I posted on the topic of “Why does my coffee taste sour?” a few weeks back with an explanation and video about “WHY” you have sour coffee.
So today, here is a follow up article on “HOW TO FIX SOUR COFFEE” taken from a recent email from a client.
One of our long time clients from coastal Texas wrote that one of our coffees she was trying tasted sour. Knowing our roast profile [for that coffee] is a medium roast and not a blond roast, I responded with this email (below). She followed my recommendations and responded:
Sandy,
Thank you for getting back to me! All I needed to do with the coffee was increase the amount of grounds. Delicious! I can’t thank you enough for your coffee!
Gwen
That said, here’s the original email with directions you may find useful yourself:
Hey Gwen,
Thank you for your business and satisfaction with our coffees!On the sour notes you are getting from the decaf, I can only make a few suggestions. We do sell a lot to shops and individuals and have never had any issues with sourness.Sourness can be caused by an under roasted bean like I described in the video. But that is normally a blond roast which we never do. To get a sour tasting coffee you release it from the roasting drum very early in the roast, before what we call the “second crack”. On all of our coffees we use the second crack (400º) as the benchmark or point from which we start the countdown to finishing the roast. Decaf, most Latin American coffees are finished about 30 seconds to one minute after the second crack with our particular roaster. African coffees are taken to about 1-1:45 after the second crack and French Roast 1:45+.We drink it at home occasionally and serve it at social functions here we attend and taste it regularly and again we don’t get that sour note.First off, I don’t doubt you are getting that but let me offer some suggestions to see if this helps fix the issue:
- Try boosting your amount a tad. For a 10-12 cup coffee maker we usually use ½ cup ground or 6 rounded tablespoons. For a pour over about 17-22 grams. If you are using less than that, you could be getting an “under-extracted” brew: Too much water not enough coffee.
- Some brewers make coffee faster (larger hole in the brew basket) and this causes the water to pass through the ground coffee too fast. Again the solution there is use a little more coffee to compensate.
- Our grind could have been off. We use the same grinders everyday but our flavored coffee grinders are used separately and cleaned after each use. The decaf would have been ground in the other grinders we use for non-flavored coffees…everyday. It is possible we could have had that grinder set for a coarser grind like French Press for another customer and failed to reset it to drip. That would be unusual, but it could have happened.To check that simply put a tablespoon of the flavored grounds onto a white plate and next to it put a tablespoon of the decaf. A coarser grind on the decaf will be obvious. If you see that let us know and we can replace it on your next order.
I hope that helps. Let us know what you discover and we will do what we can to make it right.Thank you for your support of our family owned business!Sandy