How To Brew The Best Coffee At Home with Fire and Flow
Sister company to Born Wild Tea, Fire & Flow are the ones to watch this year for local coffee roasters. Having just expanded their business in north Cirencester amidst the pandemic they also recently received 2nd place in the Cotswold Eats Top 10 Producers awards.
Founded just last year, Fire & Flow have weathered the 2020 storm in style launching their online store in just one week and their “Give a Gift” delivery package allowing customers to pay forward the present of speciality coffee from home for their friends and family. We caught up with Charlotte and Callum on how to brew the best coffee at home for our daily fix, without the need for an in-house Barista!
Great coffee naturally starts with great beans and someone who knows how to roast them to showcase them at their best. At Fire & Flow we source speciality coffee from dedicated growers around the world, paying a premium price for the love and attention that goes into growing and nurturing each coffee plant.
“We only work with farmers who match our ethical and sustainability values. They not only take great care of their staff, but also work holistically with the environment in which they farm. We all have a part to play in ensuring that the supply chain is well supported and rightly rewarded for growing this fantastic fruit, which we then turn into delicious roasted beans.”
Fresh doesn't always mean best. It's pretty common to hear ‘the fresher the better’, but actually you want coffee to rest after it has been roasted and go through a process which we call 'degassing' (during the roasting process coffee beans hold lots of carbon dioxide that they then need to release). We recommend leaving coffee to sit for 7 days from the roast date.
When choosing a coffee, you'll see that it has a processing type as well. These are Washed, Natural and Honey processes.
Washed - Cleaner, higher acidity, chocolate and nutty aromas
Natural - Fruiter with more body
Honey – A balance of both washed and natural processes
Brewing Hacks
Here are a few universal tricks that you can use when brewing at home:
- Use fresh filtered water (if you can)
- Use hot water Between 93 ̊c and 95 ̊c (30 seconds off the boil)
- Use 15 grams (3 tablespoons) of coffee per 250ml of water (1 cup)
- Grind fresh! The best investment you'll make other than great coffee is a grinder. It doesn't matter if it's a hand or an electric grinder, just make sure it's a burr grinder. If you're grinding for an espresso machine at home really research this (or email us we will guide you in the right direction!)
- Geek out and get some 0.1g accurate digital scales
Brewing Methods
There are a huge number of different tools and equipment to brew better coffee at home. For us, the best way to get the most out of your coffee is to choose a filter method. The cost of entry is a lot lower as well compared to a good home espresso machine set up. We’ve detailed how you can brew the best coffee at home using two different types of filter processes below.
Our perfect cafetiere recipe
Grab your coffee and weigh out what you need (we work with 60 grams per litre) - our cafetiere is 500ml so we use 30 grams of coffee
Get your kettle on the boil
Grind your beans to a coarse grind size (similar to sea salt)
Add the ground coffee to the cafetiere
Add your water from the kettle (after it’s boiled, leave it for 30 seconds to reduce the temperature) and make sure you get all the coffee wet
Leave it for 4 minutes to brew
Push the coffee crust down with a spoon
Clean any of the foam off the top of the cafetiere and plunge it to halfway
Pour and enjoy!
Another popular brewing method that is currently flying off our shelves is the V60 or pour over. The process creates more clarity of the true flavour, than a cafetiere as it passes through a paper filter leaving any sediment behind. So if you don't like the sediment in a cafetiere, then this might be for you. You’ll also find on our online store our starter pack for brewing at home, a perfect introduction to brewing coffee like the pros!
Don't forget to put that waste coffee in the food bin. Or better still, dry out your leftover coffee grinds to make a natural body scrub with!
Fire & Flow are offering an exclusive offer to our Blushes customers, using the code BLUSHES10 on their website entitles you to 10% off your first order with them!
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