If you want to brew the best cup of Kona Coffee possible, we have some suggestions that will help you.
1. Buy fresh 100% Kona Coffee Beans
you can make bad coffee from great beans, but you cannot make great coffee from bad beans. You won’t find great beans at your supermarket, Wal-Mart, or Costco. Discount stores buy distressed coffee at cheap prices. High quality farmers do not sell to discount stores.
The best beans are fresh: fresh from the plantation, fresh from the roaster, fresh from the grinder. If you know who grew your beans, when they were picked, how they were stored, when they were roasted and when they were ground you are off to a good start.
2. Store the Beans in an Air-Free Environment
The enemy of roasted coffee is oxygen. Roasted whole bean coffee can stay fresh for a few days if left in an open container. Ground coffee, if it exposed to air, will go stale in less than a day. Buy coffee beans that are sealed in an airtight bag. After you open the bag, reseal by forcing as much air out as possible out and putting a clip on the top. Freezing coffee beans is a good way to slow down oxidation.
3. Grind Your Own Coffee Beans
Ground coffee spoils much faster than roasted whole beans. Grind your own coffee just before you brew it. There is a dramatic difference in the taste of fresh ground coffee.
4. Use Spring Water
Coffee is 98% water. If the water doesn’t taste good, the coffee won’t either. Chlorine in tap water kills the subtle tastes in coffee. Either use water from a high quality filter or use bottled water.
5. Brew Coffee at 200 Degrees
No matter what method you use for brewing coffee, the brew water should be between 195 and 205 F. Most automatic coffee makers brew coffee below 195 degrees, particularly after they have been used for awhile. Put a meat thermometer in the water going into your coffee brew basket. If it is not between 195 and 205 degrees, you are missing out on the best part of the coffee flavor.
6. Use a French Press
one of the best ways to brew coffee is in a French press. It isn’t as easy as setting the automatic drip brewer to go off when you wake up but the coffee will be remarkably better (also you won’t have ground coffee that has been exposed to air all night) French presses are an elegant way to serve coffee and will knock out your visitors who will realize how really cool you are.
7. Keep Your Equipment Clean
Coffee beans are full of oil. Coffee oil in contact with air will go rancid. Coffee brewers and, grinders collect coffee oil. Unless you clean them regularly the coffee will taste fishy and sour like rancid coffee oil.
Our goal at Hula Daddy Kona Coffee is to deliver the finest Kona Coffee that can be grown. All of the Hula Daddy Kona coffee beans are grown on our Hawaiian coffee plantation in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. We store, roast, and ship all of our beans directly from the plantation. We do not buy beans from anyone else. All of our beans are home grown. Let us know how you like our coffee.
Tour the Hula Daddy Coffee Plantation by Karen Paterson
ALOHA, I LIKE YOUR STEPS TO BREWING COFFEE, VERRY GOOD INFORMATION. I HAVE A TECHNIVORM COFFEE BREWER, AND IT’S ONE OF THE ONLY BREWERS THAT HOLDS THE BREW TEMP. AT A CONSTANT 205 – 200 DEGREES. I ALSO USE AIRSCAPE CONTAINERS FOR BEAN, AND GROUND COFFEE STORAGE, THEY COME IN TWO SIZES THE 64OZ AND THE 32OZ. THESE HAVE TO BE THE BEST STORAGE CONTAINERS OUT THERE, ELIMINATING ALL THE AIR IN THE CONTAINER.
Hey Richard,
So, happy with the Technivorm coffee machine? Any problems. Generally I French Press all my coffee, but was looking for a quicker way to make coffee for friends.
What is the recommended beans to water ratio?
Aloha Shaun
An easy measure is two tablespoons of ground coffee to six ounces of water. This is just a starting place. After you try it you can adjust the coffee up or down to your taste.
Karen
I use the FoodSaver vacuum storage bags and canisters. The Pint size bags hold enough coffee for one pot.
I can open a bag of coffee beans and fill all of the pint bags and put them away in the cupboard. I don’t freeze them although I guess it would not hurt as the bags are air tight. The pint bags can be used several times as they are big enough to be resealed. The vacuum canisters will hold a pound of coffee beans. The problem is you have to reseal each time you use it. Not a big deal.
Pete
Haloha,
The coffee we had in Kona was wonderful. We brought some bags home and want to get drinking. I have a couple of questions I hope you can answer.
1. How do you clean the grinder of coffee oils? No directions for cleaning came with the grinder.
2. How do you determine the proper grind? I have a grinder that will grind very course coffee all the way to Turkish grind.
I enjoy espresso; nowhere have I read that Kona Coffee is good for espresso. I actually can forgo the espresso and drink only coffee because Kona Coffee is sooooo good, if its brewed correctly which is my goal.
Mahala
Aloha
1. How do you clean the grinder of coffee oils? No directions for cleaning came with the grinder.
There are a number of ways to clean a coffee grinder. 1. You can take it apart but unless you are good mechanically you may damage the burrs. 2. You can buy a commerical ginder cleaner that you run through the grinder. THere ae a number of them google “grinder cleaner”, 3. You can run white rice through the grinder to take out any old coffee grounds. You can also open up the grinder and use a small paint brush to sweep out loose grounds. 4. Unless you have used flavored coffee or haven’t used the grinder for a long time or are detecting an odd flavor in the coffee cup you probably don’t need to clean it. (We had a roaster who didn’t put the lid on his grinder when he finished using it. One day he poured beans into the grinder, turned it on and ground up a geeko that was hiding in the grinder. He had to take the grinder completly apart.) When you are ready to grind your coffee put a few beans into the grinder and then throw those grounds out, that should clean out any stale coffee.
2. How do you determine the proper grind? I have a grinder that will grind very course coffee all the way to Turkish grind.
Every tyoe of coffee brewer has a default grind. Once you brew the coffee with the default grind you can adjust for your own taste. Usually the defaults are on the grinder. The grind size is determined by the type of filter you are using. For example, an old style french press used a course grind, new french presses have better filters and use a medium grind and some frech presses have gold filters and can take a medium fine grind. Changing the grind will increase or decrease the extraction – the finer the grind the more extraction.
3 I enjoy espresso; nowhere have I read that Kona Coffee is good for espresso. I actually can forgo the espresso and drink only coffee because Kona Coffee is sooooo good, if its brewed correctly which is my goal.
There are some companies selling Kona espresso. We had one for awhile that we made by blending with a heavy Maui coffee, it was very good but it wasn’t a popular seller. Kona coffees are famous for being light, sweet and fruity. Good expressos are made with heavy bodied coffee beans – the opposite of Kona Coffees. You have to match your brewing to the beans you are using. Kona coffee beans brew best in french presses and pour overs.
Love peeking in your webcam. Wish I knew what the other rooms looked like there. Or the view from the bench!
Hi,
I’m wondering where you can find a mug like the ones you showed in the picture! I can’t seem to find anything like that anywhere.
Thanks!
-Cherry
Amazon and Target both have glass coffee mugs