the beans to whatever you want. We also offer grinds of “Expresso”, “Drip”, and “French Press”. These are our three preset grinds. In addition, if you decide you want your expresso grind a little more course, let us know: if you want your drip grind a little finer, let us know we will grind to suit your desires! No other company (that I have seen so far) will grind to order! There are several who offer different grinds but none ‘to order’ to your desires.

Every bag of coffee in our store is initially bagged as whole beans. They stay fresher longer! Even though most of our bags are bought within a few days of roasting. We are a true small batch roaster, we don’t roast multiple pounds at a time. Roasting in a very small batch allows us to do the custom roasting (and grinding) that will suit your taste buds.

Back to the daily grind. To understand why the grind is important we need to look at water contact time. The longer and hotter water is the more chemicals that will be extracted from the bean (or in this case the grounds). With too hot of water or too long of a contact time there are several undesirable flavors (chemicals) that will be extracted from the bean. These undesirables include “bad” acids and bitters. (There are some good acids in coffee which very much enhance its flavors)

When someone says the coffee tastes bitter its usually from over-extraction; too hot of water and/or too long of contact time. Or in the case a a lot of restaurants, the pot has been sitting on the burner for too long and had continued to ‘cook’. NOT good!