Homemade Coffee

Hey guys!

Coffee becomes the daily routine for most people, it has even developed into a lifestyle. Therefore I would like to show you how to make your own homemade coffee starting from the raw coffee beans! Indonesia known as the third largest coffee producer in the world. We have lots of different varieties on the type of coffee fro both Robusta and Arabica as our land is suitable for the growth of coffee plants. In the beginning, Indonesia did not have coffee plant and long time ago people brought the coffee seeds into Indonesia from Brazil or Latin America if I am not mistaken. Indonesian Robusta coffee comes from low land such as Lampung and Java, while Arabica coffee mostly comes from high land (600-700 m above the sea water level). Such high lands in Indonesia are Toraja, Gayo, Mandaeling, Florest and Wonosobo. Find out tourist attraction in Wonosobo in my previous post! 

Roasted coffee beans

First lesson about coffee is that the taste of a coffee composed of three different tastes which are bodied, fruity and acidity. The bodied taste is the one that create a bitter taste. One of the example is the Robusta coffee which have only bodied taste that caused a bitter taste. The fruity taste from a coffee can be a hint of apple taste and many other fruit taste. The acidity of a coffee is determined from the area or land that the coffee plant grew. If it grew in a high land, the coffee will tend to be more acidic and the other way around if it grew in a low land. 

Green Coffee Beans

The green coffee beans came directly from the coffee farmers in Indonesia. The step in getting the clean green beans that are ready to be further processed is through either dry or wet process. However I would like to explain on how to roast the green bean correctly to reach the desirable taste. In the following picture I used a modified electrical roaster which was a popcorn machine previously. 

Roasting the green coffee beans

Roasting is a crucial step to get the exact level of taste. The process of roasting the green coffee beans is roughly 6 to 7 minutes. Once the beans start to pop, the roasting can be stopped and it is expected that the beans have an oily surface which means that the caramel started to appear. The oily surface indicate that the beans will have the right caramel taste in the coffee. It is advised to directly transfer the beans into a cold pan for around 3 minutes which has been placed in the fridge previously. This process called quenching which aims to stop the roasting of the beans immediately to prevent over-roasted beans which caused the caramel to be burned out of the beans completely. When the caramel burned out, the only taste that is left in the beans will only be the bodied taste which is bitter.

The coffee grinder

Grind coffee beans to to the right size of powder that is suitable for espresso machine

Weighing the coffee powder

Weighing is also one of the crucial steps to produce a great quality coffee that maximize its taste. There are two ways to weigh a coffee beans for espresso, which ratios are 1/1 or 1/2 of the water (ml). While to make black coffee, there are Americano which is 1/22 of the water (ml) ratio and Europe such as Italy and France with the ratio of 1/15 or 1/17 of the water (ml). For example, if I want to make Europe Black Coffee with 145 ml cup, I need roughly 9.5 g of coffee powder. However you do not need to be so strict on the amount of the coffee powder, you might exceed the calculated grams of coffee powders like around plus minus 0.3 grams.

Keep in mind to avoid altering the taste of the coffee, before starting the machine shown above, you need to start the machine and let hot water and steam run through the holes where the coffee will come out and into the cup. This aims to rise the temperature of both the machine and cup, therefore when the coffee is being produced, the temperature of the coffee will be maintained as the cup has almost the same temperature through the previous heating. This is important to have a constant temperature in brewing a coffee as the machine has high pressure (round 16 bar) and to produce the right coffee taste.

Black Coffee

Steaming the milk

Cappuccino, Macchiato or Latte are espresso based. Hence espresso need to be brewed first before continuing the process to produce various kind of coffee. The guideline is provided below. The process of steaming the milk is to equalize the temperature with the espresso and to create a soft foam. 

This picture is the guideline to make Cappuccino, Macchiato and Latte.

Cappuccino in the making

And that is all for making a homemade coffee and I hope you guys enjoy reading this post! and also I hope it is useful for those who want to learn to make your own homemade coffee :)

Cheers,

Rona